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We packed up and went home that night, and she got me a place at a rehab facility.
She told me that I needed more care than she could offer and that she wanted to make sure I had every opportunity to recover properly.
I let it happen. I complied and didn’t fight. Deep down, I knew it was the right choice. I kept coming back to the image of me standing in front of Jeremy, desperate for the drugs he had on him.
That hung around my neck, anchoring me to the despair and self-pity that is all I feel now. I had to unshackle myself from that memory.
Happy birthday to me.
It wasn’t as bad as I feared.
The shame of being there wasn’t as hard to reconcile as I had imagined. This was the best place for me to get better. I knew that. And I did the work.
The journal I’d started became pivotal, and what Mum had started, I learned how to finish, shaping tools around me to use and stop myself from falling into old habits.
And I did everything I could to forget that I loved Jeremy Archer.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Four Years later
Isigh, but with a small smile on my face, shutting the day behind me as I close the front door and drop my keys on the table in the hall.
It was a small apartment, but it was mine, and every time I came through the door, I felt thankful.
But peace and quiet I expected is interrupted with tiny voices, immediately souring my mood.
“Hello?” I call out.
“In the front room. I’m just in a meeting online. If you can keep out for another half an hour,” Reece calls back. This is the third time this week he’s decided to use my place as his home office, meaning I had to hide away in the kitchen or the bedroom until he was done.
It was fine. Fine.
No big deal.
We were spending more time together, him here rather than offering any time at his place, but his was little more than a basement apartment. However, he was starting to see the space as his and after working so hard to make it so that I could afford to be in my own place, it niggled.
I walk through to make a cup of tea, open the fridge, close it again and then go into the bedroom to change.
Sure enough, half an hour later, he’s done.
“Hey. What’s for dinner then?” He smiles and plants a quick kiss on my head.
“I don’t know. What were you thinking? You’ve been here all day.”
“I’ve been working.”
“So have I,” I retort, annoyed that he’s acting like this.
“Well, what have you got in?”
I stare at him, trying not to react or overreact.
“Fine.” He leaves, and I hear him open the fridge and then the freezer. “Nothing. Better pop to the shops.”
“Is that a question or a statement that you’re going to do it?” I clarify, giving him a pointed look.
“Oh, I will. I will.” He looks a little embarrassed and hustles back out of the room. I shake my head and flop down on the bed.
