Chapter 25

CHAPTER 25

Fox

Four years ago

“Fox?”

I didn’t recognize the number, but I knew it was a local one.

“Who’s this?”

“It’s Lieutenant Druker.”

I froze. Evie hadn’t been home when I got home tonight.

“What’s happened?”

“I got your girl down at the station, son. Picked her up on a drunk and disorderly call.”

“Is she okay?”

“We removed her from the ice rink. She’d had too much to drink. Rink guard told her she had to get off the ice because she was endangering the other patrons—kids and parents mostly, during an open-skating session. She tried to knock him over and then started doing dangerous jumps and stuff while inebriated. Fell at least once while we were trying to grab her. I would imagine she’s going to be sore tomorrow, and probably have a wallop of a headache, but she should be fine.”

I raked a hand through my hair. I’d just sat down to ice my own bruised hip after four days of games on the road. Going down to the police station and dealing with a drunk Evie was not what I felt like doing. I sighed. “Is she going to be released?”

“She’ll have to appear in court next week, but you can come get her when you’re ready.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant. I’ll be right there.”

It took both hands to push myself up off the couch, I was so banged up from last night’s game. Lately, I was starting to appreciate why the average player retired before thirty in this sport. I took my time driving down to the police station, and limped my way up to the front desk.

Joe Redmond was behind it. We’d gone to high school together.

“Hey, Cassidy.” He extended a hand. “Good to see you. Tough loss the other night.”

Considering my team had lost six out of our last seven games, I wasn’t sure which night he was talking about. But it didn’t much matter. I nodded. “Yep.”

“I think they should’ve ejected Hartman for that slashing crap he pulled.”

“Me too. If they had, my hip wouldn’t be screaming from the fight that came after he got out of the box.” I lifted my chin toward the door I knew led to the holding cells. “I’m here to pick up Evie Dwyer.”

“Give me a minute. I’ll grab her from the drunk tank.” He started to walk back, but stopped. “I should warn you, she puked all over herself. Might want to throw a blanket down in the car. It’s hard to get that smell out once it gets into the seats.”

“Great,” I mumbled.

A few minutes later, Evie ambled out from the back. Mascara stains streaked her cheeks, and her shirt was still damp with what I assumed was vomit. She looked at me and her big hazel eyes welled up. “I’m sorry.”

I ignored her and spoke to Joe. “She need to fill out paperwork or anything?”

“Nope. She’s good to go. She’s got the citation with her court appearance date folded in her purse.”

“Thanks, Joe.”

“Good luck.”

I wasn’t sure if he was referring to the rest of the season or Evie, but I could use all the help I could get with both.

Outside, I opened the truck door and made sure Evie was inside before shutting it. I still hadn’t said a word to her. I slipped my key into the ignition, but stopped shy of turning it. “What the fuck, Evie?”

She started to cry. Normally I was a sucker for a woman and tears, but I was all out of sympathy these days.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I do what I do.”

That was a cop out and pissed me off even more. “Well, maybe I can clue you in on why the hell you’re acting the way you are. Because you left rehab after five days when they wanted you to stay for thirty.”

Six months ago, after I’d come home to Evie swimming in the lake and vomiting in the flowerbeds, she’d agreed to go to rehab. None of the decent facilities had any beds available, so she’d had to wait two days to check in, and I was going to be away for a game the afternoon she was due to show up. She’d promised to go, but she never did. Instead, I came home to a clean house and a sober Evie—a combination I hadn’t seen in months. I don’t think I even realized how bad things had gotten until that day, when coming home to what should’ve felt normal wasn’t even familiar anymore. Ever since she’d moved in, she’d gotten herself into a vicious cycle of binging for three or four days while I was traveling, and then sleeping it off for a day or two when I got home. So either she was a mess, or she was crashed in bed.

She stayed sober for two weeks that time, and I’d actually seen a glimpse of the woman I’d met at the ice rink almost a year earlier. But then she’d slipped up, and things went back to the same old shitshow real fast. After another month-long binge, I sat her down and gave her a choice: me or the tequila. The following day I drove her to rehab. But after a five-day detox, she signed out against the doctor’s advice while I was on the road again. She’d said she felt like she could do the rest on her own. She’d hated being there because the older women all reminded her of her mother. I didn’t agree with the decisions, but she was good for almost two months after that. Until she wasn’t.

I shook my head. “I can’t live like this anymore, Evie.”

“What are you saying?”

I wanted to end things. We’d had maybe three good months in total since she’d moved in with me. But I was afraid of what it might do to her. She didn’t have anyone in her life to take care of her, and I didn’t want to be the cause of a tailspin, because I cared about her. So I felt trapped.

I looked over at her. Fear was palpable in her eyes.

“I’ll do anything. Take me to rehab right now. Just give me another chance. I can’t lose you, Fox.”

“You need to want to get better for you in order for it to work. Not for me.”

“I do want to get better for me. For us.”

I was wary, but what was I going to do? Dumping her back at her mother’s would be a disaster, and taking her home again, even if she stayed clean for a few days, would just be doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. So really, what choice did I have?

“Let’s go home. You can take a shower while I call and see if we can get you a bed in rehab again.”

***

“God, I missed you.” Evie threw her arms around my neck. There was a counselor waiting outside the room, so I gave her a quick peck and pulled back.

“You look good,” I said.

She smiled. “I feel really good.”

Evie had been at South Maple Recovery Center for nineteen days now. I’d visited whenever I was home and allowed, but today was more than just a visit. It was a loved one counseling session. Not really my cup of tea, but I had to show her support. Especially since she’d invited her mother to come last week, and she hadn’t shown up. Not a shocker—not to me anyway.

Knock. Knock.

The woman who’d introduced herself as Eleanor walked in and smiled. “You two ready to get started?”

Evie took a deep breath and nodded.

“Mr. Cassidy, why don’t you go around to the other side of the table so you two are sitting across from each other, and I’ll sit over here on this end?”

“It’s Fox, please.” I pulled out Evie’s chair before walking around to sit opposite her. As soon as my ass hit the seat, she reached across the table and took my hand. Clearly, she was nervous.

“So…” Eleanor began. “Group therapy is about opening up the lines of communication and starting to rebuild relationships. The goal is to share each other’s concerns, while trying to avoid conflict and confrontation.” She looked to me. “How does that sound, Fox?”

I shrugged. “Good.”

“Great. Evie and I have been working together in one-on-one sessions the last few weeks, and she’s discovered some things about herself that she’d like to share with you. So why don’t we start there?”

“Okay.”

Eleanor and I both turned to give our attention to Evie. She chewed on her bottom lip before squeezing my hand and taking another big breath. “I had my first drink when I was nine.”

My jaw fell open. It took a lot to shock me, but she’d thrown me for a loop.

“I know.” She smiled sadly. “It’s a lot to wrap your head around—even for me, looking back now, and I lived it. But I’ve been drinking ever since.”

“I don’t understand. You didn’t drink when we first met.”

“No, I just didn’t let you see it. I don’t let most people see it. I never did until recently.”

“We’ve spent full weeks together in my off season, those times I traveled with you to competitions.”

“Yep. And I always had a bottle in my bag, hidden. I’d drink in the bathroom when I had to. That’s why I always had a candy in my mouth.”

“You told me you had low blood sugar.”

Evie shook her head and looked down.

“It’s never been easy to talk to anyone about why I did it, but I think you might understand the pressures of being an athlete as much as I do. By the time I was seven, the rink had become my second home. At first, I loved it. People would stand on the sidelines and watch me practice, and I felt like I was on top of the world. I was nine when I entered my first big competition. I’d been a superstar at my local rink, practiced twenty hours of skating and ten hours of dancing every week.” She paused, and her eyes went out of focus, like she was visualizing what came next. “I remember walking into that first competition and thinking I was the best and going to win.” She shook her head. “I didn’t even make the podium. It was devastating, a real eye opener. That night I struggled to sleep, feeling like all my hopes and dreams of someday making it to the Olympics were a joke. I’d watched my mom get pissed off or upset about things for years. Her way of dealing was to have a few drinks. So the next night, when I was still feeling awful, I waited until she was passed out and snuck a few sips from her bottle. It allowed me to forget that I’d lost the competition long enough to sleep. At first, I only drank when I lost. But eventually I used it to console myself after a bad practice, a guy blowing me off, or…” She shrugged. “Anything really.”

“Jesus, Evie. I had no damn clue. I thought this was something new, that you were struggling because you didn’t make the Olympic team.”

“Well, I was, but it’s not new.”

“Does your mother know?”

She shrugged. “If she does, she’s never said anything. But my father knows. He could pick out a drunk a mile away after living with my mother for a dozen years. He tried to help years ago, but I would never admit the truth. It’s why I cut off our relationship. I didn’t want to deal with it.”

“He didn’t stop talking to you when he got remarried and started a new family like you said?”

Evie looked down. “No.”

Eleanor interrupted. “How does Evie sharing this revelation make you feel, Fox?”

I shook my head, still in shock. “I don’t know. Stupid for not seeing it. Sad that she’s been going through it alone for so long. Anger—toward her mother for not seeing that her nine-year-old was drinking.” I looked up and met Evie’s eyes. “Scared that it’s much worse than I thought, and you might not be able to stay sober…”

Tears streamed down Evie’s face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m such a mess.”

Over the next hour, Evie did a lot of talking. Some of it really hurt, like when she admitted that she’d gone from feeling inadequate in skating to feeling like she wasn’t enough for me. It wasn’t true, but as she spoke about her lack of self-confidence, I realized she’d often sought reassurance from me, and I’d brushed it off as dumb. I didn’t get that she truly had low self-confidence and felt like a failure and needed more from me. And I felt like a failure myself for not being able to see that the woman I lived with—the woman I was planning to marry—was an alcoholic.

When we finally came to a lull in Evie’s confessions, Eleanor jumped in.

“I think this was a lot for one day—both for Evie to say and for you, Fox, to hear. I’m sure you need some time to absorb everything.”

I nodded. “Yeah, definitely.”

“Do you have questions for Evie? Or for me before we wrap things up for today?”

“Is she getting everything she needs here? It seems dumb to say it now, but I thought she was just coming in for alcohol addiction. It sounds like she has a lot of other stuff she needs to work through.”

Eleanor smiled. “She has a whole team. I’m a psychologist, so I talk to Evie the most, but she also has an addiction counselor, a primary-care physician, and a psychiatrist on her team. Of course, there are various nurses and support staff, too. Everyone has a different role, but we work together.”

“What’s the difference between what a psychiatrist and a psychologist do?”

“That’s a good question. People often confuse the roles, but the psychiatrist mainly treats by prescribing medications and a psychologist treats with behavioral and talk therapy.”

I felt my brows pull tight. I looked to Evie. “So you’re taking medication?”

She nodded. “Dr. Cudahy diagnosed me with clinical depression. She’s prescribed antidepressants.”

“So you come in for one addiction and the answer is to give you pills?”

Eleanor interrupted. “I understand how that can seem counterproductive. But often the reason people drink is because they’re trying to self-medicate to calm an underlying mental-health issue that has gone untreated. One of our goals here is to get to the root cause of the drinking and treat that so the patient doesn’t have to self-medicate in an abusive form.”

That sounded like trading one vice for another to me. Or worse, the treatment for the underlying mental health issue failed, and the patient was now addicted to two vices. But I didn’t know much about this shit. So I nodded. “Alright. I guess you know what you’re doing.”