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And I'd been in residence how many days? Even I knew that was bad news.
I was invested in coming clean. There was no way I was weak. I went through SEAL training. I didn't go out for SEALs, just did the Bud-K training to see if I could. I was strong. I could deadlift 400 pounds. I could bench 150. I could throw a man over my hip and break his larynx before he got back up. I could take Jesse's rage sex and pounding and I could fight for my father in any way possible and I could deal with the death of a high school senior who was bright and funny and cute and hooked on the China white dealt by my deep cover boyfriend.
I could kick the fucking addiction.
But. It. Fucking. Hurt. Even with the rainforest pharma which, yes, it was doing wonders for me. It made me feel clear-headed even without the fet. It gave me energy and it cut down the nausea and headache and diarrhea and everything else that opiates did as they left your body.
"I'm trying," I said. All the things that made me shoot up the first time were still happening.
"That's not good enough." He sounded so patient. A teacher waiting for the somewhat stupid student to make a connection.
Instead, all the usual anger bubbled to the surface. "Do you think this is easy? Have you ever had to sweat poison out of your system? Even with what you're giving me, it's like flu times ten. I'm sick, I'm scared, I'm somewhere I don't know where and my father – "
I was starting to cry. I never cry.
He just waited.
"Fuck you!" I threw the bottle at his chest. The instant it left my hand, both my hands went up over my mouth. I didn't want to be punished again. I didn't. I still hurt. I slid to my knees without knowing I meant to do it.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Sir! I didn't mean to! Please don't be angry!" I risked a look at his face.
It was as impassive as ever. His voice sounded like the voice of a million fathers worldwide though he was nothing like a father. "I'm not angry," he said. "I'm disappointed. Stand up."
No.
I stood. My legs shook so hard they barely supported me.
"Do you still have the same goals? The same desires? Do you still want to kick this and go back to your job before your month’s leave ends?"
You know I do. Don't make me beg. "Yes. Sir." I couldn't help it. The sir always got tacked on at the end.
"Then I will help you." He pulled a hardback chair out from the desk beneath the window.
No.
"Come over here."
No.
I moved across the room on shaking legs. My teeth had started to chatter. On one stupid, entirely absurd impulse, I bent and picked up the Advil bottle, offering it to him.
"Thank you. Put it on the desk."
Shit.
I put it on the desk and faced him. I didn't see where he got it, but he held one of the hardwood hairbrushes in his hand.
"Pants and panties down to your knees."
I'd woken in sweatpants I couldn't remember putting on. But then, I couldn't remember getting to this house. Just that there had been a flight from where we were to here. Wherever here was.
"Annie."
I hooked my thumbs into the waistband and pushed them down. After ten days of this, it shouldn't have bothered me, but shame blushed my face. I hated facing him naked. I hated even more facing him only partly unclothed, my sweats and underwear pushed to my knees, bare from the waist down and waiting to be punished.
"Across my knee."
I was shaking almost too hard to comply. He helped me, guiding me down, laying me across his lap. He wrapped one leg over mine to stop me from kicking.
