Released

by Shay Savage

  “Banging?” Tria asked softly.

  “Um…yeah—injecting heroin is called banging. Or fixing.”

  “That’s when you started using heroin?”

  I nodded.

  “That was the first time,” I said. “After that, I pretty much spent my time either doing H or finding money so I could buy more. That is, until Yolanda found me. She…um…she saved me, I guess.”

  “Did she?” Tria remarked as she raised her eyebrows.

  “Compared to where I had been.” I shrugged. “You know most of the rest. Um…that was the why of it. How I got there.”

  My hands were shaking as I sat and waited for her to say something. Tria remained quiet as she kept twisting her fingers around themselves and staring at the floor.

  “Tria?”

  She looked at me, but her face was blank.

  “I knew how fucked up I was,” I said. “I realized it before it was…before it was too late. I went to Dr. Baynor, and he took all my shit—took the drugs, I mean. I didn’t want to be like that—I don’t want to be like that. I didn’t know what to do without you. I asked Elissa if she had seen you, and she said you were in class, but you didn’t talk to her. I wanted to look for you, but I didn’t know where. Then I thought about it, and I thought you might be with Yolanda. Well, Krazy Katie said something that made me think…doesn’t matter.”

  I rubbed at my jaw a bit, which was still pretty sore from Yolanda’s first punch to my face.

  “I was pretty sure as soon as she opened the door that you were there.”

  I didn’t know what else I was supposed to say, so I waited for Tria to respond. She just stared at the closed curtains and didn’t seem inclined to even look at me.

  “Please…say something,” I begged and immediately regretted it.

  “I don’t want to raise my child with a junkie,” she said definitively.

  It wasn’t just my heart that tried to seize up—all of my insides went right along with it.

  “I won’t,” I managed to utter through a tightened throat. “Never again—ever, Tria.”

  The sound that came from her almost sounded like a laugh though there was nothing funny about it, and tears began to stream out of her eyes again.

  “Even if I could believe you,” she said with a heavy voice, “how can I be with you if you don’t want our baby? How can I even consider being with a man who can’t even express his emotions until he’s in the midst of a panic attack?”

  My stomach clenched, and I pulled my knees up to my chest. Leaning forward, I covered my face with my hands and let the tension in my muscles hold my body together. I was pretty sure something would just explode right off of me if I didn’t.

  She wasn’t going to take me back.

  She was going to have the baby.

  Without me.

  I brought my hands away from my face, slowly opened my eyes, and then looked up at her while I tried to figure out what was happening in my head. Unwanted images of Tria sitting on the worn out couch in the living room of our apartment with a baby in her arms filled my head. In my mind, I brought her a glass of apple juice and sat down next to her, smiling at the tiny creature in her arms.

  “That isn’t it,” I croaked.

  “What isn’t it?” she asked.

  I furrowed my brow as I tried to find the right words.

  “It’s not that I don’t want the baby,” I finally said. “I just can’t…I can’t stand the thought of anything happening to you. Every time I think about it—even just a little bit—I see you there on the floor in the bathroom instead of…instead of Aimee, and it just about kills me.”

  “What are you saying?” Tria asked softly.

  “It’s not that I don’t want a baby,” I repeated. “I just…I don’t want you to be pregnant. Tria, you don’t realize how dangerous it can be.”

  “I know shit can happen,” she told me. “I know there are dangers, Liam, and I understand now why all of this freaks you out, but that doesn’t change what I have to do. I’m going to have this baby, and I can’t raise this baby with a man who throws things and runs away when shit gets hard.”

  My hands and feet went numb, and I couldn’t pull in a breath at all.

  “Please…I won’t,” I told her. “I won’t do any of that shit again.”

  “There’s more to it than that, Liam.”

  “I’ll do anything!” There was more pressure inside of my skull, and breathing wasn’t any easier. Even though I’d beg and swear anything to her, I could see it in her eyes—it wasn’t going to matter. Nothing I said was going to make any difference.

  “Such as?”

  “I won’t walk out on you again,” I promised.

  “You’ve said that before,” she reminded me. “You said you wouldn’t walk out on me again, but you did—twice now. You said you were done with drugs, and you used again. I can’t trust you, Liam.”

  “I’ll prove it to you,” I said, “but you have to give me the chance.”

  “Get counseling,” Tria said.

  I managed not to roll my eyes outside of my own imagination, but it wasn’t easy.

  “We’re going to have to save every extra penny, Tria,” I told her. “We can’t afford—”

  “Liam,” Tria said as she stood up straighter—the tone of her voice deepened a little— “unless you get help, there is no we. I do understand a lot better now, but I am still going to have this baby. Having the baby means I’m going to be spending the next six months pregnant. After that, there is going to be a baby. If you don’t want to…to give it up, then that means we’re going to be raising it.”

  “No adoption,” I said. My heart began to pound in my chest again as her words seeped into me. I focused my hearing on her every word, trying to understand exactly what she was saying—trying to hear some semblance of hope in her tone. “If you…if you are going to go through with it…with the…”

  I had to force myself to swallow to keep speaking.

  “With the pregnancy, then we’re going to keep the baby.”

  “If you are going to be part of this child’s life, you have to get healthy.”

  “I will,” I said with a nod. “I won’t touch the H again—ever.”

  We stared at each other, unmoving, for a long moment. I hoped to God she believed me. I meant every word of it—I wouldn’t touch the shit again, not if it meant losing her. I knew I could survive withdrawal, and I knew I could get myself past all that because I had done it before. I couldn’t survive without her—I was sure about that.

  “As long as you are staying away from the drugs, I would never keep you from your child. I hope you know that I want you to be a part of your child’s life.”

  As nice as her words sounded, I didn’t miss what was between the lines.

  “What about…what about being part of…of your life?” I asked.

  Mentally, I braced myself for the answer. Physically, my body was already trying to freak out on me. Between my shaking hands, numb feet, and churning stomach, I was surprised there weren’t a dozen bleeping noises coming from the machines next to the bed.

  “I don’t know, Liam,” Tria replied softly. “You frightened me, and I understand now, but that doesn’t change how much you scared me.”

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” I told her.

  “I know you didn’t mean to,” she said, “but you did. And I don’t know how to make you better.”

  I gripped the sheets on the bed in a vain attempt to keep myself grounded. I had to be able to think straight. I had to be able to turn this around.

  I was losing, and I couldn’t lose.

  “If you are going to do this—” I struggled as my throat tried to seize up on me. It took a minute, and I had to start again. “If you are going to go through with this, I want to be there. I have to be able to protect you—keep you safe.”

  Tria let out a soft, humorless laugh.

  “Liam, you are in no condition to save yourself. What good a
re you to me right now?”

  “I’ll be fine,” I assured her. “I won’t do any of that shit again—I swear—”

  “Don’t!” Tria yelled, cutting me off. “Don’t you make another promise to me, Liam Teague. I can’t take any more of those.”

  She eyed me for a minute.

  “Actions,” she said. “There have to be actions for me to even think about it.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, and then decided it didn’t matter. “Whatever it is, Tria—I’ll do it. Whatever you want—whatever you need.”

  “Thirty days,” Tria said with a nod.

  “What?” I leaned back a bit as my eyebrows came together.

  “I’ll give you thirty days,” she repeated. “You do whatever Dr. Baynor tells you—see a counselor, get on medication, take care of yourself, stay clean…hell, keep your apartment clean. I don’t want to hear any excuses about why any of it couldn’t be done.”

  I swallowed and nodded.

  “There’s one more thing,” she said, “and I know this one is probably going to be the hardest, but I think it’s an important one.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Talk to your mother.” Tria’s eyes were calm and sure, while my insides felt like they were being turned inside out. “Someday you are going to need to talk to your father, too, but you need to start with your mother.”

  “No,” I responded. “I’m not doing that.”

  She turned her mouth into a tight-lipped, sad smile as she glanced down at the floor.

  “Then you aren’t ready to be a father.”

  Tria turned slowly and started toward the door. As she moved away from me, the inside-out feelings in my stomach spread to the rest of my body.

  “Don’t!” I cried out. “Don’t go! Please! I’ll do it! I’ll talk to her!”

  She kept her eyes on mine, and the sight of more tears caused by me as they rolled down her cheeks was more than I could take.

  “I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll talk to any of them—all of them. Whoever you want—my family, the doctors—just don’t…don’t leave me.”

  “Thirty days,” she said again. “Prove to me you can do it.”

  “I can.”

  “I hope so,” Tria said, “because you’ve been holding all of this inside for way too long, and I think you are going to need your family to get through all of this.”

  “They’re the ones who started all of it,” I snarled, immediately regretting the tone. I took a breath to calm down, but my stomach was starting to churn again. “I’ll talk to her if that’s one of your conditions, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be a fun and happy conversation. It doesn’t mean we’re going to be having tea and fucking crumpets at the end of it.”

  Tria took a few more steps toward the door, slowly shaking her head. Before she walked out, she paused and turned back to me.

  “This isn’t right,” she said quietly. “You shouldn’t be doing this because I’m threatening you.”

  “It’s…it’s not,” I said, knowing it was at least partially a lie. Not wanting to lie to her, I kept babbling instead. “I mean, I am to some degree. I can’t argue with that. But Tria, I’ll do anything you want. I know I’m not…worth it, but I want to be. I want to be better for you…for you and…and…”

  I tried to stop it, but a hot tear leaked out of the corner of my eye.

  “You and our baby.”

  I watched her face and saw it was still filled with doubt.

  “I’ll do it,” I told her. “I love you, Tria. I’ll do anything to make all of this right.”

  A matching tear fell off Tria’s chin as she offered me her first real smile.

  “You do all of that,” Tria stated, “and if after thirty days Dr. Baynor agrees you have done everything you can to get yourself better, we can talk about trying this again.”

  I was never one to make deals, but it was the only chance I had.

  Chapter 5—Write the List

  How long I sat there in the center of the hospital bed after Tria left and watched the empty doorway could have been anyone’s guess. At some point, Dr. Baynor’s face appeared there. He squinted his eyes a little and gave me a wary half smile.

  “How you feeling?”

  “Like my pregnant girlfriend just left me.”

  “She left you a few weeks ago,” he said.

  As if I needed reminding.

  “This time feels a little more definite.”

  He walked the rest of the way into the room, checked my vitals, and then pulled the rolling circular chair to the side of my bed.

  “You told her,” he stated. He didn’t have to ask.

  “Yeah—sage fucking advice you had there, asshole.”

  “I have to admit, I didn’t think you would actually do it. If I had, I would have tried to prepare you a little more. You also haven’t talked to me yet, so I don’t know what your triggers may be.”

  I glanced at him with narrowed eyes, but I didn’t have the strength to really be pissed off at him.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “Now,” Dr. Baynor said, “you tell me.”

  I just shook my head and laughed humorlessly.

  “Yeah—there’s a brilliant idea. I just about have a heart attack the last time, and you want to have me do it again? What is it, Banter? You need some practice with the defib paddles?”

  “No,” he replied, “I’m actually quite good at those. Liam, you didn’t have a heart attack. You had a panic attack. You’ve kept all of this inside of you for a decade. You may think you’ve been dealing with it all these years by ignoring it, but your inability to bring it up without intense physical reactions means you haven’t.”

  “Sounds like bullshit to me,” I muttered as I looked away from him.

  “It sounds perfectly reasonable to you,” Baynor countered. “That’s why you don’t want to talk about it.”

  Glaring at him, I considered just bailing on the conversation and the hospital as a whole. I was pretty sure I could have gotten out faster than he could get someone here who was able to restrain me. Of course, I wasn’t wearing anything but the fucking open-assed gown.

  “Fuck you,” I finally said.

  He smashed his lips together and looked down at his hands.

  “I guess you aren’t ready for this,” he said quietly.

  He stood up and started across the room as images of Tria doing the same walk away from me cavorted in my frontal lobe. My stomach clenched and felt like it did a complete summersault inside my gut.

  “Wait!” I called out.

  He turned and raised a brow at me.

  “I can…I can try.”

  *****

  Still shaking, I curled up on my side and let the nurse run a cold cloth over the back of my neck. Part of me wanted to punch him in the face, and another part of me wanted to at least tell him to go fuck himself, but I didn’t.

  I was too exhausted to do anything.

  Baynor had let me take my time, and I had talked to him for a good three hours before I managed to get it all out there. My stomach revolted; sweat poured out of my skin; my hands shook. I wasn’t sure if it was because my body wanted H or because my mind wanted to shut down and Baynor wasn’t letting me.

  I thought I was supposed to feel better after getting it all out there, but I didn’t.

  I couldn’t even sleep that night.

  Baynor returned in the morning and handed me a brown paper sack. I looked at him warily and then slowly pulled out a small book with a fabric cover. I thumbed through it, but all the pages were blank.

  “What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?” I asked.

  “Write in it,” he responded with a shrug. “That’s what you do with a journal.”

  “You’re giving me a fucking diary?” I asked. “Do I look like a twelve-year-old girl?”

  “No, you look like a completely destroyed grown-up man.” He put his hands on his hips and looked down at me. “I’m sending yo
u home tomorrow. I want you to at least write something in it before your first session with Erin Chambers.”

  I didn’t even pay any attention to what he said though I probably should have.

  “I thought I had to talk and shit. Why do I have to write?”

  “We have been talking,” he said, “but there’s more to it than that, and you know it.”

  I frowned at the book in my hands, flipped it over, and then fanned through the blank pages again.

  “What do I write in it?” I asked. My throat tightened. “Do I have to…to write all of that shit we talked about? I mean, about what happened?”

  “About Aimee and the baby’s death,” he said quietly.

  I swallowed as I nodded slowly.

  “It’s okay to say the words, Liam,” he told me. “You’ve avoided that for too long, but no—you don’t have to write down anything in particular. Write down what you feel like writing down.”

  “I don’t get it,” I admitted.

  “You’ll figure it out. Get a pen, open the book, and put the two of them together—something will come.”

  The small book felt heavy, and I continued to glare at it as I placed it on the bedside table. I felt like the damn thing was looking at me, and I kept glancing at the spine for little blinking eyes.

  “There’s no way I can afford the shrink,” I said.

  “Liam, you’re making excuses.”

  “I’m not.” I shook my head as I argued. “I don’t make much anyway; rent is due this weekend, and I blew my cash on smack. I don’t want anyone calling in the Teague cash cavalry, either. I’m going to need to make more money for the…the baby. I can’t even pay for this little ‘night on the town’ here.”

  Baynor eyed me for a minute before opening his mouth.

  “You were brought here in the midst of a panic attack,” he said. “I determined you needed to be held for evaluation, so there’s no charge for the hospital stay. Your income level qualifies you for assistance with the therapy, including the first ten sessions at no charge. You know you can get other government assistance, too.”

  “Welfare? Bullshit.”