45. Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Five

Toby

" H ow have you been today, Toby?"

"Tired," I grunt and fall back into the couch that's supposed to be comfy and inviting, but it's almost as stiff as the doc watching me over her glasses. She's so prim and proper that it reminds me of Anna, and now, I'm just angry. "Pissed."

She nods, her pen perched between her fingers, hovering just above her notepad like she might need to record something at any moment. That's what I've learned since coming to rehab: they like to listen to you talk, only to write down every damn word.

And everyone has a solution to every problem you bring up.

Even if they aren't certified in whatever brain degree is required to therapize someone.

"How have the cravings been?"

I snort. "I don't feel shit, Doc. Other than tired and pissed. Like I said."

"That's fair," she scribbles on her page, her eyes finding me once again. "And more than likely the medication you were put on when you arrived."

"You mean the drugs they gave me to stop wanting drugs? Sure."

Still doesn't make much sense to me, but I guess the dosage can be reduced in two weeks. Then again two weeks from that until I'm completely sober for the remaining time I'm here. It was a temporary fix to the extreme condition I showed up in, or something like that.

And I thought alcohol made me numb until I started smashing shit.

I'll be glad to have my head back. This shit just feels weird.

And not the good kind of weird, the high kind of weird.

Just … wonky.

Quiet.

Because while my mind's been silent for the first time in over a decade … my heart has started screaming in its place.

Aching after all the mistakes I've made. Demanding I accept the beating for all the wrongs I've done.

Like surviving the night my dad died.

Destroying that liquor store.

Ruining my best friend's lives.

Getting fucking arrested.

Lying to the one person that's realized how deeply fucked I really am …

"It didn't feel like a lie then. It felt like I was doing my own thing, dealing with myself all damn day long while she kept herself locked away in the castle."

"And this would be Anna, right?"

Startled, I shake my head and blink at the doc. "I said that out loud?"

She nods, jots something down, then crosses her ankles next to the leg of her chair. She's wearing one of those skirts that get smaller around her knees, just like some of the ones Anna wears.

It's even beige and now I'm digging the heel of my palm into my aching chest.

"Yeah. I …" I sigh and lick my cracked lips. "I tried quitting then. At the cabin."

"But you didn't?"

My hand goes to my hair and my fingers stutter against the missing length, the shorter strands slipping through.

Will Anna like it?

I clear the lump building in my throat and shake my head.

It's not gonna matter if she likes my hair.

"When you first walked in, you said you were pissed?" My gaze shoots to the doc, my brow raised at her flippant ability to curse. "Tell me why."

"Well, first, I need to get over the p-bomb you just dropped, Doc."

The woman snickers and returns a lifted brow. "You think because I'm on this side of the chair that I don't understand the language?"

"Just surprised is all. I wasn't expecting that."

"Well? Why do you feel that way?"

Pulling in a deep breath even though my ribs feel like they're toting around bone-deep bruises, I run a hand down my face. "It's hard to explain."

The doc is quiet for a moment, her gaze on me expectantly as I work through the feeling in my head.

"I'm pissed that I made it." I sigh, staring at the ugly rug between us. "I'm pissed that my family hasn't come to see me." I gnaw at the fleshy inside of my cheek for a beat. "And I'm more mad at myself."

"Is it really anger that you're feeling towards your family?"

The way she says it, the way she says family like it's an absolute and not a question … it lands like another hit to my tender ribs.

"No … because it's really my fault."

"Toby, none of this is your fault."

"No, I know—that's not what I meant." I sigh, dragging another hand down my face, the stubble scratching against my skin. "I did choose this. So it is my fault, but that's not what I meant when I said the thing about my family seeing me."

"Okay, so explain."

The truth is another jab against my rib cage. "I never filled out the release forms for them. I never agreed that they could."

The doc waits, her pen hand hovering over her notepad, forever at the ready. "And why not?"

"Because I … I don't trust …" The words get caught in my throat, the weight of them so damn heavy. Weighing me down in the ocean of uncertainty and shame.

"Toby, if anyone in your life is a means for trouble, there are other ways to get help."

I shake my head. "No, they aren't the trouble. They just didn't know. Hell, I didn't know until I fucked it all up."

"That you were addicted to alcohol."

The bluntness of the truth nearly knocks the wind out of me. "Jesus, Doc, way to go for the jugular."

"It's the truth, is it not? The sooner the truth is accepted, the sooner you can accept the steps needed to leave it in the past. Let go of the baggage, if you will."

This session is easily becoming the most draining.

I don't think my heart can take more pummeling.

"Who don't you trust, then, Toby?"

" Myself ."

And there goes that pen again, flying over the lines of her page and documenting the moment that I accepted myself as the problem, even though I feel like I'm dying on the inside.

"Care to explain?" The cap of her pen taps the doc's lower lip and perches there, her gaze searching me.

"I caused a lot of headache in my lifetime, Doc. For a lot of people. My choices. Me ." I don't realize my arm has raised until my thumb is jamming into my own chest. " I lied and I trashed that store and I made everyone else clean it all up. I may have even fucked that girl, and I don't remember ."

"Did you?" Doc asks with a raise to her brow as her only reaction to my words.

"No."

"Toby, the choices we make while under the influence are not always our own. Any choices we make, whether sober or not, don't have to define us, either. It's up to you and you alone, on how you want to be perceived." She glances at her paper, only to toss it to the side as she leans forward, bracing her elbows to her crossed knees. "How would you define yourself now? Without the press in your face, no brothers calling the shots, no expectations for you as a public figure. Tell me … who is Toby Jeffers without the fame?"

I purse my lips, and blink at the doc's manicured hands. They're smooth, and yet too tan, with a bold color tinting her nails, several rings lining her fingers.

Somehow … it just looks weird.

"I'm not … really sure."

"Who do you want to be?" doc presses, leaning closer still, her top showing just enough non-freckled chest that I catch a glimpse of a necklace and avert my eyes.

"I want to be a guitar player. I want to be at peace. I want to live a life my pops would be proud of … and I want …" I trail off, that pain sinking deeper in my chest, its aching almost unbearable as I consider the real answers to the questions I never wanted to ask myself. Yet here I am, being asked them anyways, because I lived that day and my pops didn't. I kept on breathing every damn day after, even though it felt like my lungs stopped and my heart gave up, just like his.

I went and made a fucking life without even realizing it, only to fuck most of it up along the way.

No, that's not entirely true.

I didn't entirely choose this life I got. It's the one I always wanted—at least, it feels like it's close to it—but it's so damn empty.

Lonely and isolating.

Trailing the gales of my chosen brothers while someone else made the calls on what we did next. Where we went. Who and how and why was up to everyone except me, because I was too out of it to decide.

Until Anna showed up.

"I want to trust." The words are barely a broken whisper, their magnitude settling in my scratched throat. "And I want to be trusted."

The doc nods somewhere in my periphery, but I'm too stuck on staring at the wall instead of looking her in the eye. It makes it too real if I do.

"What's the first building block of trust, Toby?"

The question is supposed to be rhetorical, I think, but the word leaves my lips on a shattered pain-filled sound anyways. " Honesty ."

With that word, that realization, comes the flash of a face. One lined with wavy red hair and filled with enough anguish to last a lifetime.

Will she ever forgive me?