Chapter 20
Going cold turkey off Xanax turned out to be one of my worst decisions.
My anxiety was at an all-time high.
It wasn’t down to the fact that I had woken up to two voicemails from Frederic, the first asking me to call him back and the second threatening that if I didn’t, he’d fly down to New York himself and force me to talk to him.
Those voicemails were nothing new. At this point, I was well used to his strangely endearing threats.
The real reason my lungs felt like they were too big for my chest was that I was standing outside a therapist’s office.
Seven months ago, I’d sworn therapy off forever.
Talking about my feelings wasn’t exactly my favorite thing to do.
As much as I thought I had control over everything, sitting listening to the reading of Adam’s Will brought home how far I’d fallen down the path of delusion.
Reality struck me harder and faster than a freight train. There was only so much I could fool myself into believing that I was okay, that I was getting better.
Better late than never, right? I only wished I’d done it when Adam was still alive.
Adam didn’t have many people in his life before his passing.
His wife died several years ago after a long battle with her illness, though he often said that it wasn’t the disease that killed her in the end but rather a broken heart.
Two years before his wife passed, their only son died of a drug overdose.
For years, Adam tried to get his son help.
He paid for rehab, not once but four times.
He stayed up for nights holding his son’s hand when he went through withdrawals.
He sat at his hospital bedside the three other times he nearly died.
He brought his son to every therapy session and waited outside in his car without hesitation.
Right before his death, Adam thought he was getting better.
He had been accepted into university to study Social Work with the hopes of helping young people like him. He was hanging out with a more supportive group of friends and spending more time at home with his parents.
And then bam!
He went to one party, made one bad decision, and was gone in the blink of an eye.
Sometimes, I thought Adam refused to give up on me no matter how many mistakes I made, because I reminded him of his son. That because he couldn’t save him, he would try and save me instead.
During the reading of the Will, I learned that Adam left a lump sum of money to me and the rest of his assets were being donated to a local charity that supported young people battling with addiction.
The money he left me was over a quarter of my swindled trust fund.
Even beyond the grave, Adam remained the one person who refused to give up on me.
My plan was to deposit the check straight away, to finally be back on the path of redemption, but all I could think about was what I promised him.
I promised Adam I’d fight for the life I deserved.
And on my way to the bank, I remembered what Livi said about trying to do this all by myself.
Every day I felt like I was drowning, that I was one second from being pulled under and never resurfacing, and for the first time in years, I didn’t want to submit to the darkness.
I wanted to find a way to keep swimming.
So instead of the bank, I took the money to a local therapist’s office and paid for twelve months’ worth of sessions in full.
I was ready to take back control.
I was ready to stop letting my vices dictate my life.
That was until my first session.
Standing outside the building, I was paralyzed. Unable to move. Unable to breathe. Unable to do a goddamn thing except stare at the glass-paneled door.
I was half a second away from bolting back down the road or vomiting the little contents of my stomach up, or maybe both.
The ringing of my phone broke me from my statue-like state.
“Do you like horses?” Livi’s panicked voice sounded in my ear.
A beat of silence. “I think I might have heard you wrong there. Can you repeat that?”
“Do you like horses?” she asked again. “Like on a scale of they are my favorite animal in the whole wild world to I can’t stand the long-legged demon creatures from hell, where do you stand?”
“Um, I guess somewhere in the middle?”
“Okay, good. The middle, I can work with,” she exhaled deeply. “Now, please, please, please, tell me you aren’t working right now.”
Swallowing my own heartbeat, I stepped back from the building. “Currently off duty. Didn’t you get the shared calendar I sent you with all my shifts?”
“I did, but the stupid freaking mobile reception is a nightmare out here.”
Checking my phone screen, I clocked the strange phone number. “Where even are you?”
“Out in Larchill on the other side of the freaking city. I’m at their stables, where the freaking bride and groom-to-be are supposed to meet me, but they missed their freaking flight, so they are stuck in freaking Montana until Saturday.
So now I am here, all-freaking-alone with nothing but freaking devil creatures. Freaking hell!”
“Wow. That’s a lot of freakings.”
“Sorry,” she said unsteadily. “I hate horses. They scare the shit out of me. Without my sister and Daniel here, I have to ride the horses and pick two for the wedding day, but I’m freaking out. I know it sounds crazy, but I swear they know how much I hate them.”
“They do say horses have a sixth sense for that sort of thing.”
She groaned loudly. “Why did you have to tell me that!?”
The corner of my lip tugged upward.
“I’d ring Khloe, but she is working. I could always try Mal. He might be finished coaching—”
“Don’t call anyone else. I’ll be there in half an hour, okay?”
“Are you sure? I’m so sorry to do this, I’m sure you have much better things to be doing with your day.”
Turning my back on the therapist building, I headed toward my car. “Trust me, Peaches, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
“It’s either saddle up and ride your own, or you sit up front with him. Them your only options, ma’am.”
Livi eyed the horse wrangler suspiciously. “And you’re sure these are the tamest ones you have?”
“They’re the best natured, yes ma’am,” he assured her. “Raised together, never been apart, they are the perfect pair. The little fellow, Samson, goes wherever the big ‘un, Goliath, goes.”
She turned her focus to the bigger horse, the one I somehow found myself sitting atop.
Suddenly, I was very thankful for the horse-riding lessons my Grand-mère forced me into taking before I hit puberty. She’d read some article about horses having a healing nature, a way to soothe the most turbulent of souls.
She hoped taking myself and Olly to the stables, having us learn to ride and build a relationship with the animals, that perhaps we would learn to grieve for our mother in a healthy way.
Sometimes, I believed she feared we’d turn our grief into further pain like Frederic and Jaxon.
Turns out that horses did nothing to help me, but Olly loved it. So, we kept going for a couple years before I gave up and turned to my own methods of coping.
“I don’t think I can do it,” she said quietly for only me to hear. “The last time I tried to ride a horse, it bucked me off so hard that I broke two ribs. Another rule for my life, number seven: never trust a freaking devil horse.”
Adjusting myself on the saddle, I offered her my hand. “Come on, we can ride this one together.”
She didn’t move, brown eyes flickering between my hand and the horse beneath me.
“Can’t we just take these two?” I asked the wrangler. “You said it yourself, they are the perfect pairing.”
He shook his head. “Policy states you need to ride ‘em before booking ‘em. We got to make sure the horses trust you enough.” He looked to Livi. “It’s normal to be nervous, ma’am. Horses are good creatures, ain’t met one I couldn’t trust.”
“Tell that to the last horse that tried to kill me,” she grumbled.
“But if you aren’t a confident rider,” he continued, oblivious to her comment, “then I suggest getting on with your boyfriend and letting him show you how to ride. He looks like he knows a thing or two about riding.”
Heat that rivalled the sun scorched her cheeks.
My own face was burning as I said, “We’ll do it together.” I extended my hand again. “I’ll be with you the whole time. I won’t let anything happen to you. Promise.”
“What if…what if it bucks me off and I fall again? I can’t go through that sort of pain again.”
Part of me wondered if she was just talking about the horse.
She had endured enough pain and heartache for one lifetime; no wonder she was scared and didn’t want to risk being hurt again.
“Then, I’ll do whatever I can to soften your ground and take the blow. I promise to do everything in my power to stop you getting hurt.”
She looked up to me, her lips parting slowly.
“And you have my word that I won’t let go of you the whole time.”
She blinked slowly. “You’d do that for me?”
I’d do anything for you.
Fuck. Where did that thought come from?
Blaming it on tiredness and the fact that the kiss we shared—a kiss that felt too fucking right for it to ever be wrong—still wreaked havoc in my head, I shook the thought away as quickly as it came.
“I got you, Peaches.” Unable to stop myself from grinning like some love-sick fool the second her hand slipped into mine, I pulled her up. “Here, you hold the reins, I’ll handle the rest.”
Shaking hands gripped the reins.
Pulling her flush to my chest, I rested my chin atop her head. Coconut cream shampoo made itself at home in my senses, warming me from the inside out and quickly becoming my new favorite scent.
Slotting her feet into the stir-ups, her legs molded against mine and it took reciting a damn medical textbook to stop myself thinking about the way she kept shifting her ass back into my crotch.
The tightness of her dark riding trousers highlighted every inch of her perfect curves. The second I spotted her in them, I knew I was in trouble. I mean, they should have come with a damn warning sign.
It was truly a miracle that I was able to stop my cock from standing to attention the second she pushed back into me.