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“Sure.” I shrug indifferently. I almost wish that I were back in jail right now. At least the only temptations that I had there were drugs. Here, I have the one temptation that I’ll never be able to turn down.Her.
Nolan leads the way back into the hallway. I follow after him absentmindedly as I take in my surroundings. It’s nice here, a lot fucking nicer than I would have expected. I don’t know how I ended up at this facility, but I’m beginning to wonder if Raina had something to do with it.
I can’t imagine her wanting to have Ainsley and I anywhere near each other, but this isn’t somewhere that the courts would send someone from jail. Raina pulled some strings. She had to have. I’m not fucking stupid, I know that this isn’t where I should be.
I wish she wouldn’t have pulled those strings. Even though the accommodations are nice and it sounds like an amazing program, I don’t know if I can get through this with Ainsley here. I don’t know that I’m strong enough to resist her. I don’t think I can be around her without her being mine.
It’s all a mind fuck. And I can’t fucking handle it right now.
Nolan leads me into his office, motioning for me to take a seat in one of the plush armchairs in front of his desk. He softly pushes the door behind himself and rounds his desk, sitting down in the office chair.
“So, I wanted to just go over some basic stuff with you, if that’s okay?” He grabs a notepad and drops it down onto his desk as he pulls a pen out of the drawer. “I read through your file, but I wanna hear it from you.”
“I mean, what do you want to hear? You read my file, it tells you everything you need to know.”
“You had drug charges, as well as the charges from the accident.” He pauses, pursing his lips for a moment. “They found heroin in the car and opiates in your system. Is that what you struggled with the most?”
No. I struggled the most with the girl who slipped through my fingertips.
“Yeah, I guess.” I shrug, lying through my teeth. “I mean, I was never addicted to a single drug. Heroin and Fentanyl were just what I ended up using the most.”
“What do you mean when you say you were never addicted?”
I stare at him blankly. “I used drugs for a long time, but I could always take it or leave it. Even heroin. I never used it in excess, not until the end.”
“The end of what?”
The end of my life.
“You know, until the accident.” I pause, mulling over my thoughts, attempting to choose my words wisely before speaking again. “I guess I was starting to get more dependent on it then. I was using it a lot more frequently then.”
Nolan nods, his face free of judgment and nothing but understanding. It’s his job to be like this, but I can’t help but feel like he actually knows what I mean. I’m never this open with people, but I’m here for a fucking reason and I’m so tired of holding it all in.
“What are some triggers for you?” he asks as he jots some notes down on his pad. “If you don’t mind talking about them.”
“Pass.”
He lifts his head, tilting it to the side, but nods again. “We can get to that another time.” He pulls open the top drawer of his desk and pulls out a small tin and an ashtray. “We’ll have plenty of time to get to the root of your addiction. I know that you say that you’re not an addict, but coming to terms with it is the first step.”
“I know that I’m an addict,” I admit, feeling the frustration build. I watch him carefully as he pulls a joint out from his tin and brings it up to his lips. “I guess I’m just addicted to escaping reality. Among other things.”
“Like what?” Nolan asks as he sparks the joint and inhales. I raise an eyebrow, taken by surprise with his actions, but I don’t question him. I know that they use weed medicinally, but it seems weird that my therapist is smoking a joint while we’re talking.
I shrug, not really wanting to reveal all of my fucking secrets to this stranger. “I don’t really want to talk about that either.”
He offers me the joint. “The doctor will talk to you tomorrow to figure out what strains and methods will work best for you, but you look like you need something to take the edge off right now.”
I take it from him without hesitation and take a long pull, inhaling the sweet smoke. It’s been so fucking long since anything has touched my systems. I haven’t felt any cravings for drugs that I need to replace with this, but he’s right. I do need something to take the fucking edge off.
“What was that little exchange between you and Ainsley?” he asks me with curiosity. “Do the two of you know each other?”
“Something like that,” I mumble, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke. A cough escapes me, my chest tightening as I choke on the smoke. I took a bigger hit than I intended and my head floats as a familiar warmth spreads through me. “In a different lifetime.”
Nolan looks at me, his eyes trained on mine as he assesses me. “Your addictions. Was she one of them?”
My body stills, the joint in mid air as I was about to bring it back to my lips. I narrow my eyes at him, uncomfortable under his gaze. How he sees right through me is beyond me, but I don’t like it. I ignore his question, lifting the joint back up to my lips as I take another hit.
“Pass,” I mumble as I pull the joint away from my lips and hand it back to him. “Look, I know that we have to talk about shit, but there’s some shit that I just don’t want to talk about, okay?”
