A follow-up visit with the staff doctor shows exactly what I knew it would—blood work and labs that say I’m healthy as a horse. My sore ribs are the only reminder that I’d ever been in the hospital at all. Mom was right about one thing: when I got here, I wasn’t feeling like myself. But it turns out all I needed was a couple of days to sleep it off, rehydrate, and get my game face back on.
My sneakers squeak as I head back to my room. I do a quick two-step to avoid the janitor’s mop handle as he swishes water across the hall floor. Any thoughts I’d been entertaining that Mom and Mo were right are pushed out of my mind like smudges on the tile as the mop sweeps by.
What happened at the party was a fluke, an accident. And now I have 25 days to figure out how to make it up to Savannah.
I’m still on blackout, which means zero communication with the outside world. Cell phones are contraband, almost as bad as sneaking in a blunt. From the nurses’ station, I borrow a pencil and a piece of printer paper and head to the empty, sunlit lounge. A lonely shelf offers a couple of board games, a few decks of cards, and several tattered copies of books on addiction and recovery. No TV.
I settle into the couch and try to pen a letter to Savannah, but I can’t decide how to start. Casual and upbeat? (Hi! How are you? How’s school going?) Tortured and heartsick? (If you’re reading this, it means your dad didn’t throw it away the second he saw the return address.)
Jokingly sarcastic? (It’s been five days, twelve hours, twenty-seven minutes, and twelve seconds since I last saw you in the hospital. Not that I’m counting or anything.)
I write and scratch out three different openings, and then I have to go back to the nurses’ station for more paper. This time I write the only words there are to say:
Savannah,
I’m sorry.
I stare at the words, as flimsy as the paper they’re written on, an echo of the apology I gave her after Winter Formal. Why should she believe me this time? Why should her dad? Mo’s comment from lunch yesterday sneaks through the back door of my mind like some know-it-all narrator from an after-school special: We do the same crap over and over again, and then we wonder how we ended up here.
I crumple the letter in my fist. I can’t fix this with a letter. I don’t know if I can fix this at all.
On my way to dinner, I stick my head into our room. Red’s propped up in bed, flipping through a white folder filled with paper. “You up for some grub?” I ask.
Red grimaces. “No solids, yet,” he says. “But they do have some badass broth. One of the nurses said she’d bring me some.”
“You mean the brunette? I see the game you’re playing. You’re hoping for a sponge bath, aren’t you?”
Red gives me a wolfish grin. “Guilty as charged.”
I leave him to his reading and head to the cafeteria. After what happened yesterday, I know better than to try to make new friends. This time I choose the only table with more empty seats than weirdoes. I’m almost finished when I catch sight of someone waving at me from across the room. It’s a middle-aged man with a slight pot belly and a silver goatee. I point vaguely at my chest. Me? I mouth.
The man nods. He weaves through the tables until he’s standing right across from me.
“Eli, I’m so glad I saw you. I was about to head out for the night.”
I drop my fork and lean back in my chair. “Do I know you?”
He shifts an oversized mug to his left hand and reaches out with his right. “The name’s Richard Fisher.”
Richard Fisher wears a long-sleeved flannel shirt, open over a t-shirt from some band whose members probably died several decades ago. A tiny silver hoop hangs from one ear. I stare blankly at his outstretched hand. “So, Dick for short, right?”
Richard lets out a hacking smoker’s laugh. “Call me Rich.” He gestures to the empty seat across the table from me. “Mind if I join you?”
“Suit yourself.”
Richard plops himself down and props both elbows on the table. He leans over his coffee mug, peering at the food on my tray. “What do we got tonight? Chicken parm?”
I push my tray away. “Look, I’m not trying to be rude, but who are you?”
Richard blinks. “Didn’t I tell you? I’m your primary counselor.”
“There’s got to be some mistake,” I say. “I don’t need a counselor.” Thanks to my parents’ divorce and my dad’s death, I’ve already seen my fair share of therapists. They peddle happy pills and stupid questions, and even if I was going to waste my time talking to another one, it sure wouldn’t be this hippy has-been. “I’m just here to do my time,” I tell him. “Isn’t there like an opt-out form or something? I’ll sign whatever I need to.”
Richard’s coffee-stained teeth show under his moustache. “Hate to break it to you, kid, but it’s kind of a packaged deal. You’re stuck with me for the next month.” He takes a long draw from his mug, wipes his mouth on the back of his flannelled arm.
“Awesome.”
“I would’ve been here yesterday,” he continues, “but you came in on such short notice, and well, you know how it is. First day off in three weeks.” His eyes flicker to my abandoned tray. “If you’re done eating, why don’t we take a walk?”
“Nah. I’m good here, thanks. Plus, I’ve got, you know, things to do.”
“Funny. You’re a funny guy, you know that?” But Richard doesn’t look like he thinks I’m funny. The look on his face vaguely reminds me of ones I’ve seen on the lax field, usually on the faces of the opposing team.
He stands, lifts his mug in one hand and my tray in the other. “You’re scheduled to be in my office at 8am tomorrow anyway,” he says. “Might as well as find out where it is.”
He heads across the cafeteria to the trashcans by the exit, where he pauses to scrape my tray, then hands it over to the waiting orderly with a tub full of dirty dishes in his arms. “You coming?”
Several people near me turn around to see who he’s talking to. I sink lower into my seat and shake my hair down over my eyes like a shaggy shield. And then I see Libby, a couple tables up from me. Her ravaged arms are covered in a thin green t-shirt, and her frosty gaze meets mine with complete disinterest. But for some reason, I don’t want to look away.
“Move it or lose it, Eli,” Richard shouts. “I’m clocking out in five minutes whether you’re in my office or not.”
Somebody behind me chuckles. Heat rushes up the back of my neck. I shove off from the table and hurry to follow Richard out of the room.
Richard Fisher’s office smells like day-old coffee and a dirty ashtray. Dog-eared books cling to an over-stuffed shelf on the rear wall. Two framed diplomas hang cockeyed behind Richard’s desk. A worn sofa faces it, bumping up against a scratched wooden end table where a nearly dried-up water feature gurgles pathetically.
“Nice digs,” I mutter. A black cruiser helmet with flame decals perches on a magazine rack in the corner. “You ride?”
Richard’s shuffling through one of two towering stacks of manila folders and stapled paper packets on his desk. “Rain or shine. You know anything about bikes?”
“My dad had one.” So did the first guy Mom dated after Dad moved out. A Harley. I hated the boyfriend, but loved his bike. Which makes it even weirder that I scratched a key through its shiny black paint one cold October morning on my way to catch the bus.
Mom didn’t date after that—until Steven. The way Steven tells it, one of his golfing buddies referred him to the “best accountant in town,” and it was love at first tax return. But Dad used to say that Steven wanted Mom to do more than his taxes, “if you know what I mean.” The thought still makes me want to gouge out my eyeballs with a soup spoon.
“Bikes aren’t my thing,” I say. “Too dangerous.”
Richard cocks a bushy brow. “Yeah, you strike me as a guy who likes to play it safe. You know, except for that whole heroin thing. A-ha! Here it is.” Richard pulls out a thick white folder like the one I’d seen Red reading and hands it to me. A typed label on the front reads STEP ONE: Honesty, Open-Mindedness, Willingness.
“Flip through that tonight,” Richard says, carefully patting the mound of paper on his desk back into a relatively stable pile. “It’s your Step One packet. Go ahead and do some of the questionnaires. We’ll go through everything together tomorrow, but it wouldn’t hurt to get started.”
I hold the folder loosely between my thumb and middle finger, flipping it up and down. “Nobody told me there was going to be homework,” I mutter.
“What’d you think you were going to do for 28 days?” Richard asks. “Sit on your butt and eat chicken parm?” He gathers up a few things, hoists his briefcase onto his shoulder, and tucks his helmet under his arm. “Walk me out?”
Richard Fisher locks the door, and I follow him down the dimly lit hallway. “Mr. Fisher?”
He glances up at me, his thick fingers fumbling to hook the loaded key ring back onto the carabiner at his hip.
“I don’t know why I’m here.” The words I’ve been carrying around for the last 36 hours fall out of my mouth, followed almost immediately by gripping anxiety.
Richard Fisher scratches his chin. “I expect you know how you got here, right?” He gives me a pointed look, and I know he’s talking about my overdose.
I fix my eyes on a dark spot on the carpet. “That was an accident. It wasn’t supposed to happen. I’m not an addict, not like Red, or that girl, Libby. Those kids are seriously messed up.”
Richard chuckles, not unkindly. He reaches under the folder in my hand and elevators it up to waist level. “Read through this tonight,” he says. “There’s a reason we start with Step One.”
“Yeah, but . . .” I try again, but Richard’s already heading down the hall. A red EXIT sign flickers at the far end.
“Just read it, kid.” He lifts an arm overhead to wave without turning around. “We’ll talk in the morning. My office, 8am.” Then he pushes through the double doors at the end of the hall and disappears.
I stare down at the folder in my hand. “Thanks for nothing.” My words echo in the empty hallway.