Chapter 54
fifty-four
Jeremy
Ihaven’t left my room in a week.
I haven’t felt the need to. I canceled all my PT appointments over the last few days, and I’ve spent my days lying in bed and staring at the ceiling.
She hasn’t even tried to call me since I walked out. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I made my feelings about the whole situation pretty clear, but there’s still a small part of me that wishes she had called.
Or even texted. Even just sorry. I know she is, I could see it in her eyes as I walked out the door. Everything coming out killed her just as much as it killed me… Walking out on Henry killed me.
Fucking Henry. I still can’t believe his dad is Andrew O’Connell.
The same Andrew O’Connell I played hockey with freshman year, the one who saw me as a threat when I came back from my back surgery and took my rightful spot on the team.
The same fucker who nearly paralyzed me at the beginning of the hockey season last year.
Guess it never occurred to me he’d come back and try to finish the job.
Also, it never occurred to me that he could be Tristyn’s baby daddy. I didn’t know he had a kid when we played together, but from what she told me, he was never very present in Henry’s life. At least not until it was convenient for him.
My phone buzzes on my nightstand, and my heart flies around my chest.
Lacey.
It’s the third call I’ve gotten about PT in the last twenty-four hours. The messages are always the same. She always says something about regressing or losing my progress or my back getting worse.
None of the reasons got me to call back.
I drop my phone onto my nightstand, and my eyes lock onto the bottle of pain pills that have been sitting untouched for months.
I know I have a couple more bottles lying around here somewhere. I stopped taking them, but I never stopped getting the refills. I don’t know why. I guess I thought there might come a time when I need them again. When the pain is unbearable—
Like now.
I grab the bottle and run my thumb against the label. I pop the lid off and stare down into the bottle, shaking the remaining pills around.
My back has been killing me since I left Tristyn’s, but I guess that’s what happens when you walk three and a half miles in the freezing cold to get to the bus stop. I never thought about taking these pills, though. I’ve pushed through the pain for so long that I know I can do it again.
But it’s just one pill. One pill and that pain is gone.
“Fuck.” I shove the bottle into the front pocket of my hoodie and get out of bed.
It’s a foreign feeling. I’ve barely used my legs in a week, other than walking to and from the bathroom.
I haven’t showered, and I’ve been living off whatever snacks were hiding in my room.
“Hey, I didn’t know you were home.”
That makes two of us.
If I had known Zeke and Avalon were in the kitchen, I would’ve pulled myself together a bit more.
I look like I haven’t showered in days… which I haven’t. And I look like I haven’t slept. Basically, I look like a disaster.
“Yep.” I walk to the fridge and grab water.
“Do you want a sandwich?” Avalon holds up the fixings.
“I’m alright.”
“You sure?” Zeke raises his eyebrow. “You look like you’re wasting away to nothing.”
“Just tired.”
“Is that why you’ve been dodging practice?”
“I’ve just been busy.” I lie.
“I bet.” He pulls a bottle out of the cupboard. “Joey brought these by a few hours ago. If I had known you were home, I would’ve had her give them directly to you.”
“My pain pills?”
“Yeah, I guess they’ve been sitting at the pharmacy for a while; they were going to get rid of them or something.” He sits them in front of me. “I wasn’t really listening. Avalon and I were,” he glances at her, “let’s just say, your sister is a mood killer.”
Avalon smacks his chest.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.” He folds the top of the baguette over, his sandwich barely closes, as he cuts it in half. “For you. You shouldn’t take those on an empty stomach.”
“Right. Thanks.”
I just stare at the bottle. Avalon’s eyes follow my gaze, and her smile falters.
“I thought you were with Tristyn,” Zeke continues. “Feel like we haven’t seen you since Friendsgiving.”
“You haven’t.”
“Think you’ll move in together soon?” He takes a large bite out of his sandwich, brushing the mayonnaise and mustard off the corner of his mouth.
“No.”
“Well, are you bringing her to the banquet?” He throws an arm around Avalon. “This one gets to go to her first banquet—”
“And thankfully last.”
“And if we thought our Friendsgiving table was overflowing, I don’t know if we’ll have the space at the table this year.” He squeezes Avalon’s shoulder. “So, we’re trying to make sure all the couples at least get to sit together.”
“I won’t be there.”
“Just because you’re not on the team—”
“It’s not that.” I pick at the sandwich. “I just don’t see myself going.”
“So, we’re down you and Brin this year? This banquet is going to blow more than usual.”
Avalon smacks him in the gut.
“Hey, asshole, I’ll be there.”
“Wait, why won’t Brin be there?”
It’s her sorority that throws the banquet. I don’t think Mollie Greenwich would be thrilled to know one of her members is ditching one of their largest events of the year.
“Brin dropped out of her sorority,” Zeke says, as if it’s common knowledge.
“What?”
“I guess I don’t know if dropped out is the right word. She decided not to take part in it this year.” He looks at Avalon. “Is that how these things work?” Avalon shrugs. “Whatever the correct term is, she isn’t a part of the sorority anymore.”
“Since when?”
“Since before classes started.”
“It’s December.”
“Yeah, and?”
“I just, I can’t believe I didn’t know.”
“We’ve all been busy.” Zeke takes a step forward and drops a hand on my shoulder. “It’s not like she broadcast it to the world.”
“Which seems even more unlike Brin.” I force a laugh.
“Yeah.” Zeke shakes his head. “So, you and Tristyn are a no-go for the banquet?”
“Yeah, it’s not going to happen.”
I could tell him the truth. Right now, it is the perfect opportunity to admit to him that we aren’t together anymore. To tell him that she was in the other car that night. I could tell him right now that everything we ever said about O’Connell was more than true.
That the son of a bitch is still getting to live out his dream and play hockey while I’m sidelined for the rest of my life.
But I don’t.
“Thanks for the sandwich.” I grab the plate and my pills. “I’ll see you guys later.”
I head down the hall to my room.
“Jere.” Avalon follows behind me.
“What’s up?”
“My mom, well, she was an addict.”
My eyes meet the pills in my hand, then I look back at Avalon.
“It started small.” She fidgets with her fingers, and I can tell she doesn’t want to be bringing this up with me right now, but she still continues.
“She would take a pain pill earlier than usual because the pain was so bad. And then it turned into her taking two pills at a time because the pain was so bad, and two pills at a time was necessary.”
Avalon rocks back on her heels.
“I was a kid, so I didn’t realize there was anything wrong with it until it was too late. But I remember there was one time that she had a new bottle of pain pills, and there was this look in her eyes as she stared at the bottle.”
My grip tightens on the bottle.
“I never understood it, but after that day, she was never the same. I don’t think that bottle lasted more than two days, and since she couldn’t get more, she turned to harder drugs. She turned to whatever she could get her hands on and—”
“I appreciate whatever you’re trying to do, Avalon.” I smile. “I do, but I promise you, I’m in pain. I’ve never taken these pills when I’m not in pain. Hell, there were times I was in pain and didn’t take them, so—”
“Okay.” She forces a smile. “I just want you to make sure it’s the right pain. She used to tell me that she needed the pills or the drugs because they helped the pain disappear. The truth was, she wanted to feel numb to the emotional pain; it had nothing to do with the physical pain.”
She takes a deep breath.
“I’ve seen how quickly addiction can take over. Maybe that’s not what this is, but it would kill me if I stood by and said nothing. I did that once already, and we see how that turned out.”
“I’m fine,” I promise. “I have a whole group of people who care about me. How could I not be?”
“Okay.” She looks over her shoulder. “I should get back.”
“I’ll see you later.”
She turns around and walks back to the kitchen. I walk to my room, set the plate down on my dresser, and shove the new bottle of pills into my top drawer.
I pull the older bottle out of my pocket, my eyes following my name across the label—
Then I pop it open.
Jeremy.”
I pick at the skin around my fingernails before looking up.
“Did you think you were heading down the wrong path?” Dr. Nelson’s question echoes in my brain.
“I don’t know.” I shrug.
“Did you think it was something you were capable of?”
“I don’t know,” I repeat. “It wasn’t a thought in my mind until Avalon said something.
I’d like to think I’m smarter than that, smarter to not rely on drugs in that capacity.
” I sniffle. “Hell, I avoided taking them for months because they were slowing me down and I thought the pain was something I could push through.”
Dr. Nelson scribbles something down, and I shift in my seat.
“But I thought about taking them that day. I thought about the relief they could bring.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that. You were prescribed pain pills for a reason, Jeremy. You had a very traumatic year.”
“I don’t think that’s why I was going to take them.” I don’t look up at him; my eyes stay glued to my hands. “I avoided them after my surgery. I just took some over-the-counter pills and called it a day. I think a part of me thought it might numb more than the pain coming from my back.”
The pain was manageable when I was with Tristyn, as stupid as it might sound, having her kept my mind off the millions of things going wrong in my life.
I knew I loved Tristyn pretty early into us seeing each other, but that night in the shower, when I didn’t feel like an inconvenience for finally feeling everything I’ve been pushing down for so long, I knew I was in love with her.
And now I don’t know what to feel.
“Is that why you flushed all of them? You felt yourself beginning to spiral?”
“I just didn’t want to give myself that chance.”
“And what about the girl?”
“Avalon?” I raise an eyebrow.
Dr. Nelson shakes his head, “Not her. The other one. The one who broke your heart.”
“I don’t know if she broke it.” A small smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. “She put it back together, but—”
“But what?”
“Something happened, and I just, I don’t know if I can look at her the same way.”
“Do you think you’ll ever forgive her?”
“I don’t know.”
I feel like those three words are the only ones I know how to piece together today.
“Do you want to forgive her?”
The words cut right to my heart. My nose scrunches up as I blink back tears.
“I don’t know.”
I can’t look at him… because I do know. I wish there were a world where I had never found out the truth about that night. I wish there were a world where the future I pictured with her could actually happen, but—
“I think you do.”
“How do you know?”
“She’s the only one you haven’t mentioned by name.” He sets his pen down on top of his notebook. “You mentioned falling in love this year and things not ending how you planned. You talked about her hurting you, but she’s the only person in your life who impacted you, whose name I don’t know.”
“And that means I want to forgive her?”
“I think it means something, yes.”
“So, what? I’m supposed to forget what happened because—”
“No.” He shakes his head. “You shouldn’t forgive her if you feel as though you shouldn’t. I’m just saying, I think there is more here for us to talk about, and one session isn’t going to solve that problem.”
“Will one session solve any problems?”
Dr. Nelson laughs.
“Not usually. The first session is a starting point, and from what I’ve gathered today, it’s a pretty good starting point.”
“So, what do I do until then?”
“Well, maybe, if you’re comfortable with it, start by telling your friends.”
“About the pain pills?”
My heart sinks. Nothing actually happened, and I don’t even know if that’s where my head was.
“About the girl. They were around during that time; they might be able to help you realize something I can’t.”
“But you’re the therapist.”
“Yeah.” He pats his notebook. “I know you wish I had all the answers, Jeremy, trust me, I do too. But I’ll do everything I can to help you find them.”