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As badly as I want to argue, I don’t have the strength to. Whatever medications the nurses gave me are too strong for me to continue to fight. My eyelids are heavy, my body feels fucking limp and just so weak. I have no choice but to agree with him and let the sleep pull me under. The sooner that I can get better physically, the sooner I can get out of this entire mess.
* * *
A soft knocksounds on the other side of my door. I managed to get a solid two hours of sleep after Dr. Evans left me alone, but now I’ve been sitting here, internally restless as fuck as I sit and wait for my mother to come in. I haven’t been cleared to get out of bed yet, so I’ve been confined to sitting here.
“Oh, Ainsley,” she says in her soft, gentle voice as she slips into the room. My heart thaws a bit at the sight of my mother, but the guilt of how I treated her inserts itself in my mind. “I’m so glad you’re awake, sweetie. I was so worried about you.”
“You don’t have to worry,” I assure her, my voice still hoarse. My mother reaches out, grabbing the Styrofoam cup of water from my bedside table and hands it to me. “I know I have a lot of physical therapy and shit to do, but I’m awake. I’m alive. I’ll get through it.”
“I know you will.” My mother smiles, reaching out to grab my hand. “I was just so afraid that I was going to lose you.”
I squeeze her hand back. “Well, you didn’t. So, we can’t focus on that.”
She nods. “I know, I know. I’m just so happy that you are awake.”
The guilt vanishes as I cut my eyes at her, feeling partially betrayed. “Why haven’t you bailed Killian out yet?”
Her eyes widen and she swallows nervously. “I read the police report, Ainsley. I couldn’t justify paying his bail with you lying in here in a coma because of him.”
“It wasn’t his fault.” I stare back at her, feeling too many emotions at once. The tears fall from my face without warning. “The drugs were mine. He took the fall for me. And the accident was an honest mistake on his part.”
My mother stares back at me, her mouth falling open. A quiet sob escapes her lips and she covers her hand with her mouth as her eyes fill with tears. “The pills were yours? But I thought that you were doing so well, Ainsley?”
I shake my head honestly. “I was using the entire time.” I wipe the tears away from my cheeks, but they continue to fall freely. “Not heroin. Pills. I just used heroin that day, when we got in an accident.”
“Oh my god,” my mom breathes, her body shaking with her cries. “How could I be so damned stupid and not see it when it was literally right in front of my face?”
“It’s not your fault.” I squeeze her hand. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
My mom struggles to collect herself, wiping the tears away from her face as she grabs a tissue from the bedside table and blows her nose. “I should have sent you to an inpatient treatment facility instead of outpatient. I thought that we could get through it without having to go that route. I should have listened to Killian.”
“I’ll go into inpatient treatment if you promise me that you will post Killian’s bail.”
My mom’s eyes search mine. “You know, even if I post his bail, he might still go to jail.”
“We’ll worry about that when we get to that,” I tell her, my mind already made up. “If you want me to go into a treatment center, I need you to do this for me.”
My mom shakes her head. “You need to go into treatment because you want to.”
I swallow hard, letting the truth finally surface. “I’m ready to get help, Mom. I want to go. I just need to know that he will be okay, too. He has no bearing over me getting sober.”
My mom stares at me for a few moments, assessing me in silence before she finally responds. “Okay. I will do it, as long as you promise that you want to get better. As soon as you are able to be discharged from here, I want you transferred directly to a treatment center.”
I’ve spent too much time trying to escape reality. I’ve ruined too many lives, including my own. Now is my chance to finally make things right. It’s my second chance at life and I can’t afford to take this one for granted.
“I’m ready to get sober.”
ONE
KILLIAN
One year later
I usedto be a firm non-believer in things happening for a reason. With all of the bad shit that happens in the world, it never made much sense to me. What could possibly be a legitimate reason, one that’s completely justifiable, for all of the bad? I could never come up with an answer, so it was never a belief that I had.
The foster system made me harder. The way that I grew up before being thrown into the system conditioned me into a certain way of thinking and beliefs. There was no good that came from the world. There were bad people that did bad things. No one ever did anything with good intentions behind their actions.
It was always a fucking struggle. Growing up in the shittiest parts of the city, with the lifestyle that my mom lived, was rough. In some people’s eyes, it may have seemed like I was neglected. In the eyes of the system, as long as I had a roof over my head and food in my stomach, there was no neglect to be seen.
