Andante
BODHI
EIGHT WEEKS SOBER
Someone was knocking on my door.
That alone wouldn’t have been so alarming if I hadn’t been asleep and it wasn’t—I checked the clock on my bedside table—five thirty in the fucking morning.
I’d only fallen asleep an hour earlier, my body still fighting me as I went cold turkey.
Dr Williams had offered a sleeping aid during one of our early sessions, but I’d refused.
The last thing I wanted was to replace one crutch with another while I was still trying to kick the first one out from under me.
The knocking stopped, and I figured whoever it was had fucked off into the night. Maybe it had been a ghost. Or maybe this was some weird new brand of sleep paralysis, where instead of a demon sitting on my chest, it knocked politely at my bedroom door.
I was just drifting back under when it started again.
I ignored it at first. Anything urgent enough to warrant a knock before sunrise could wait. They could come back at a more socially acceptable hour and ruin my morning then.
The knock came again. Louder. Sharper.
Christ. A counsellor? Some early-morning meditation session I’d forgotten about? Or worse . . . an emergency with the band. Or my mom.
That last thought had my heart racing as I shoved myself upright and stumbled towards the door. Shit. Had something happened to her? An accident, or—
I yanked the door open.
Not a Willow staff member. Not bad news.
“Iggy?”
I scrubbed a hand down my face, convinced I was hallucinating.
But when I lowered it and blinked again, he was still there, wrapped in thick black leggings, a silver puffer jacket, and a lilac scarf, beat-up sneakers on his feet, blue fuzzy socks tugged halfway up his calves.
His pink hair was a disaster, half hidden beneath a bright yellow beanie topped with an orange pompom.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I rasped, my voice wrecked from lack of sleep.
Iggy bounced on the balls of his feet and grinned, clapping his hands together, the sound dulled by sparkly grey mittens.
“Oh good, you’re awake.”
“I am now,” I muttered, leaning against the doorframe. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Yes. That’s why I’m here.”
I waved him on. This wasn’t the hour for cryptic bullshit. I was a sleep-deprived addict in early recovery. If I murdered him and stuffed him under my bed, a jury would probably understand. As long as they were all recovering addicts too.
“I thought we could go watch the sunrise,” he said.
My eyes widened. “You want to . . . what?”
Was he out of his mind? It was late February. Freezing. I was used to LA sunshine, and even with Iggy’s claims about unusually decent UK weather, this still wasn’t exactly ideal.
“Come watch the sunrise with me,” he said, like it was the most reasonable suggestion in the world.
“Not a chance.”
“Oh, come on,” he whined, pouting. “There’s a little lake just past the gardens. We’ll grab some blankets, raid the kitchens for snacks, and watch the sun come up.”
“Iggy, it’s freezing, and I’ve barely slept.” I crossed my arms. “Also, you’re the one who’s terrible at getting out of bed. Why are you even up?”
His gaze dropped. He started twisting his hands together.
“I dunno,” he said quietly. “I couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d go outside.”
And there it was.
He didn’t say it, but I understood anyway.
He hadn’t slept because his brain wouldn’t shut up. Because drugs were whispering. Because the numbness was calling his name and he needed something—anything—to drown it out.
I just wished his chosen distraction didn’t involve going outside at the ass-crack of dawn.
With a sigh, I let my head drop forward. “Fine.”
Iggy squealed, clapping his mittened hands, and I’d never admit it out loud, but when I peeked up at him through my lashes, that bright, relieved smile made the bizarre wake-up call feel worth it.
“I reckon we’ve got just under an hour,” he announced. “So move it.”
After pulling on an extra T-shirt, my thickest hoodie, and a jacket, I followed him through the empty manor house towards the kitchens. The place felt eerie this early, like we were sneaking through an abandoned house on a ghost hunt.
In a way, I guess we were.
Not hunting them, though. Running from the ghosts of bad choices and old habits, trying to replace them with something better. Something cleaner.
Iggy dug through the cupboards until he found a tote bag and began filling it with snacks.
I pretended not to notice when he slipped in an extra box of his favourite British treat—Jaffa Cakes—which he insisted were cakes, not biscuits, because they went hard when stale and there’d been a court case about it and everything.
I contributed by making hot chocolate, pouring it into an oversized thermos I found shoved at the back of the pantry. If we were going to face the sunrise, we were at least going to do it warm.
Picnic prepared, we grabbed thick blankets from the lounge and left the warmth of the Willow behind, heading out into the gardens. We walked side by side down the cobbled path, past our usual smoking spot, venturing deeper than we ever had before.
Eventually, we hit a wall that separated the Willow from the outside world, its stone completely swallowed by thick ivy.
“Strange-looking lake,” I muttered, still a little grumpy about being outside instead of tucked up in bed.
Iggy rolled his eyes and held out the bulging tote bag. I took it without comment, watching as he stepped closer to the wall and plunged his hands into the leafy curtain. He rummaged around for a moment, then withdrew his arms and shuffled a few steps to the right. He tried again. Then again.
Finally, he let out a happy yelp.
“C’mere!”
When I joined him, Iggy pulled the ivy aside to reveal a hole in the wall, just big enough for someone to squeeze through if they ducked low enough.
My eyes widened. “The fuck? How’d you find this?”
Iggy grinned.
“A magician never reveals his secrets.”
He giggled as I scoffed, then ducked through the gap and vanished. I followed, and when I straightened on the other side, I couldn’t stop the gasp that slipped out.
It was still dark, but the sky had softened to a pale blue, and the low light did nothing to dull the explosion of colour ahead of us.
A field of wildflowers stretched as far as I could see, and in the distance, a dark line of trees hinted at woods beyond.
The Willow’s gardens were beautiful in their pristine way, but after two months of the same sights, this felt like stepping into another world.
“Wow,” I breathed.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Iggy bumped my shoulder and set off through the flowers, the ground crunching beneath his feet.
“Yeah,” I said, following him.
“I found it a few weeks ago,” he admitted. “Skipped an afternoon dance session. Didn’t expect this much colour in February.”
“Proof there’s life outside the Willow, I guess.”
Iggy laughed, the sound light and bright against the cold air. “We’ll be re-entering the real world ourselves soon.”
My breath caught. He was right. We’d arrived only days apart and were almost at the end of our twelve-week programme. Soon, we’d be expected to walk back through those grand front doors and into our lives again. Clean. Sober. Whether we stayed that way was entirely up to us.
The rest of the walk passed in silence. The ground sloped downward, and soon I heard water lapping softly in the breeze. The wildflowers thinned, revealing the lake Iggy had promised. Small—a puddle compared to Lake Michigan—but a lake all the same.
Iggy took one of the blankets from me, snapped it once, and spread it over the grass. Satisfied, he sat and patted the space beside him. I set the tote bag down, which he immediately attacked like a pink-haired raccoon, and lowered myself onto the blanket.
He poured steaming hot chocolate into the thermos lid, inhaled deeply, and hummed. Then he took a big gulp and winced.
“Fuck, that’s still really hot.”
I chuckled, taking it from him and sipping more carefully. “It’s been, what, twenty minutes since I made it?”
“Yeah, well,” he said, reaching for it again. “I didn’t expect the thermos to work that well.”
The sky was lightening now, bands of yellow and orange bleeding into pinks and purples, fading finally into soft blue as the sun erased the last of the night.
“Perfect timing,” Iggy announced, removing his mittens and opening the box of Jaffa Cakes.
He pressed one to my lips. I opened my mouth, and he shoved it in. The chocolate top melted instantly against the roof of my mouth, the cake softening against my tongue before the sharp burst of orange jelly cut through.
I held out my hand for another before I’d even swallowed. He grinned and obliged.
I could see why he loved them. Sweet, but not too much. I was quietly grateful they didn’t exist back home. If they did, I’d have to live at the gym. Iggy, on the other hand, seemed to run on pure chaos and good genes, since he was still just as skinny as when he’d arrived.
We sat in companionable silence as the sun climbed higher, its warmth slowly chasing the cold from my bones. The wildflowers glowed in the light, and I found myself wishing I was good with paints instead of charcoal. It was the kind of scene artists dreamed about.
I glanced at Iggy. His head was tipped back, eyes closed, soaking it all in. With his delicate features—long lashes, button nose, sharp cheekbones—he looked like something out of an old folktale. A fae prince, maybe.
I tried to burn the image into my memory, already planning to draw it later. Natural beauty framed by more of the same. I half wondered if he was hiding pointed ears beneath that ridiculous beanie and had to bite my sleeve to hide my smile.
“Are you scared?”
His voice snapped me out of my daydream. His eyes were open now, fixed on the lake’s surface, perfectly still without the wind. It mirrored the sky above in soft, shifting colour.
I rolled the question around in my head. Simple on the surface. Heavy underneath.
Was I scared to leave the Willow? To stay sober without counsellors. Without Dr Williams. Without Iggy.
There was only one honest answer.
“Yes.”
“Me too,” he whispered.
Iggy tore his eyes away from the scenery and began plucking at the smaller daisies around us. He pulled and pulled and pulled until a small pile had formed on the blanket in front of him.
“I don’t know who I’m meant to be out there,” he admitted quietly. “In here, I have a schedule. A label. An explanation for why I am the way I am.”
He picked up one of the flowers and twirled it between his fingers.
“But once we leave, I’m just me.” His voice dipped. “And I don’t know what that looks like anymore.”
I didn’t answer straight away. I let his fear sit between us, unchallenged.
We’d circled this before, ever since the day I told my story and he stormed out of group therapy.
Addiction clearly wasn’t the only thing he was grieving.
Something had been taken from him, something that had once defined him, and he was fighting that battle at the same time.
Iggy dropped the flower, shoulders slumping. “All the obvious parts of me that people could point at are gone,” he said. “So what’s left?”
When I replied, my voice was rougher than I expected. “People look at me and see someone who’s made it. They don’t see the work it takes to stay that way. And they won’t once I leave here either.”
I rested my chin on my knees and turned towards him.
“They’ll expect me to just be better. To go back to performing, writing, smiling for the fans. To handle my shit because I always have.” My grip tightened around my legs. “I’m scared that if I admit I’m struggling, even a little, it’ll feel like I’m failing again.”
The memory of the label’s ultimatum pressed in on my chest, and my voice fell to a whisper.
“And if I fail, that they’ll take it all away.”
Iggy reached out, brushing a stray piece of hair from my face. His fingers were cold, but the touch warmed something in me anyway.
“You’re scared of disappointing them,” he said softly.
I huffed out a quiet laugh. “I’m scared of disappointing myself.”
He let his hand fall back to the blanket and turned towards the lake. The sun was fully up now, the water glittering like it had been dusted with gold.
“I guess we’re both scared of being seen too clearly,” he murmured. “Or not seen at all, in my case.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe we’re just scared that once the safety net’s gone, everyone will stop asking how we’re really doing.”
Iggy looked back at me then, something soft and sad settling behind his eyes. His smile came, but it didn’t quite reach its full potential.
“I didn’t have anyone asking before,” he said. “So I guess that part won’t change.”
There was nothing I could say to that, so I didn’t try. I just reached out and laid my hand over his, and we turned back to the view together, sharing the quiet. A small pocket of beauty in the middle of everything we were carrying.
“What’s your greatest wish for when we get out of here?” he asked.
I thought about all the answers I could give. Music. Success. My friends. My mom. Staying clean.
But none of them felt honest enough.
So I went with the one that did.
“To just be happy.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Iggy smile.
“I hope you get your wish, Bodhi,” he said. “I hope we’re both happy in the end.”