Disclaimer: I don't own the WWE
A/N: I added in a counter. That means, I'm going to count by days in this story. Chapter three was day one. If you go back, it now says that in bold letters. I'm not counting the day she arrives at the facility as a full day. This chapter is still day one. Thanks to everyone who reviewed. And congrats to Jeffro on his Slammy. He earned it with that move, that's for sure. Crazy ass.
Celebrity Rehab With Jeff Hardy
Chapter 5: First Meeting with Doctor Callahan
"So, why wrestling?" Free asked as she and Jeff sat at an isolated picnic table outside being monitored by Tammy along with a few other patients who'd chosen to eat outside.
Jeff looked up from his sandwich and shrugged. "Don't really know why I wanted to do it. But I was positive that I did. I kinda... I mean... I'm, not really afraid of anythin'. I'm pretty spontaneous. Me and my brother started doin' it on the trampoline in the backyard and it just expanded from there," he told her, gesturing with his hands. "I just grew up watchin' it. And I wasn't shy about tryin' to do it," he continued with a chuckle.
Free scrunched her face, dropping the plastic fork into her salad and leaning into the back of the lawn chair. "How do you do it? I mean, it's not real, is it?"
"In the sense that it's an actual competition, no it's not real. We know who's gonna win the match. But I mean, everythin' else is pretty spur of the moment. We set up a few spots... uh, that's like, moves we're definitely gonna do, and we set up the end of the match usually. But the rest just flows. You gotta be on your feet at all times, ready to sell anythin' that's thrown atchya. More often than not, we get hit with punches and kicks," he explained, pushing strands of his purple hair that had fallen from his bun behind his ear. "You don't really get it, do ya?" Jeff asked with a slight smile, seeing that Free was trying to configure it all in her head.
Her shoulders lifted and she reached for the pack of cigarettes resting on the table by her drink. "Not really. Kind of but... I've never really watched it or anything. Don't you guys get hurt?"
"Sometimes." Her slim hands pulled a thin stick from the carton and she placed it between her glossed lips, flicking the lighter a few times before getting a decent flame and lighting the tip. Jeff stared at the cigarette and coughed a bit, feeling a craving for one. He hadn't smoked in ages, but...
"Can I bum one?" he asked. Free's eyebrows rose and a small, lopsided smile rose on to her pretty lips.
"I didn't think you smoked..." Her delicate fingers pulled another cigarette from the package and she handed it over to Jeff, who quickly used her purple lighter to set it ablaze and inhaled the smoke, feeling a rush of relief wash over him. He'd forgotten how calming the cancer stick could be.
"I haven't in a while... but..." Jeff never finished his statement, distracted by Free's compulsive behavior as she arranged the things in front of her to her liking, having to nudge her lighter three times before it was in a place that made her comfortable.
Free's face flushed as she noticed Jeff watching her, cigarette resting between his lips. God, it was so embarrassing when she had to do things like this! "Sorry..." she muttered.
"For what?"
"Being... weird. I don't know..."
Jeff snorted and shook his head. "You're apologizin' to me for bein' weird? That's a first." Jeff took another satisfying drag of the cigarette and blew the smoke into the air, watching as it swirled through the beams of sunlight.
Free began biting her fingernails. She was feeling anxious, and thanked whatever god there was when one of the nurses named Darlene came outside, a collection of plastic cups balancing on a small circular tray. A sigh of relief escaped her lips as Darlene placed a cup in front of her, then moved on to Jeff.
Free quickly dumped the mild anxiety medication into her palm and tossed the pills into her mouth, downing them with a huge gulp of water from her bottle. The absence of heroin in her bloodstream was already starting to get to her, and she hadn't even been at the facility for a full twenty-four hours.
Free knew this wasn't going to be easy, and she was scared. Jeff could sense some apprehension coming from her and the connection amazed him again. He reluctantly took his medication before addressing her. "S'wrong?"
Free looked into his eyes, strangely tiger-like, and wondered if she was that predictable. With another soft sigh, her hands smoothed over her jean clad thighs before she spoke. "I'm just waiting... like everyone else. I know withdrawal isn't going to be some walk in the park for me and I'm pretty sure everyone sees me as some... ticking time bomb or something."
Jeff nodded, glad his withdrawal had been rather mild, just a sick feeling for a few hours and a fluctuating fever. He didn't see himself as a hopeless addict, like a lot of the other people here. He wanted to get better though, and didn't want to jeopardize his job at all. So he'd checked himself in.
Free's was going to be bad though. She was the only heroin addict in this wing of the center. Some of the patients and even some of the nurses had been whispering about the anticipation of it.
"God, this sucks," she groaned, rubbing at her eyes, skillfully still managing to balance the cigarette between her index and middle finger. "I just need a hit so bad right now..."
He wondered what her cravings were like as he watched her suck down the cigarette in no time, jagged nails absentmindedly picking at the scabs on her pale underarms. He got the itch to take a few pain pills whenever his back or shoulders cramped up, but hers must flare. Jeff knew all about the itchy blood and the common heroin withdrawal symptoms.
All they could do was sit back and wait, then watch as she went through them. It wasn't going to be pretty.
"How are you feeling?" Dr. Callahan was a tall, older man, with graying hair and a distracting mustache. His glasses were thick, and sat high on the bridge of his nose and his belt seemed strained around his thickening waist.
Free looked up from her fidgeting hands, trying to distract her urge to reposition a few trinkets on the edge of his desk. It made her too uncomfortable though, so she reached out and straightened them before licking her dry lips. He wrote something in his notepad.
Callahan of course knew Free was obsessive compulsive from her files, so the action didn't shock him at all. She seemed nervous, uneasy. Paranoid. Not that these were uncharacteristic qualities of heroin addicts. Or an addicts for that matter.
The blonde girl sighed and shrugged her slim shoulders. Her left hand began to scratch at the skin covering her forearms, scarred with track marks, some new, some old. "I'm... okay." More writing.
"Are you settling in?" the doctor wondered, looking for any stiff of uncomfortable reactions that may hint she was having a hard time adjusting.
"I guess so. Yeah."
"How are you getting along with the other patients?" the man asked after a momentary pause. Free's eyes wandered to his notepad, trying to peer over the edge to see what he was writing, with no luck.
"Um... okay. Veronica is... nice. I like Jeff," she blurted out. Her face flushed, knowing she had initially gotten a slight crush on the wrestler. But this wasn't really the place for romance now, was it? No.
Dr. Callahan wrote some more down in his notepad, the scraping of his pencil loud in the quiet office. The only other noise was their breathing and the ticking of the wall clock.
"What is it you like about Jeff? You know he hasn't been very interactive in general with anyone here," he added.
Again, her shoulders shrugged. "I don't know. He seems so... normal. Everyone else seems really... paranoid or stressed out... or messed up. I'm not even sure he needs to be here," she admitted. Callahan nodded and scribbled some more notes down.
"Have you talked to him about your addiction?" Callahan wondered, knowing patients were more likely to open up to their peers at first.
"A little..." she recalled. "I told him how I wanted to use today." More writing.
"Really? And how bad is this urge. What does it make you feel like?" the doctor questioned, peeking over the rim of his glasses.
Free thought about it for a minute. "I feel like... like a little on edge. I've gone without it for longer than this before though..." she confessed.
"How long?" More writing.
"Four days since I'd become an addict. I just couldn't get any." She remembered that time when she'd been on vacation in Florida. It had taken her four days to find a trustworthy dealer, well, as trustworthy as a drug dealer could be anyway.
"And when exactly do you think you became an addict?"
She had to think about it for a minute? When had she first tried heroin? She couldn't even remember. But she remembered shooting up when she was eighteen at her friend's birthday party.
More writing.
"I... I don't know. I was an addict by the time I was eighteen though. I remember this party...." Free stopped herself from elaborating, feeling as though there was no need to explain.
More writing.
"Do you want to tell me about the party?"
Free licked her dried lips, looking around the neat office, searching for some imperfection to go fix, but found nothing that bothered her. This was strange. She'd never seen a therapist of any kind before. And she wasn't sure how she felt about letting this stranger in on all her personal flaws.
"Um..." She became distracted by the chomping of her fingernails. "No." she finally decided. "I want to call my dad."
The doctor tried to sigh discreetly, before writing something else down. "All right. We can continue this is a few days, right?"
Free just nodded and stood, ready to leave the suffocating office.