Thank you for your continued support. I appreciate it.
Standard disclaimer.
MERCEDES
As expected, things sucked at first.
With no phone, no internet, and limited access to TV, it was an immediate shock to my system.
Heck, even my little room with its single bed and dresser, was a huge change, but these things weren't the biggest differences in my life.
Crying.
Dear sweet Lord, there were a lot of tears.
I cried when my parents left.
I cried when I had to take the inpatient survey and got to the question...have you had thoughts of self-harm?
I cried when I was shown my room, after the tour of the facility and the grounds.
I cried myself to sleep that night, and that took hours, because, the sleeping pills had been taken from me.
And I cried in the morning, because, it was the first morning there, and I realized my life had spun completely out of control.
I was in treatment.
And I wasn't supposed to be there.
I was supposed to be a doctor. No. Scratch that. I was supposed to be a teacher.
I was supposed to be a daughter and a sister, a friend and maybe even a girlfriend.
And now, I was none of these things.
A nurse served breakfast in my room, after she took my blood pressure and temperature.
The utensils were plastic, as was the plate.
What did they expect me to do?
I ate some of the eggs and a piece of bacon, but it tasted like sawdust to me.
Artie showed up about half an hour later, and said,
"Walk with me."
I didn't really have a choice, so I pulled myself off the bed and followed him out into the wide hall.
There were other doors, that I guessed, led to rooms like mine.
As we passed them, a girl who appeared younger than me smiled at Artie, but looked away, when her gaze met mine.
She disappeared into one of the rooms, and all I could think, was how thin she was...so thin, that she appeared ill.
"How are you feeling this morning?" Artie asked.
Folding my arms across my chest, I shrugged a shoulder.
"Okay. I guess."
"Okay? Today is your first day in treatment. You're going to be here for at least thirty days," he said, shooting me a look of disbelief. "And you're okay?"
I shuddered. Well, when he put it that way...
"I'm a little freaked."
"That's completely understandable. You probably feel like your life is out of control. You're where you never thought you'd be."
He stopped in front of a dark-colored door, while I wondered if he was able to read my mind.
"Most, if not all, feel that way at first. Come on in."
Artie led me into a small office, with shelves overflowing with books.
As I sat in a chair, I looked over the titles. None of them appeared to be medical tomes.
I squinted and upon closer inspection, they appeared to be...a slew of romance novels.
What the...?
"You've noticed my books." He dropped into the chair behind the desk and shrugged un-apologetically. "I love me a happily-ever-after."
Okay.
"You're welcome to borrow as many as you like," he offered.
With no television or internet, I would so be taking him up on that offer, with a startling quickness.
"Alright, I'm going to give you a little background on who I am and what we do here." Leaning forward, he picked up a baseball. "I'm a clinical psychologist, who specializes in addiction counseling and treatment. Sounds spiffy, huh? This place treats a whole wide variety of things. After all, variety is the spice of life, or so they say."
He tossed the ball up and caught it.
Okay. This guy was kind of weird. Cute. But weird.
"We have people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol. We also have people here due to eating disorders and some who have depression. We've even had some, who have extreme phobias and some quite random addictions. But what does this all mean to you?"
He tossed the ball again, catching it.
"Some just do drugs. Some people just drink. We treat the addiction in those cases. But in others, we treat the disorder driving those addictions. If we don't, then all we are doing is treating the symptoms, but never the cause."
Catching the ball once more, Artie put it aside and then tapped a slip of paper on his desk.
"Now, based on your answers, to our generic-as-hell questionnaire, you say you don't drink all the time. Is that the truth?"
My fingers were digging into the skin of my arms.
"Yes."
"Are you lying, Mercedes?"
I blinked.
"No."
"But you drove drunk. Most people who drink occasionally, do not drink and drive."
"I...I drink..."
"Don't answer that question yet," he cut in, and I frowned. "Answer this. Was that the first time you drove while under the influence or have you done it before, but were not that drunk?"
I shook my head a little.
"I've never driven..." Pausing, I wet my lips, as my gaze shifted to the window behind him. "I might have done it before, after one or two beers, but I normally wait at least an hour or so."
"Normally? What made you not wait this time?"
My muscles were tensing up as my face heated.
"There was this guy there, at the bar, who I didn't recognize at first, but he knew me. We must've hooked up, and I wanted to get out of there."
"Did you do that all the time, hooking up while drinking?" he asked.
I shrugged again, as my face continued to burn.
"Mercedes, I need your answers. Your real answers. Or this is an absolute waste of time." His stare met mine. "I need you to be honest. Sometimes painfully and embarrassingly honest. It's the only way I'm going to help you. In a way, I'm going to break you, because, that's the only way I can really help you."
Wow! This sounded like fun.
"Do you want to change?" Artie asked.
I suddenly thought back to those moments before I left the bar, when I realized that the change I needed, wasn't something external, but all inside me.
I'd recognized that before I'd even gotten in the car.
Lifting my gaze, it was hard to hold his, but I felt the need to be honest.
"Yes. I want to change."
Artie smiled, but I didn't feel like smiling.
"I've hooked up with guys when I've been drunk. There are times that I..."
I trailed off, feeling completely mortified.
"...hat I don't remember the details. I don't even know what I've done or didn't do."
Once I started speaking, the words kept pouring out.
"I don't even know if I wanted to be with them, or if I thought it was expected. Or if it was because I'd been drinking. I've done it a lot."
"It doesn't matter if it's been two or two thousand, Mercedes." He spread his arms wide. "There's no judgment here."
"That's..."
He waited.
"What?"
It was hard to get the words out.
"No judging? That's a...unique concept."
"Get used to it," Artie replied, flashing a quick grin. "Is that the only time you've had sexual relations?"
Goodness, this conversation got awkward quick. There was no breaking me in, but I wanted to change, more than I cared about being embarrassed.
"No. Not every time," I whispered, staring at the front of his desk. There was a Baltimore Orioles sticker plastered across the center. "There was this one guy. He didn't like that I drank...like I did, and I think...he really liked me."
Over the next couple of weeks, Artie became a magician, when it came to getting me, to put a voice to all my thoughts, my fears and the random crap, that sort of just came out of my mouth.
There was a lot of talking and a lot of listening.
Sometimes we walked.
Sometimes we talked in his office.
Other times, he made me talk in the art studio, while I sat in front of a blank canvas.
I had no idea what in the hell that was supposed to symbolize, but Artie...yeah, he was weird in a really effective way.
I didn't have withdrawal symptoms from alcohol, something that didn't seem to surprise Artie or the staff, but I did have a problem.
I was a binge drinker, possibly one of the most dangerous forms of alcohol abuse.
Where some alcoholics drank every day...a little here and a little more there...I drank, until I was so drunk, I couldn't say my name.
I drank to the point, that the alcohol in my blood could kill me.
I drank, until I was unable to think, every single time. I just didn't have, whatever people had in their heads, that made them stop.
I couldn't.
That wasn't the only diagnosis. There were a couple more.
An understanding that came two days after I'd told Artie, how I had a habit of rearranging my furniture and painting the walls, during those quiet moments.
Of course, it wasn't the only thing that led to the diagnosis. Years worth of stuff had led to it.
Depression and Anxiety.
The diagnosis didn't surprise me either, not if I were being truthful.
Maybe part of me had always known.
Interesting enough, it would be a while, before the role that alcohol played in my illness, was known.
There was also an emphasis on physical activity.
Besides the fact, I was a little weak and a lot sore from surgery, there was a stress on staying healthy.
I was lucky, though. I didn't need physical therapy.
After the third week, I was allowed visitors twice a week, for an hour each time.
My parents came the first time, along with my brother, and that was hard.
Shay came the second time, and that had been even harder.
She had told me that Sam wanted to visit me. I wasn't sure if I was ready for that, but I couldn't avoid him forever.
He hadn't done anything wrong. For the most part, he'd done everything right, and so, I agreed to see him.
Sam came on a Thursday afternoon, in the fifth week.
Without makeup, I felt exposed, as I waited for him in one of the visitation rooms.
The whole makeup thing felt silly, but there was nothing between us now. Not even a layer of foundation. No pretenses.
The room wasn't bad. It had a couch and two chairs, a table in the corner, and it was painted a pretty robin-egg blue, and I figured it was monitored.
Made sense.
No one who worked here, wanted people passing drugs or something to the patients.
I'd been waiting for about five minutes, when the door opened.
I looked up and my tummy dropped, when I saw Sam. Goodness, it felt like forever since I'd last seen him.
He walked into the room and then stopped. The door closed behind him, and he didn't move...he just stared at me.
His blonde hair appeared freshly cut, buzzed on the sides, and his jaw bare of stubble.
Those fantastic green eyes of his burned bright, from behind a fringe of long lashes. But his striking face was pale.
For a long moment, neither of us moved, and then I stood on shaky knees.
Sam came forward, his long-legged pace, eating up the distance between us, and then I was in his arms.
I let out a soft gasp, as I squeezed my eyes shut and he held me close to his chest.
I greedily soaked up the warmth of his body, and breathed in the fresh clean scent of his cologne.
"I had no idea if I'd ever get to do this again," he said, his voice gruff, as his chin grazed the top of my head. "The last time I saw you..."
He pulled back, sliding his hands to my arms.
Despite everything, a tight shiver coiled down my spine.
"I didn't hurt you, did I? I wasn't thinking..." he said.
"No. I'm fine. Nothing really hurts anymore." My gaze drifted to his and caught. I didn't know what to say.
It seemed like Sam didn't know either, but after a few seconds, he took my hand and guided me over to the couch.
We sat side by side and I expected him to let go of my hand, but he didn't.
"You look a thousand times better, than the last time I saw you," Sam said.
"I can imagine." I laughed, but it was without humor. Then, I studied our hands. "I wish you hadn't seen me like that."
"I wish that had never happened."
"Me too."
He was quiet for a moment.
"I don't know what to say. We only have an hour and I don't want to waste a second, but all I can do, is sit here and stare at you."
Oh gosh, why did he always have to say the right stuff?
"I guess I'll start with saying, I'm happy that you were okay with seeing me. I knew you were okay, but I...I just needed to see it with my own eyes."
"I know you heard the call go out and that you came straight to the hospital," I told him. "I'm sorry you had to go through any of that. I just wasn't ready to see you."
"You don't need to apologize." He squeezed my hand. "What's been going on in here?"
I raised a shoulder and then became aware of what I was doing. I wasn't being honest. I was hiding, and damn, if Sam deserved anything from me, it was the truth...it wasn't to sit here and act like a tool.
Taking a deep breath, I slipped my hand free. I couldn't be touching him when I had to be honest. It was weird, but true.
"I've spent a lot of time talking."
"About?"
I smiled wanly.
"Everything."
"Would you...would you tell me?" he asked.
This was hard. Putting voice to this stuff, especially to someone like Sam. He's probably only ever seen one side of me.
But it was something we focused on during my sessions with Artie...to put a voice to what I was feeling, to cope that way, instead of bottling it up...and turning to a bottle.
So I told him.
I talked about always rushing towards tomorrow, my restlessness and all those quiet moments.
I confided in my fear of letting my parents down and how I couldn't settle on a future.
I even told him, about when I'd taken my first drink and how it felt to not care about anything...to feel like I was free. And I told him about the crash, because that feeling never lasted.
When I was done, I was exhausted.
It was like shedding skin, but all of these things I spoke to Sam about, it wasn't the first time I gave them a voice. These were all things that Artie had snaked out of me, one meeting after another.
I exhaled loudly.
"So that's...everything."
"Yeah," Sam said quietly, and I peeked at him. He was staring at the wall. "That is everything. I..."
My cheeks heated.
"You're probably wishing you hadn't asked."
"No. Not at all," he replied quickly. "I just didn't know. I mean, I knew you...I thought that there was something going on, but you're getting help."
I shifted.
"Sometimes I wonder, if I would've changed on my own. If I hadn't gotten into that car and had the accident...if I would still be doing what I was doing," I admitted.
Sam nodded slowly.
"I don't think you'll ever know, but you know what, it doesn't matter. You're doing something about all this now, and that's what counts."
I glanced over at him.
"Really? That's what counts?"
His brows knitted.
"Yes."
"I don't know. I think it has to be more than that. I messed up, Sam. I drove drunk and could've killed someone. I think that counts."
"It does." He twisted towards me. "But you didn't. You only hurt yourself. And you're getting help. The fact that you are facing this is a big deal. And Shay told me you didn't fight it, when your dad said you were going to treatment. Facing this takes real courage."
'Courage?'
I wasn't sure about that.
Sam's gaze searched mine.
"Just in case you're wondering, I'm not looking at you any differently, and I'm still waiting for you to come to me."
My jaw nearly hit the floor.
"What?"
He grinned a little.
"Mercedes, I really care about you. What I feel..." He moved his hand to his chest, above his heart. "I..."
"I've been diagnosed with depression. They think it's a chemical imbalance, since I haven't had any major life changes that would cause this, but that's not something, that is as easy to diagnose, as people think it is. I have anxiety too, and it could be coming from the depression or the drinking. Or it could be a whole different set of issues. It could take months to really give a definitive diagnosis, but I've been self-medicating," I rushed on, getting it out there. "With alcohol, and God knows what else."
Sam blinked.
"Okay."
A knot crept into my throat.
"I think I've always known. I mean, I knew my head...my thoughts sometimes, just didn't make sense. Like it always went to the worst-case scenario and I don't think I'm good enough or worthy enough, and those quiet moments, God, they're killer. That's what's really going on with me, so please...please don't say anything you really don't mean."
Sam didn't say anything for a moment and then,
"First off, you are fucking good enough and you are worthy. Okay? Yeah, you made a shit choice, when you got behind the wheel of that car, but that's not going to define who you are from this point on. You know why?"
My eyes widened.
"Why?"
"Because, you've learned from your shit choice. You are still learning. You are doing everything to not make a shit choice like that again. And secondly? You have depression. So do millions of other people. I'm not trying to downplay it. I know it's serious shit, but do you think, that makes me think less of you? Depression isn't a villain in this. The way you were trying to cope with it was. Depression isn't the bad guy and neither are you. Not when you recognize what you've done."
Tears rushed my eyes.
"And finally?" he continued. "I love you, Mercedes."
My lips parted.
"Come again?"
He barked out a short laugh.
"I love you. Okay? I'm not quite sure when I realized it, or how long I've felt it, but I know that's what I feel. Trust me. When I thought you were going to die, the panic and horror I felt? Yeah, I know how I feel."
All I could do was stare at him.
"I'm not expecting you to say it back to me." He gently cupped my cheeks and tilted my head back. "I don't want you to say it back to me now, because, when I hear those words, I want you to be sure. I want you to say them with only happiness in your eyes. I can wait for that. I will wait for that."
As I stared into his eyes, in that moment, I knew that I still loved him, but I could not shake the feeling...the realization, that I so did not deserve him.
I did not deserve the happy ending Artie loved so much.
Stay safe!