by Claire Adams
Chapter Nineteen
Cassidy
My palms were drenched in sweat by the time I arrived at work the next day. I was nervous to see Erik again. My nervousness came because I was afraid he would pull me aside again and I would get caught.
He was a great guy and I couldn’t wait to see him outside of the treatment center, but I had to stay away from him there. The problem I had was I literally felt drawn to him. I was happy when I was around him. He made me smile and brightened up my day. Even while we had avoided each other on the unit, I still felt so excited every time I looked at him.
When he pulled me into the doorway and kissed me, I wanted it so badly. I wanted to stay there and kiss him all day long. After I arrived back home, I laid on my bed for hours thinking about what life might be like between us when he got out. He could stick around Aspen for a while; we could go on dates and get to know each other.
I’d love to learn more about his company and his friend. I knew he didn’t have other family who cared for him, but I still wanted to know more about him and how he had become estranged from the rest of his family. It really felt like we were a good match.
As I walked onto the unit, there was a visible disturbance going on in the corner. Most of the patients were looking that way, and I saw Susan trying standing like she was ready to pounce on whoever was fighting.
We didn’t often get fights on our units, or at least not fights that actually required any physical involvement. We often had verbal arguments that got a little out of hand and required a staff member to intervene and calm the patients down. So, I hurried over to the area to see what was going on and if I was needed.
“What’s going on?” I asked Brianna as I made my way closer.
“Erik got into a fight with his Dad, I think, and now his brother.”
Since Erik hadn’t really talked about his family at all, I wasn’t sure who exactly he was fighting with. It was my understanding he didn’t have anyone who cared about him. I hurried over to get a closer look and found one man posturing like he was getting ready to punch Erik. I moved forward to stop the argument, but Susan grabbed a hold of me and stopped me.
“He’s not going to punch him,” she said. “Just wait.”
I was hesitant to wait. The last thing Erik needed was a wild family member trying to attack him. But I followed orders and waited for a minute to see if things calmed down.
“You can’t just buy your way back into this family,” the visitor to the unit yelled. “You think you can just buy what you want. You can’t buy me.”
“Heath, I was trying to do something good for you and Dad. That’s all,” Erik said calmly as he stayed away from the other man.
“Dad doesn’t take charity. I don’t take charity. Whatever this is, it won’t make things better.”
It was his brother, but I couldn’t figure out what had happened and why it was nearly a fist fight. Erik didn’t strike me as the kind of man who would fight with his family, but then again, I barely knew anything about them and only a little more about Erik. He had been so closed about his story. I was listening to the argument and trying to figure out what the heck was going on.
“Heath, it’s not charity if it’s family. I just wanted to make life easier for you two. I don’t own the company. I don’t own your house. I don’t own Dad’s house. I just sent them the money so you don’t have to pay anymore.”
“No, I saw the paper. It says Erik Levy.”
Erik seemed exasperated as he tried to explain what was going on. He grabbed a piece of paper off of the table and slowly walked over to his brother who still had his fists up. Erik was calm and looked his brother right in the eyes as he started to talk.
“Heath, this is just a receipt of payment. That’s all. You will get the deed in the mail in a few weeks. Look, see right here, it says ‘the deed will arrive in two to three weeks,’” Erik said.
“It doesn’t say the deed with be in our names. The only name on that paper is yours.”
“Heath, I didn’t buy your house. What would I do with your house? You’re such a baby.”
“I am not.”
“You are, too,” Erik said as the two men sounded exactly like two brothers in an argument. “Now, go get Dad from outside and let’s figure this out.”
“Anything I can help with here?” Jarrod asked as he walked in on the scene.
“Yes!” Erik exclaimed. “I paid off my father’s business and both of their homes. But they both seem to be angry at me and think that I actually bought their homes.”
“Erik has never done a single nice thing for us. It’s not weird that we would think he tried to buy the business,” Heath defended his opinion.
“How about we get everyone together and head to my office? I’m sure we can work things out,” Jarrod said calmly.
Jarrod was bigger than both the men and stood between them as he made his suggestion, clearly more of an actual direction for them to do as he said. He had an intimidating presence, although he was really one of the best counselors I knew. He was much better than the therapists I had dealt with at my treatment center. In fact, most of the therapists I had spent our sessions talking about their own sobriety and hardly working with me at all. It was a wonder I was ever able to make it out of treatment and succeed at all.
I have learned that treatment is as much about your state of mind as it is about the people you surround yourself with. Sure, I might not have had the best treatment center in the world, but I didn’t use that as an excuse. When I returned home, I knew I had to build a support network of people who I could really count on, and I did it.
My heart actually grew as I heard what had happened with Erik and his family. They didn’t get along, and Erik still paid off their debts. I knew there must have been more to the story, but I had to commend the guy for making an effort at rebuilding those old relationships. If his family decided not to forgive him or not to have him in their life, that would be their decision, but it was clear that Erik was making an effort.
The rest of the morning went off pretty uneventfully as I continued to work and anxiously waited for Erik to return to the unit. He had been gone for hours, and I seriously couldn’t imagine any family meeting taking that long. There was no way Jarrod had the time in his schedule to sit with them and work out every problem the group of three men had, but since Erik wasn’t returning to the unit, I had to wonder if Jarrod was making time for them after all.
It was well after lunch when Erik, his father, and his brother all walked onto the unit. They looked happy with smiles that spread across their faces. His brother even reached out and patted Erik on the back as they stood near the exit and seemed to be saying their goodbyes. Whatever Jarrod had done seemed to have worked wonders because the men had made up and even hugged each other just before they walked out the door.
Every bone in my body wanted to walk over to Erik and meet his family before they left. I hardly knew anything about his past, except what he had told me, and that was very little. He was a private guy and I understood that, but the more I got to know him the more I wanted to learn about him. I wanted to know what made him tick. Why he had started drinking and partying as much as he had. Hell, I wanted to know everything – although I would have settled for just a little more.
“So, that was my brother and father,” Erik said with a huge grin as he walked straight down the hallway toward me.
His walk had changed since he had arrived at the treatment center. What had once been a cocky walk that had him looking anywhere but at the person in front of him now had him looking me directly in the eyes as he stood only inches away from me.
He was too close, though. I looked around to see if anyone was paying attention to us, and my gaze caught the eye of Brianna. She just smiled big and turned away, but it was enough to get me to take a step away from Erik.
“It looks like things went well.”
“Yes. Once Jarrod agreed with me and explained that I was actually trying t
o do something nice for no reason at all, they both started to calm down. I swear the hardest thing was admitting that I had been terrible to them the last few years so they had a right to be suspicious of my intentions.”
“You guys hugged it out, though. So, you’re good?”
“I think so. Only time will really tell, but I’m optimistic,” he said as he took a step toward me again. “Come to my room.”
“No,” I said in shock. “It’s the middle of the day.”
“That’s the perfect time. No one will notice you’re missing.”
“Erik!”
“All right, all right, I was just all juiced up from my meeting going well. I think that was probably a bad choice to have asked you to my room.”
I laughed at his analysis of himself. He was right, though. He had probably just been excited, and I knew how that adrenaline could make you do crazy things when you were first sober.
“How about we wait until you’re done to do any more naked time,” I said as I winked at him.
As much as I truly did want to be naked with Erik, I had started to feel very guilty about what we had done. Not guilty enough to stay away from him because I truly enjoyed talking to him, but I didn’t want to make another mistake by sleeping with him.
“I can dig that,” he joked. “Are you allowed to come on a hike with us again? I convinced a few of the guys and Brianna to go out tomorrow and Melanie is taking us back up to the peak. It’s supposed to be a nice day.”
“So, you think I’d volunteer to hike back up that mountain again?” I asked with a dramatic look on my face.
“I think you’ll do it for me.”
His smile was irresistible, and I couldn’t help but say yes to the man. I was even a little excited to have a second go at the mountain. My mind hadn’t been totally in it the first time and now I knew how darn good it felt to be on top and look out over everything, so I wanted to do it again.
“Yeah, I’ll come. But not if you’re going super early.”
“How’s ten o’clock work for you, sleeping beauty?”
“Perfect.”
We walked over to the main dining area and both grabbed a seat as we continued our conversation. Part of my job was to interact with the patients, so it wasn’t unusual for me to hold conversations with them. Plus, I had felt Brianna’s eyes on us the whole time, which made me extremely nervous considering what had happened the night I had slept with Erik.
“So, tell me more about your family.”
Erik didn’t look like he was all that interested in talking about them, but he humored me a little. I appreciated that.
“The story I used to tell was that my father disowned me when I went off to college,” he said.
“That’s horrible!”
“But that was my skewed version of the story. The truth is my mother passed away and left my father alone to care for two teenage boys and run the family funeral home. He was overwhelmed and ill equipped for the job. He loved us, but he couldn’t handle it. So, when I decided to leave and go to college on the West Coast, he was devastated.”
“He was angry that you wanted to go to college?”
“He had planned on my helping to run the family business. He was exhausted and desperate for a break. I think he was hurt that I left, but it came out in anger.”
“What about your brother?”
“My brother had never planned to stay in town. He had his own dreams, and when I left, he watched our father struggle and he gave up his dreams to stay there with him.”
“Wow, that’s big.”
“I know. The shitty thing is I never visited them. I never called. I kept playing this narrative in my mind that they were wrong and I was right. I was so angry that I never gave our family a chance to heal back together.”
“And now?”
“I think we are on the right track. I genuinely think that I can look at the situation and appreciate the sacrifices they both made which enabled me to be where I am. I told them both that when Jarrod met with us. And they told me a whole heap of stuff I wasn’t ready to hear, but I’m going to work on.”
I had to laugh at the idea Erik really had no idea what his brother and father were going to say he had to work on. Even I knew the areas I had short comings. I knew I was a mouthy brat sometimes and complained about things I had no reason to complain about – it was something I had been working on since my own treatment.
“Don’t laugh. It was serious,” Erik said as he dramatically dropped his head into his hands.
“So, you’ve got a couple weeks left here; what are you going to do with yourself?”
“I’m going to the spa,” he announced a little too loudly as everyone in the room turned around to look at him.
“Shhh.”
“Sorry, I’ve been thinking about a massage since the day I checked in and I’ve been too busy to get there. So, this afternoon, I’m actually going to get a massage.”
“Good for you. Maybe you should get a manicure and a pedicure, too, while you’re at it.” I laughed.
“Maybe I will,” he said with a huge smile on his face.
It was clear that Erik’s life was coming together, and I was happy for him. But there was a twinge of worry that he would finish treatment and move back home without ever seeing or talking to me again. That would be a nightmare. I wanted Erik in my life, even if it was as a friend. I needed someone who had my sense of humor and quirkiness to guide me through a little fun and excitement every now and then.
Chapter Twenty
Erik
“Come on, slow poke,” I yelled at Cassidy as she climbed up the rocks to the peak with me.
We had gotten to the top before everyone else. Mostly because I kept pushing her to keep going harder and harder, but it never would have happened if she hadn’t been so willing. Cassidy didn’t stop once and had a new determination in her eyes that I hadn’t seen ever before.
“My tiny little arms don’t help me as much as your buff ones do.”
“You mean these guns?” I joked as I flexed my muscles.
I jumped down to where she struggled to climb up and grabbed her ass to push her up the rocks. And boy, did I enjoy having my hands on her plump, round bottom.
“Erik, what are you doing?” Melanie said from behind me.
“Um, helping this beautiful woman up the mountain,” I replied without turning around.
“It’s okay, I’m almost there,” Cassidy said through laughter as she climbed up.
I quickly jumped up with her so we could both have a few minutes alone on top of the mountain before everyone else finished their climb.
Our hike that day had been as close to perfect as I could have imagined. A whole two hours of time with just the two of us to hang out. Everyone was well outside of ear shot, so we flirted and joked and got along like we were on a little hiking date, with only the occasional glance behind us to see who was there.
Spending time with Cassidy was a great joy, and I certainly would miss it when I had to go home. I wanted to invite her out to see me and maybe take her on a date, but I wasn’t sure that would be interesting to her. She had her own plans for the future and they certainly didn’t involve moving to California.
It was entirely possible that the two of us would just end up long-distance friends and nothing more. Although I could also see a possibility where we ended up as much more than friends. Sometimes, I even imagined she was on my arm as I went to a movie premiere with my new studio deal. Cassidy was certainly beautiful enough to walk a red carpet, and everyone would think she was an actress.
“Are you getting excited to leave?” Her question interrupted my thoughts.
“I am, but then I’m not. It’s overwhelming to think about going back to my old life, but being sober while I do it. I don’t even know what I’ll do on my weekends. I use to have a party almost every single one.”
“What about working out? How about using that to fill the time?”
“I can
do that, but then what? I don’t exactly have hobbies.”
“Trust me – it’s going to be tough. At least back at home, you’ll have dozens of options for meetings. Test a few out until you find one you like. You can get a good core group of friends who will be there to help support you.”
“The closer I get, the more afraid I get.”
“Totally normal.”
“What would you say to the possibility of coming out to California and letting me take you on a date?”
She paused as she looked around to see if anyone was there or within ear shot of us. I knew it was a normal precaution, but it still made me worry she would say no to my offer. I had to see her outside treatment, but I understood if it wasn’t something she would be interested in.
“Can I think about it?”
“Sure,” I replied as I tried to hide my utter devastation.
She couldn’t even admit to wanting to go on a real date with me. It overwhelmed my soul. I knew she had her life in Aspen and I had my life in San Francisco, but somehow, I had thought she would have jumped at the idea and said yes right away. I thought it was just somatic to even ask her, but I had sorely been mistaken.
“All this talk about me leaving is a big downer. How about we race to the bottom?” I asked Cassidy.
“Sure, go!” she yelled without giving me a chance.
Cassidy slid down the rocks quickly and right past Melanie. She was moving too fast to hear Melanie call after her, but I was right there when she yelled.
“Slow down, you’re going to hurt yourself,” Melanie yelled.
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on her. The worst that could happen is she’ll turn into a snowball.” I laughed as I started to run after Cassidy.
Her red hair was easy to spot in the white snow covering the mountains. She was moving quickly, and I felt a little uncomfortable running as fast as I was running on the snowy trail. But if Cassidy could do it, certainly I could do it, as well.
I let myself go as I ran faster and faster down the hill. My feet weren’t in control and I certainly didn’t feel like the rest of my body had control over the situation, at all. It felt like I was running a million miles a minute, but I didn’t stop. The faster I moved, the less space was between Cassidy and me.