Antidote (Dazed Series Book 3) Page 4

  Killian turns around to face me. The vacant look is gone from his face and his expression is dark as he narrows his eyes at me. “Why are you here, Ainsley?”

  The sudden shift in his mood throws me off. “I—uh—I work here.” I pause, nervously adjusting my thick braid. “They offer discharged patients jobs here, so I took the first job that they offered me. I want to give back, to help others like they helped me here.”

  “How generous of you,” he sneers. “Quite the little humanitarian now, aren’t we?”

  A switch flips inside of me, and I cross my arms defensively over my chest. “What the fuck is your problem, Killian?”

  “You are my problem, baby girl,” he growls, stalking toward me. He stops directly in front of me, the tips of his toes touching mine. “You aren’t supposed to fucking be here.”

  My eyes widen as I stare up at him. “I get that you hate me. I don’t blame you for that, I deserve your hatred.”

  “See, that’s the fucking problem,” he murmurs, reaching out as he lightly cups my chin. “I don’t hate you at all. It’s quite the opposite, if I’m being honest.”

  “Don’t be honest, then,” I whisper, not fully trusting my voice.

  Killian chuckles lightly as he shakes his head. “Sorry, baby, but I’m tired of fucking lying.”

  “I need to go.” I take a step away from him. We haven’t seen each other in a year and I don’t know what the hell is happening right now. I can’t fall down this rabbit hole with him again. “It’s better if we keep our distance.”

  A pained look flashes through his eyes. “You’re right. You should go.”

  We’re caught in a trance, our eyes locked on one another. I should go, but my feet won’t move. I’m frozen in place, caught up in his gaze. I don’t hate him, but I hate the way that he makes me feel. Even after not seeing him for a year, he still has a hold on me.

  We’re too damaged to fix this.

  The sound of a throat clearing from behind me draws us out of our daze. “Am I interrupting something?”

  I turn around, seeing Nolan eyeing us suspiciously. He’s one of the counselors that works here. With the way that he’s watching us, I’m not sure how much he heard, but he can definitely feel the tension in the air.

  “Not at all,” I tell him, quickly collecting myself as I move further out into the hall. “I was actually just leaving. I gave him a quick tour of the facility and his room, but maybe you can show him more?”

  “Of course.” Nolan gives me a warm smile, but he still eyes me suspiciously. He directs his gaze to Killian who still has his eyes on me. “I’m Nolan. I’ll be your counselor while you’re here and probably continue sessions once you’re discharged.”

  A lump forms in my throat as I force myself to break my gaze from Killian’s. My recovery just got a hell of a lot harder. I hear his sigh as I quickly leave the two of them behind. The anxiety courses through my body and I move in autopilot as my feet carry me through the facility and back to the front desk.

  No one is around, so I walk straight through the front doors. As I step outside, I inhale deeply, finally feeling like I can breathe, but it’s all a facade.

  It’s impossible to breathe underwater.

  And right now, I’m fucking drowning.

  FOUR

  KILLIAN

  “Why don’t we go to my office and we can talk?” Nolan asks, tilting his head to the side. “I know that you just got here and probably want to get settled, but I just wanted to go over a few things with you so we can jump right in first thing tomorrow.”

  “Sure.” I shrug indifferently. I almost wish that I were back in jail right now. At least the only temptations that I had there were drugs. Here, I have the one temptation that I’ll never be able to turn down. Her.

  Nolan leads the way back into the hallway. I follow after him absentmindedly as I take in my surroundings. It’s nice here, a lot fucking nicer than I would have expected. I don’t know how I ended up at this facility, but I’m beginning to wonder if Raina had something to do with it.

  I can’t imagine her wanting to have Ainsley and I anywhere near each other, but this isn’t somewhere that the courts would send someone from jail. Raina pulled some strings. She had to have. I’m not fucking stupid, I know that this isn’t where I should be.

  I wish she wouldn’t have pulled those strings. Even though the accommodations are nice and it sounds like an amazing program, I don’t know if I can get through this with Ainsley here. I don’t know that I’m strong enough to resist her. I don’t think I can be around her without her being mine.

  It’s all a mind fuck. And I can’t fucking handle it right now.

  Nolan leads me into his office, motioning for me to take a seat in one of the plush armchairs in front of his desk. He softly pushes the door behind himself and rounds his desk, sitting down in the office chair.

  “So, I wanted to just go over some basic stuff with you, if that’s okay?” He grabs a notepad and drops it down onto his desk as he pulls a pen out of the drawer. “I read through your file, but I wanna hear it from you.”

  “I mean, what do you want to hear? You read my file, it tells you everything you need to know.”

  “You had drug charges, as well as the charges from the accident.” He pauses, pursing his lips for a moment. “They found heroin in the car and opiates in your system. Is that what you struggled with the most?”

  No. I struggled the most with the girl who slipped through my fingertips.

  “Yeah, I guess.” I shrug, lying through my teeth. “I mean, I was never addicted to a single drug. Heroin and Fentanyl were just what I ended up using the most.”

  “What do you mean when you say you were never addicted?”

  I stare at him blankly. “I used drugs for a long time, but I could always take it or leave it. Even heroin. I never used it in excess, not until the end.”

  “The end of what?”

  The end of my life.

  “You know, until the accident.” I pause, mulling over my thoughts, attempting to choose my words wisely before speaking again. “I guess I was starting to get more dependent on it then. I was using it a lot more frequently then.”

  Nolan nods, his face free of judgment and nothing but understanding. It’s his job to be like this, but I can’t help but feel like he actually knows what I mean. I’m never this open with people, but I’m here for a fucking reason and I’m so tired of holding it all in.

  “What are some triggers for you?” he asks as he jots some notes down on his pad. “If you don’t mind talking about them.”

  “Pass.”

  He lifts his head, tilting it to the side, but nods again. “We can get to that another time.” He pulls open the top drawer of his desk and pulls out a small tin and an ashtray. “We’ll have plenty of time to get to the root of your addiction. I know that you say that you’re not an addict, but coming to terms with it is the first step.”

  “I know that I’m an addict,” I admit, feeling the frustration build. I watch him carefully as he pulls a joint out from his tin and brings it up to his lips. “I guess I’m just addicted to escaping reality. Among other things.”

  “Like what?” Nolan asks as he sparks the joint and inhales. I raise an eyebrow, taken by surprise with his actions, but I don’t question him. I know that they use weed medicinally, but it seems weird that my therapist is smoking a joint while we’re talking.

  I shrug, not really wanting to reveal all of my fucking secrets to this stranger. “I don’t really want to talk about that either.”

  He offers me the joint. “The doctor will talk to you tomorrow to figure out what strains and methods will work best for you, but you look like you need something to take the edge off right now.”

  I take it from him without hesitation and take a long pull, inhaling the sweet smoke. It’s been so fucking long since anything has touched my systems. I haven’t felt any cravings for drugs that I need to replace with this, but he’s right. I do need something to take the fucking edge off.

  “What was that little exchange between you and Ainsley?” he asks me with curiosity. “Do the two of you know each other?”

  “Something like that,” I mumble, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke. A cough escapes me, my chest tightening as I choke on the smoke. I took a bigger hit than I intended and my head floats as a familiar warmth spreads through me. “In a different lifetime.”

  Nolan looks at me, his eyes trained on mine as he assesses me. “Your addictions. Was she one of them?”

  My body stills, the joint in mid air as I was about to bring it back to my lips. I narrow my eyes at him, uncomfortable under his gaze. How he sees right through me is beyond me, but I don’t like it. I ignore his question, lifting the joint back up to my lips as I take another hit.

  “Pass,” I mumble as I pull the joint away from my lips and hand it back to him. “Look, I know that we have to talk about shit, but there’s some shit that I just don’t want to talk about, okay?”

  “Okay,” he agrees, giving me a warm smile as he takes the joint. “If you don’t want to talk about something, I’m not going to push you to. We can talk about whatever you want, whenever you are ready to.”

  I don’t know that I’ll ever be ready to talk about anything that concerns Ainsley. Not when things are so uncertain between us. My thoughts are completely irrational. Everything is certain between us because there is no us.

  What we had ended that night that we got into the accident.

  “So, is this all we do?” I ask, changing the subject to try and get my mind off of Ainsley and him assessing me. “We just sit around and smoke weed and talk about stupid shit?”

  Nolan shrugs. “It’s part of it. We use the marijuana to treat many things. I know that you haven’t used in a year and even though you might not have cravings yet, once we start digging into deeper shit, you might find yourself wanting to use again. This is reality, Killian. And we’re going to explore every dark, fucked up corner of it. There’s no way for you to escape it, so this is to help you face it without fear.”

  “I’m not afraid to face reality.” My words are clipped as he strikes a nerve. “I’d just rather not talk about any of that shit.”

  He nods, putting the joint out in the ashtray. “I get that, but if you want to make any progress, you’re going to have to. It’s all part of the treatment and we’ll develop a plan that will work best for you.”

  I glare at him. “Avoidance works best. Think we can work that into the plan?”

  Nolan chuckles, shaking his head. “We’re going to face your demons head on. The thing about this is though, you won’t be facing them alone. You have a support system here, you have people that care. We just want to set you up for success. Our goal is to get you in the best position possible for you to live a productive, happy life after you leave here.”

  I’m high from the weed, but I can’t ignore the dread in the pit of my stomach. I haven’t even taken into consideration what comes after this. I’ve literally just been living life one day at a time. Even though in prison, the days all ran together. In there, I was just waiting out my time until I was able to get out of there.

  It’s entirely different here. This is where I’m going to have to put in the real work. I should want to do it. Not only for myself, but for Ainsley. She’s working on herself, and I owe it to the both of us for me to do the same.

  The future isn’t ever guaranteed, and I need to stop focusing on a future with her when it isn’t even in the cards. I need to stop being a hypocrite and take my own advice. It’s time that I start working on myself and stop worrying about her.

  “You need to be your main priority here, Killian.” Nolan folds his arms on his desk as he leans forward. “The only way that you’re going to get anywhere is if you focus on yourself and getting better. Working through all the hard shit. I know that it’s easier said than done, but you can do it. You just can’t worry about the world outside of here until it’s time for you to return to it.”

  The weed in my system has me feeling looser than I have in the past year. I can’t stop the words before I speak them. “What if my outside world is inside these walls too?”

  Nolan’s eyebrows pinch together as he searches my face. His face relaxes as it clicks in his mind. “Ainsley.”

  I swallow hard over the emotion thick in my throat and nod. “I don’t want to talk about it, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to do it with her here too.”

  “Seeing her today was a trigger for you,” Nolan states his thoughts out loud. It’s not a question, it’s a statement. It’s the truth. “Did you talk to her after the accident?”

  I nod, feeling my chest expand as I inhale deeply through my nose. “That was the last time that I saw her. That night, we got into a fight, but we were talking through things. I took my eyes off the road, and we crashed. She was injured badly, but they took me straight to booking. I didn’t get to see her after it all.”

  “That must have been hard for you.”

  “Fuck yes, it was. But I didn’t deserve to see her or hear from her.” I pause, collecting myself as the frustration and pain builds. “Her mom kept me informed with what was going on with her, but Ainsley was supposed to hate me. I ruined her fucking life. I didn’t expect to see her here and I didn’t expect her to not hate me at all.”

  Nolan looks at me thoughtfully. “Why do you think she should hate you? An accident is simply that—an accident. You didn’t intentionally hurt her that night.”

  “There’s so much more to the story than that. Either way, I ruined her life.”

  “I think there’s more behind your thoughts than there are to the story,” Nolan says quietly.

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I tell him, abruptly standing up from my seat. “I just don’t want to do this, okay?”

  “We don’t have to,” he says softly, his voice comforting. “We will have plenty of time to revisit this, okay? It’s all going to be okay, Killian. We will figure all of this out together. And once we get you on a regimen and your schedule set, we can really get to work. I don’t want you worrying about all of this stuff tonight, though okay?”

  I nod, not trusting my voice. This whole situation is fucking weird as shit. I’m never this open with people about my thoughts and my feelings. I blame it on the weed and this fucker knew what he was doing. He thought he could get me high and feeling good, loosen me up a little bit. Get me to spill some shit that I really wasn’t ready to.

  “I think that they’re getting ready to play some games in the common room,” Nolan informs me as he stands up from his seat. “Do you want to go check it out and meet some of the other patients, or you can go back to your room if you’d rather that.”

  “I’d like to just go back to my room.”

  Nolan nods in understanding as he walks over to the door. He pulls it open and holds it for me as I step through the doorway. I let him walk past me and he leads me back to my room since I still have no idea where the fuck I’m going. I’m high from the weed, but it’s a different high than what I was used to. It doesn’t fuck with my head like the dope did. I can still think coherent thoughts, I just feel more relaxed. More at ease.

  Even after the talk that I had with Nolan, I still feel relatively calm.

  We finally make it to my room and Nolan steps inside as I follow in behind him. “I know that Dr. Conrad wasn’t planning on meeting with you until tomorrow morning, but if you’d like I could have him stop by after dinner. He won’t be doing a full evaluation, but he can give you something that might help you sleep tonight.”

  I look at him skeptically. “I don’t take sleeping pills.”

  “I know, but sometimes it’s helpful, especially the first few nights. It’s an adjustment and we just want you to feel comfortable.”

  “But why would you give an addict something that they could potentially get addicted to?” I question him.

  Nolan smiles as he backs away toward the door. “This is a controlled environment, Killian. You’ll see how things work after you’re here for a little while.”

  I watch Nolan as he turns around to slip through the door. “Wait,” I call out after him, as a wave of anxiety passes through me. “What about Ainsley? How am I supposed to avoid her?”

  “She works at the front desk,” he reminds me as he pauses in the doorway. “Stay away from that area and you will be fine.”

  I nod in understanding, but that’s easier said than fucking done. That’s really his answer? His solution to my problem? That’s like placing a bag of dope and a rig in the next room over and telling an addict to stay away from that room and they’ll be okay.

  “Can you send Dr. Conrad by then?” I ask, running a frustrated hand through my hair. “On second thought, I might need something more than a joint to help me sleep.”

  “Of course.” He smiles. “I’ll make sure he stops by after dinner. Just try and relax for a bit. Someone will be by with your meal in a little bit. We’ll talk more in the morning, but if you need me, just press the call button by your bed and one of the nurses can always get me for you.”

  “Thanks,” I tell him quietly. He nods, giving me another warm smile before he turns around and disappears through the door. He pulls it shut behind him, leaving me alone in the room.

  I drop down onto the bed, partially in defeat and partially from exhaustion.

  No one ever said the road to recovery was easy, but they never said that it was going to be this fucking hard.

  FIVE

  AINSLEY

  I ride in silence in Desi’s car as we head back to the halfway house. She doesn’t live here anymore, but she gives me a ride home every night that we’re at Better Daze together. I don’t know when they will allow me to have my own car, but I hope that it’s soon.

  It’s been so long since I’ve been behind the wheel of a car. Mine was totaled in the accident, so that leaves me with my only option being the G-wagon that Killian used when he lived with us. Just another painful fucking reminder of him.