I hated to admit it, but I wasn’t acting my age. Though, in a way, it should have been fair that I was acting like some love sick teenager—I hadn’t had the freedom to act how I pleased until I was twenty and on my own, after all.

It did make me feel a lot better that Sharon was in the same boat as me.

I looked up at the sound of an opening door, to see the center of my thoughts coming out of my bathroom in one of my tank tops and nothing else. She was still a little wet, and the fabric clung to her, but as I watched her breasts and hips sway as she came over to where I was lying on the bed, I couldn’t complain.

“Hey there,” she murmured. She raised one of her knees onto the bed and leaned across my chest to peck a kiss on my lips. When she went to pull back, I followed her, but because I didn’t want to get up, I let her go as I slumped back into the pillows. “I need to hurry back to my place and get changed.”

My eyes ran over her sexy body again, this time an eyebrow arching. “Are you going out like that?”

She mirrored my look. “Like hell, Jerrik. I don’t think anyone will see me, but I’m not going to tempt fate like that.”

I chuckled as she turned away from me to go and pick up her clothes.

“Are you sure you can't stay longer?” I called out.

“Of course I can't. I’m not supposed to be sleeping in here at all, you know. It just means that we’ll get caught quicker.”

I sighed. It was quickly approaching my time to leave, and I had a hard time believing I had been at the retreat for so long already. I was meant to stay there for a few weeks, and besides that first one, they had gone by so fast.

We hadn't talked about what would happen after my time was up. I didn’t live anywhere near the retreat, and if I kept making trips to come and visit her, we would be found out. I had a feeling she didn’t want the media interfering in her life as they did in mine.

I watched as she pulled the tank off and put on her bra, then her dress. She didn’t bother putting on her panties, and I grinned. That was mostly my fault. That she was standing there all dressed, knowing she had no panties on, was making me hot. If only my recovery period after orgasm was as impressive as hers, I could have tried to talk her into a quickie. As it was, it was growing brighter outside, and more people than I would have thought were up by sunrise.

“Come over here for a sec,” I called, my voice husky.

Sharon gave me a suspicious look, but she did get closer. I pushed myself to sit up, and when she was close enough, put an arm around her neck to pull her down to me for a kiss.

“I’ll see you soon,” I murmured, with our faces close enough for our lips to brush together as I spoke.

“Later, Jerrik,” she said in answer, pecking my lips before pulling away and heading for the door. In a moment, she was gone.

After a few minutes, when I didn’t feel like going back to sleep, I decided to get up instead and go shower. I didn’t have any scheduled sessions for the day, but I wanted to be out for breakfast.

It was an hour or so when a knock on my door let me know breakfast was ready. I was in such a good mood recently, I’d stopped bothering the staff, and they’d learned to give me my space. The knock was simple, three raps against the door, and whoever it was left me to my own devices. Showered and dressed, I left my room.

“Hey there, Jerry!”

I turned an unimpressed look at the bastard with the gall to call me that. He was about as big as me, but slighter, with brown hair and brown eyes. He stayed close to me, though we’d never talked before because… well, I wasn’t interested in talking to people. He had been there the day I blew up on that member of staff and got Sharon in trouble with her boss. Later, when I’d gone for dinner, he started talking to me out of nowhere.

Now, he thought we were friends or something. But I couldn’t exactly say I minded.

“I’ve told you not to call me that, moron.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh come on, it’s a good name.”

“You make me sound like a kid,” I retorted. “How would you like it if I called you Toby, huh?”

Tobias just snickered. “It suits you more than me though.”

It was my turn to roll my eyes, but I couldn’t exactly refuse. Now that my head was clearer, I was ashamed that I’d acted so poorly before. It was a wonder I hadn’t gotten myself kicked out of the retreat.

“Hey, you two!” Britney, another guest at the retreat, called over to us. “Are we heading for breakfast, or do the two of you need some time alone? We’ve got a class after this, and if you’re late, we’ll leave you behind.”

Tobias smacked my arm lightly. “Come on, you know the only reason we’re late is that this guy needs a babysitter.”

I rolled my eyes again, exaggerating the movement, and Britney and the other four people in our little group, standing right behind her, laughed at the two of us.

I’d learned to socialize, so when I couldn’t see Sharon on some days, I at least had someone else to hang out with and talk to. And I came to realize other people at the retreat weren’t half bad, but Tobias, Britney and the others were the ones I hung around most.

Either they didn’t know I was a famous singer, or they did and they just didn’t care, because they treated me like a normal person. I couldn’t remember anyone, besides Tom, that had done that before. People hung around me more for what my position and image could get them than because they liked me. I didn’t exactly have a shining personality, so it was a wonder they put up with me at all.

But as I followed behind the group, first to breakfast, then on to class, I knew these guys were a little different. Hanging around them was what allowed me to graduate from meeting a practitioner one on one to join a class with more people, and I found it so much easier to relax that way.

Especially around this group. I’d come to discover, as I came out of my shell, in my way, and started opening up to this group, that it wasn’t just me going through shit. Everyone had their demons they had locked up in their closet. I was the only one that lost my shit, but these guys talked to me because, in their ways, they understood. Nothing had been said outright, but enough hints were dropped.

And yet, unlike me, they all still managed to have normal relationships with others, they talked and laughed. From the outside, it was hard to tell they were anything but happy people.

It made me realize something that I really should have known from the beginning. Compared to other people, what I went through didn’t rule my life, not unless I let it. Things happened to people, good and bad, but it wasn’t about that. It was about how you dealt with the shit in your life.

Thanks to Sharon and my new friends, I was finding newer, safer ways to cope. And I had hope that maybe one day I’d forgive myself for what happened with my mother.