Chapter Twelve
Erik
“Phone call for you, Erik,” Susan said while she held the phone at the nurses’ station.
It was Christmas Eve, and I hadn’t expected anyone to call me. Pretty much I didn’t expect anyone to call me on any day that I had been there, but on a couple occasions my friends from back in San Francisco had called to chat. And of course Spencer had called a few times, as well.
“Hello,” I said with hesitation.
“Hey,” the voice said.
Instantly, I knew it was my brother Heath. Then all I could think about was that something must have happened to our father. Heath wouldn’t have willingly called me if he didn’t have horrible news. I took a deep breath and prepared myself.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Nothing much. Dad said you called the other day.”
Yeah, I had called like a week earlier, was what I wanted to say. But that was the old me; instead, I tried to be thankful that he was calling now. I loved my brother; I loved my father. They were both important people in my life and I had made the decision to try and mend our broken relationship. I couldn’t do that if I revered back to my old ways.
Although it had taken me a few weeks to get into the hand of group sessions and therapy, I actually felt like I was growing and becoming a better person. The coping skills that Jarrod was teaching me had really helped when I started to feel panicked and I felt more in control of my emotions than I could ever remember feeling.
“Yeah, I just wanted to check in with you guys and let you know how I’m doing.”
“So, you’re still there?”
Again, I had so many sarcastic comments that I wanted to respond with. Of course I was still there; he had just called me and I answered the phone. But I kept my comments to myself and continued to try and have a decent conversation.
“I can send you guys some plane tickets if you’d like to come visit,” I started to say.
“We can’t. It’s busy here.”
“Oh, okay.”
“I’m glad you’re doing better,” Heath said, and I genuinely believed him. “So is Dad. He’s been talking about you a lot since you called.”
“How’s he doing?”
“He’s old, Erik. I wish he could just retire, but he won’t. Keeps saying we’re too busy for him to quit. I tried to explain that I could hire someone to help, but you know how he is.”
I did know how my father was. He was a workaholic. Ever since our mother passed away, work was how our father dealt with his emotions. Instead of talking to anyone or working through his grief, he just worked. And working at a funeral home probably wasn’t the best job to have if you were trying to work through the grief of losing the love of your life.
“Yep, I know.”
“Are you staying there until the New Year?”
“Yep, I’ll be here probably until the end of January.”
“Do you think it will work on you?”
The question was an awkward one, like what I was doing at treatment would magically fix me. But my brother didn’t know about addiction and I certainly couldn’t blame him for wondering if I would be able to stay sober. If you didn’t struggle with addition, it was a mystifying disease.
“I don’t know, but I’m going to do everything I can to get better and stay better.”
“Group time,” Susan hollered about two inches away from me.
“I just wanted to call and tell you we were thinking of you and hope it works. Maybe when you’re all done, you can stop out here for a visit.”
“Sure, I think I can make that happen. You take care of yourself and take care of Dad, too.”
“Later,” Heath said as he hung up.
Talking to Heath wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as talking to my father. It had been a pretty damn good conversation, and I felt good about the possibility that we would be able to mend our broken family, at least a little bit.
I wasn’t delusional. I knew that we would never be the kind of family that sat down for Sunday dinners every week, but I wanted to be closer to them. I wanted them to understand the choices I had made weren’t about them at all. Every decision I had made was a selfish one and totally about myself and what I wanted.
Maybe it was wrong of me, but I couldn’t take it back. I couldn’t change the last ten years and they couldn’t change it, either. But maybe, if we worked at it, we could have a phone conversation with each other and not feel like we were talking to total strangers. I was starting to see that perhaps I had placed all the blame on my family and hadn’t appreciated my own role in the problems we were having.
“Get going to group, mister,” I heard Cassidy’s voice say from behind me.
“I thought you weren’t working?”
“I’m just here for a couple of hours. Get to group. You can’t be late if there are only six of you.”
As much as I wanted to stay there and talk with Cassidy, I knew she was right. I was dying to tell Jarrod and the others about my conversation with my brother. We had just been talking about our support systems the day before and I had said I didn’t have one at all. But in one single phone call, I saw the promise of a growing support system in the future.
It was weird how just a couple of weeks at the rehab center had already turned my mind around. I could see the good in things so much easier than I had been before I arrived. Maybe it was because I was sober, or maybe because I had actually been going to groups and meeting with my therapist, but I felt great.
Feeling good was something so foreign to me that I found myself second guessing my own mood constantly. Even as I talked with Cassidy and then went to my group session, there was energy about my walk that I hadn’t noticed before.
Being clear headed and energized was a great feeling and brought me back to my college days. I had been so focused on engineering new technology, I had endless energy and almost always was in a positive mood.
I couldn’t exactly remember when my typical college drinking turned dark, but I knew it got totally out of control after the business was sold. Without a purpose, I quickly slipped into an underground world of sex, drugs, and alcohol.
It had been so funny the previous day when I had caught Cassidy talking about me. I had certainly been thinking about her, so it felt good to know she was thinking about me. But the more I thought about her, the more I knew I had to stay away from her. Not for my sake, if it was just my life then I would have gone after her for sure. But it wouldn’t look good for her to be messing around with a patient, so for the time being I would behave myself. Or at least I would try to behave myself.
“I’m having a great fucking day,” I exclaimed as I walked into group and found a seat.
“Let’s keep the bad language out of this,” Jarrod replied. “Why is your day so good?”
“I talked to my brother and it went pretty decent. I’m moved into my room with a door, and there is finally a little peace around here.”
“Great, so what’s next?” Jarrod asked.
“What do you mean? Nothing is next. Things are good. I’m good. Let’s not push for more. I’m happy.”
“That’s not how people stay happy, though. You’ve got to continue to move forward. Make goals. Practice your coping skills. You’re always working.”
“That’s just depressing. Can’t we just be happy and relax?”
“I don’t mean that you shouldn’t enjoy the moment. But in sobriety, you will have moments where you feel like everything is going great. But then you’ll stop going to meetings, you’ll stop seeing your therapist, and then bam, you’ve relapsed.”
“Wow, you’re a real Debbie Downer,” Brianna said.
“I get it. I understand,” I said.
“So, why aren’t you leaving for Christmas break?” Jarrod asked.
He blindsided me with the question. I thought the issue had been settled when Cassidy and I had been talking. I wasn’t ready to answer it again. Even though my brother and I had just had a decent conversation, nowhere during that conversation had I considered leaving and going to spend Christmas with them. That seemed odd to me.
“I don’t know,” I replied with my first real honest answer about why I wasn’t leaving.
“You’re afraid of failing,” Kimber said.
“Maybe. I guess. I don’t know.”
“My family wanted me home. I couldn’t stand the idea of them constantly asking me how things were going. Or what I was going to do when I got out. It was too much pressure.”
Her words resonated with me very much. If I had called Spencer, I was one hundred percent sure he would have asked me to come with him to his family’s house. Hell, my own brother and father might have even asked me to come home if they had known I had a break. But it seemed so damn stressful to consider letting outsiders into my treatment.
I didn’t want to disappoint them. Kimber was right – I didn’t want to be a failure. I wanted to finish my treatment and go back home in total control of myself. I wanted to be that guy they all looked up to and talked about what a great example I was. But even I wasn’t convinced I could really be that guy. My sobriety skills were so new that I didn’t have confidence in myself at all.
We finished our group session pretty quickly since there were only a few of us. I was excited to go swimming after. I hadn’t gotten the chance since the last time when Melanie and Cassidy had supervised us.
Swimming had always been a love of mine, and I had been so worried that I would fear water after what had happened before I arrived at treatment. But I was lucky that I didn’t remember much of that night and most of my fears were compartmentalized to my dreams. It probably helped that when we swam at Paradise Peak, there was always a staff member around and I didn’t have to worry about drowning. Although, simply being sober while I was in the pool probably was the easiest way I could avoid drowning.
“Hey, Kaitlin, I was told I’d be able to swim a little. How is that going to work?”
“Cassidy will take you out. Let her finish rounding with the other patients and you guys can head out there in fifteen minutes or so.”
A smile flashed across my face. I was going to be alone with Cassidy in the heated swimming pool. My bad behavior genes rushed through me as I thought about all the naughty things the two of us could do together if we were alone.
Then my practical side took over, and I remembered that I was trying to behave myself so she wouldn’t get in trouble at work. It was funny how much I had grown even in the female department. When I was back at home, I couldn’t remember ever thinking about the consequences of having sex with a woman.
I used a condom and that was all I cared about. When a girl had a broken heart or got angry when I asked her to leave, I really didn’t have any emotion about it at all. It was just how I was, and I cringed as I remembered my old ways. I had been an absolute jerk and there was no way around it. I couldn’t defend my past behavior whatsoever. Nothing about how I treated women was how a respectable man should act.
Respect seemed to be a new theme in my conscious thought. I wanted my family to respect me. I wanted my business partner to respect me. Hell, I even wanted Cassidy to respect me. I felt like an actual adult as I worked to rebuild all the relationships from my past and possibly the ones of my future.
Fifteen minutes went by, then thirty. I had started to think that Cassidy didn’t want to be alone with me in a pool.
“How did you manage this one?” she asked as she stood in my open doorway with her plain, red swimsuit on and a towel wrapped around her.
“Hey, I’m innocent here. I just wanted to go for a swim.”
“All right, let’s get this over with,” she teased as she motioned for me to follow her. “The torture of my job is real.”
“You did have a woman almost die in your arms the other day. I think you deserve a fun day of swimming to make up for it. How long do we have?”
“As long as we want, I guess. Nothing really going on until the night shift arrives at dinner time.”
“Oh, as long as we want,” I said and winked at her.
I couldn’t help it. When she was near me, my body was in sexual overdrive and all I could think about was her body. I seriously didn’t want to flirt with her like I was, but I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted to leave her alone and let her do her job, but she had my whole body feeling energized and I reverted back to my old flirting ways…at least a little bit back to those ways.
“No funny business, mister.”
“I’ll be super serious then.” I laughed.
The truth was I was going to swim in the pool and enjoy the water. No matter what crazy urges I had, I couldn’t follow them. If she was in the shallow end, I’d go to the deep end. If Cassidy got into the hot tub, I’d get out of the hot tub. Distance was my friend. I planned to keep as much of it between the two of us as possible.
“So, you still didn’t decide to go home for the holiday?” she asked jokingly.
“I was thinking of calling my friend Spencer, but it’s too late now. I think I was just afraid I’d mess up while I was outside of this place. It’s weird, I’m starting to feel very comfortable here.”
“It’s normal. Treatment is like a second home. You know there’s no drugs or alcohol, so it’s easy to stay sober. Trust me, though, it’s hard as hell to stay sober outside of here. I went dancing with Kaitlin last night and almost cried I wanted to drink so badly.”
“Shit, that is so discouraging.”
“I don’t say it to scare you. It’s just the truth. And try dancing while you’re sober.” Her eyes got big and dramatic. “I’m the worst dancer I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t believe I had actually danced in front of people while drunk before.”
“What are you doing for Christmas?” I ventured to ask as I slid into the pool and walked away from her.
“Just home with my mom and dad. It will be pretty quiet. Christmas movies, hot cocoa, one present opened tonight and the rest tomorrow. My parents still go a little overboard with the presents. Sometimes I think they forget I’m an adult now.”
It sounded perfect. I could picture her and her parents sitting around a warm fire, drinking their chocolaty drink and watching movies. I hadn’t had a good Christmas since my mother was alive.
My heart sank at the idea that I would never get that sort of Christmas again. Someday, I hoped to have my own family and my own Christmas traditions, but until that time came, I would just have to deal with the loneliness of the season.
“Sounds like postcard perfection.”
“Do you want to come?” she asked as she walked across the pool toward me.
“What?” I asked, actually wondering if I had heard her right.
Did Cassidy just ask me to go to her family’s house for Christmas? I couldn’t have heard that correctly. Or maybe she was joking. I wanted to go. It sounded like the perfect way to spend Christmas, but I didn’t want to intrude on her family time. I didn’t want to be that awkward stray guy who she brought home who made her family get angry with her.
“I asked if you wanted to come? I’ve brought random people home with me before. I’m a sucker for someone who doesn’t have a place to stay on Christmas. It’s one of my favorite times. I’ll just tell them you’re a sober friend from my AA meeting and you didn’t have a place to go. It will be fine.”
I was actually considering her offer. More than just considering it, I wanted to say yes. And strangely enough, it wasn’t because I wanted to sleep with her. Throughout my time at treatment, I had really started to miss my own mother. I missed the happiness she brought into my life and I longed to find that again somehow.
The way Cassidy had described her Christmas drew me in, and before I knew it, I had replied.
“Yes, I’ll go with you.”
Even Cassidy seemed a little shocked that I had replied yes to her. She had probably just made the offer as a gesture of kindness and hadn’t really expected that I would be game for it.
“I’ll email Mr. March and let him know you found someone to hang out with and won’t be here.”
“He’s going to be okay with me going home with you?” I asked a little surprised.
“Oh no, I’m not telling him that part.”
“I don’t want you to get into trouble. I just said yes because I’d love to see what a real Christmas is like again. I haven’t had it in so long.”
“It will be fine. You can take a cab to my place and no one needs to know. Plus, there’s no alcohol in my house, so it’s a safe place to stay and it will give you a fresh perspective on your treatment.”
“So, just to clarify, you are in love with me,” I jokingly exclaimed.
“No!” She laughed and started to chase after me in the pool. “You came in the middle of the conversation. I was making a sarcastic remark.”
“About loving me?” I teased as I swam faster.
“Oh my gosh. I don’t love you. I don’t even know if I like you.”
I stopped dead in my tracks as she came up behind me and tried to push me under the water. Her hands pressed on my shoulders as she pushed her own body out of the water and tried to get me to go under. But her tiny little frame was no match for me, and in one swift motion, I grabbed her around the waist and thrust her under the water.
Quickly, I pulled her back up though, and held my arms around her as she wiped the water from her face. Messing around with her in the pool was fun. It felt like we were old friends just having a blast and hanging out.
“I’m the pool wrestling king back home.” I laughed.
“Oh, you’re going to pay for that.”
Her tone was serious, and as I looked at the expression on her face, I got a little worried that she was mad at me. But then she wrapped her legs around my waist and grabbed my head and successfully pulled me under the water.
Cassidy’s legs were wrapped around me still, and I pulled her under the water with me. Our bodies touched in so many places that I wasn’t sure where mine started and hers ended. My hands grabbed for her ass and I let my fingertips lightly move up and down the seam of her swimsuit. Oh, how I wanted to slide them under that fabric and feel her wet center. It took every bit of my self-control not to touch her longer, deeper, and in more places.
We both thrust our bodies back up and out of the water. My hands stayed wrapped around her ass and her legs held onto my torso. Our eyes locked onto one another and for a long minute, we didn’t move.
Cassidy saw me. She saw through the jerk that I was when I first arrived. She saw through my bullshit, and even though she didn’t know all that much about me, I still felt like she knew me. It was indescribable how I felt so close to a woman who I hardly knew.
Cassidy leaned in close to my earlobe and I thought she was going to kiss my neck like I had kissed hers. I didn’t pull away. If she was going to make a move, I wouldn’t deny her. I wanted her, and I was only holding back because I didn’t want to cause her trouble. If she wanted me, hell, I was totally game.
Her breath was on my skin, and I prepared myself to feel the touch of her lips on me. She could do absolutely anything she wanted to do to me and I’d be fine with it. I hadn’t had a woman in weeks, and my body felt like it was going to explode. Her lips were so close to me that I felt myself urging them to move closer and closer. I wanted her. I wanted this to happen.
“You should probably let go of my ass,” she whispered as her thighs loosened and she pulled herself away from me.
Reluctantly, I released her from my grip. Nothing about it had been what I wanted to do. If it had been up to me, we would have been making love on one of the pool chairs by that point.
“Your ass was in my hands. I couldn’t help it.”
“So, you’re coming to my house to meet my family. But you’re sleeping on the couch and there will be no funny business. Do you understand?” she asked firmly as she took two steps away from me.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said with a fun salute.
“I’m serious. My father is a great guy, but if he thinks we are messing around, he’ll shoot you.”
My eyes widened as I lost about three shades of pigment in my skin. I didn’t want to get shot, and I clearly wasn’t able to control myself around Cassidy. Maybe I shouldn’t be going over to her family’s house. Angry fathers weren’t really something I was good at dealing with. Now mothers, on the other hand, I was really good at dealing with. Mothers loved me.
I had not had the chance to meet many girls’ families over the years, not since high school at least. One-night stands weren’t really conducive to meeting the parents. Suddenly, I worried that I would say or do something wrong if I did meet them. Certainly, she was joking about getting shot, but what else might he do if he didn’t like me?
“Um….”
“I’m kidding. He’s a pushover. Don’t worry. His bark is worse than his bite.”
“He barks and bites?” I asked jokingly.
“You’ll be fine. Bring a present for them, it will help. I always buy them horrible things. It’s sort of a running joke between us that I’m the worst Christmas shopper ever.”
“You buy your parents bad gifts on purpose?”
“Yeah, you know, like ugly sweaters and stuff like that. The funny thing is it all started with me buying them matching jogging suits that I actually thought they would like.”
“What do your parents do for work?” I asked as we both took a seat on the stairs and stayed a few feet away from one another. “I’m sorry if you told me before, but I don’t remember.”
“They run a ski resort in town here.”
“That’s pretty cool.”
“Yeah, growing up I always had free skiing. But they want me to work with them, and I’ve never really been that into skiing. I always just wipe out and hurt myself.”
“I understand.”
Being part of the family business was certainly something that I understood. It wasn’t for Cassidy and it wasn’t for me. We were free thinkers who had our own paths to follow.
“Should we try out the hot tub?”
“Sure,” I replied with zero self-control to deny her.