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“Okay,” he agrees, giving me a warm smile as he takes the joint. “If you don’t want to talk about something, I’m not going to push you to. We can talk about whatever you want, whenever you are ready to.”
I don’t know that I’ll ever be ready to talk about anything that concerns Ainsley. Not when things are so uncertain between us. My thoughts are completely irrational. Everything is certain between us because there is no us.
What we had ended that night that we got into the accident.
“So, is this all we do?” I ask, changing the subject to try and get my mind off of Ainsley and him assessing me. “We just sit around and smoke weed and talk about stupid shit?”
Nolan shrugs. “It’s part of it. We use the marijuana to treat many things. I know that you haven’t used in a year and even though you might not have cravings yet, once we start digging into deeper shit, you might find yourself wanting to use again. This is reality, Killian. And we’re going to explore every dark, fucked up corner of it. There’s no way for you to escape it, so this is to help you face it without fear.”
“I’m not afraid to face reality.” My words are clipped as he strikes a nerve. “I’d just rather not talk about any of that shit.”
He nods, putting the joint out in the ashtray. “I get that, but if you want to make any progress, you’re going to have to. It’s all part of the treatment and we’ll develop a plan that will work best for you.”
I glare at him. “Avoidance works best. Think we can work that into the plan?”
Nolan chuckles, shaking his head. “We’re going to face your demons head on. The thing about this is though, you won’t be facing them alone. You have a support system here, you have people that care. We just want to set you up for success. Our goal is to get you in the best position possible for you to live a productive, happy life after you leave here.”
I’m high from the weed, but I can’t ignore the dread in the pit of my stomach. I haven’t even taken into consideration what comes after this. I’ve literally just been living life one day at a time. Even though in prison, the days all ran together. In there, I was just waiting out my time until I was able to get out of there.
It’s entirely different here. This is where I’m going to have to put in the real work. I should want to do it. Not only for myself, but for Ainsley. She’s working on herself, and I owe it to the both of us for me to do the same.
The future isn’t ever guaranteed, and I need to stop focusing on a future with her when it isn’t even in the cards. I need to stop being a hypocrite and take my own advice. It’s time that I start working on myself and stop worrying about her.
“You need to be your main priority here, Killian.” Nolan folds his arms on his desk as he leans forward. “The only way that you’re going to get anywhere is if you focus on yourself and getting better. Working through all the hard shit. I know that it’s easier said than done, but you can do it. You just can’t worry about the world outside of here until it’s time for you to return to it.”
The weed in my system has me feeling looser than I have in the past year. I can’t stop the words before I speak them. “What if my outside world is inside these walls too?”
Nolan’s eyebrows pinch together as he searches my face. His face relaxes as it clicks in his mind. “Ainsley.”
I swallow hard over the emotion thick in my throat and nod. “I don’t want to talk about it, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to do it with her here too.”
“Seeing her today was a trigger for you,” Nolan states his thoughts out loud. It’s not a question, it’s a statement. It’s the truth. “Did you talk to her after the accident?”
I nod, feeling my chest expand as I inhale deeply through my nose. “That was the last time that I saw her. That night, we got into a fight, but we were talking through things. I took my eyes off the road, and we crashed. She was injured badly, but they took me straight to booking. I didn’t get to see her after it all.”
“That must have been hard for you.”
“Fuck yes, it was. But I didn’t deserve to see her or hear from her.” I pause, collecting myself as the frustration and pain builds. “Her mom kept me informed with what was going on with her, but Ainsley was supposed to hate me. I ruined her fucking life. I didn’t expect to see her here and I didn’t expect her to not hate me at all.”
Nolan looks at me thoughtfully. “Why do you think she should hate you? An accident is simply that—an accident. You didn’t intentionally hurt her that night.”
“There’s so much more to the story than that. Either way, I ruined her life.”
“I think there’s more behind your thoughts than there are to the story,” Nolan says quietly.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I tell him, abruptly standing up from my seat. “I just don’t want to do this, okay?”
“We don’t have to,” he says softly, his voice comforting. “We will have plenty of time to revisit this, okay? It’s all going to be okay, Killian. We will figure all of this out together. And once we get you on a regimen and your schedule set, we can really get to work. I don’t want you worrying about all of this stuff tonight, though okay?”
I nod, not trusting my voice. This whole situation is fucking weird as shit. I’m never this open with people about my thoughts and my feelings. I blame it on the weed and this fucker knew what he was doing. He thought he could get me high and feeling good, loosen me up a little bit. Get me to spill some shit that I really wasn’t ready to.
“I think that they’re getting ready to play some games in the common room,” Nolan informs me as he stands up from his seat. “Do you want to go check it out and meet some of the other patients, or you can go back to your room if you’d rather that.”
“I’d like to just go back to my room.”
Nolan nods in understanding as he walks over to the door. He pulls it open and holds it for me as I step through the doorway. I let him walk past me and he leads me back to my room since I still have no idea where the fuck I’m going. I’m high from the weed, but it’s a different high than what I was used to. It doesn’t fuck with my head like the dope did. I can still think coherent thoughts, I just feel more relaxed. More at ease.
Even after the talk that I had with Nolan, I still feel relatively calm.
