Lola Carlyle's 12-Step Romance

by Danielle Younge-Ullman

“I am not going to calm down while I’m alone in here with you,” he says in a harsh voice. “Let’s go,” he says, and then stomps his way to the door and opens it for me. “And by the way, this subject is closed.”

  “You don’t get to go all Mr. Authority Figure when you just kissed me like that.”

  “Shh!”

  “Fine,” I say, passing him to get into the hallway and feeling the pressure of fresh tears forming behind my eyes. “I still need to see Dr. Koch.”

  “That’s the thing: you should be talking to me,” he says, like we’re just continuing the argument from before, and no kiss happened at all, although he still looks flustered and flushed.

  “Well,” I say, trying to do the same, “the fact is, you have a tendency to be a lot less helpful than Dr. Koch.”

  “Because I’m actually aware that what you want isn’t always what you need—”

  “Don’t even talk to me about what I need.”

  “—and because I actually give a shit.”

  “And Dr. Koch doesn’t?”

  “Are you really asking me that question?”

  I look away. Dr. Koch cares about Dr. Koch. We both know that.

  “I understand what makes Dr. Koch tick,” I say, jaw clenched, body still buzzing, every part of me wishing we were back in the classroom, making out, and yet so mad at myself for being so weak. “The fact is, it’s what I’m used to and I know how to deal with it and I know how to get what I need from…that kind of person. And that’s who I’m going to right now.”

  “Damn it, don’t you hear how that sounds?”

  “Like the truth?”

  “Fine. We’ll go together.”

  “Dr. Koch, you have to get me out of here,” I say before I’ve even crossed the threshold of his office.

  “Miss Carlyle, Adam. What a pleasant surprise.”

  “Please. My one roommate, Jade, is a psychotic bitch, and it turns out the other one—the one I liked—has been stealing my stuff. Plus I have no privacy, my therapist is a nightmare, and everyone is discriminating against me”—I shoot a look at Adam—“because I’m not actually an addict.”

  “What is it you expect me to do?”

  “What I said—let me the hell out of here! Talk to my mother and convince her she needs to get back here to take me out. And in the meantime I’ll…I’ll stay at a hotel or something. Or you could just give me a private room and excuse me from the program until she comes back. I promise I won’t make any trouble.”

  Behind me, Adam makes a choking sound.

  “Shut up, Adam.”

  “You wish.”

  I turn back to Dr. Koch. “Even if my mom can’t come back…I’ve got this lovely uncle who’s house-sitting for us right now and I’m sure if you and my mom both signed off on it—I mean, you’re the one with the power, right?—then it would be okay for him to come get me.”

  “As her mentor, I do not advise this course of action, sir,” Adam says, coming up beside me, but not so close that we’re touching—not that it matters, because I can feel him anyway.

  “You stay out of it,” I say, turning to glare at him.

  “Dr. Koch—” Adam starts forward, and then cuts off as Koch holds up a hand.

  “I will speak with Miss Carlyle alone.”

  Adam lets out a frustrated sigh and turns to lock eyes with me. “I’ll be waiting,” he says, and then leaves and shuts the door behind him.

  There’s a moment of quiet after the thunk of the door when it feels like all the energy has gone out of the room.

  Then I turn back and my eyes meet Koch’s and I get a sudden shiver.

  “Sit,” he orders.

  I sit, he smiles, almost erasing the chill I just felt. Maybe I imagined it.

  “Believe it or not,” he says smoothly, “roommate issues are not uncommon, particularly among the female patients. Have you asked yourself what life lessons and personal growth might be gleaned from facing up to these problems and resolving them, rather than running away?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Indeed I am.”

  “Jade is a nutcase. I don’t think it can be resolved, it just is. And it’s got nothing to do with me. Ditto with someone stealing from me.”

  “But perhaps there is something in you, some unconscious behavior, that is sparking these reactions in others.”

  I surge up out of my chair. “This is not helpful, Dr. Koch.”

  “Sit down.”

  Yikes. Coldness not imagined. I sit.

  “I have been good to you so far, have I not?” he says, now in a smooth but dangerously low voice.

  “You have.”

  “And I believe your outlook would improve if you had your privileges restored and were also approved for the sober outings? This Saturday, for example, everyone with Level Three status is going to Disneyland.”

  “Yeah, of course I’d love to go to that, if I’m still here. But—”

  “Let me be clear,” he says, coming to stand in front of his desk and giving me a gross smile. “You are not going anywhere. You are an addict and you are going to be cured. Period.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. Sunrise is my project, Miss Carlyle. Mine. It is the fruition of a great deal of work, and I am on the brink of realizing some of my greatest dreams. The timing is rather delicate right now. The entire world—the one that concerns us, anyway—knows you’re here, and I can’t have you leaving the program without completing it. I need success stories, do you understand?”

  “The thing is, Dr. Koch, I’m really not—”

  “Success stories!” he bellows, and for a moment I see his real face—the ugly, angry, grasping face that lies beneath his usual charming one. I knew it was there, but it’s scarier than I expected.

  I shut my mouth.

  “You came to be treated and you will be treated, Miss Carlyle. You can do it the hard way, and I assure you, you haven’t even begun to experience the hard way, or you can do it the easy way,” he says, charming smile back in place. “The easy way, you’ll have noticed, can be much more pleasant and offers many perquisites for those who are cooperative. The quality of your experience is up to you, but you will complete this program and you will do it successfully.”

  “So…you’re not letting me out.”

  “Of course not. And if I don’t start seeing some commitment and personal growth from you, be assured your stay here will not only not be shortened, it will be prolonged. Now,” he says, propelling me out of my chair and toward the exit, “of course my door remains open to you should you need anything, but I suggest you move along—you have a great deal of work to do.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “You have to give me my chocolate back,” I say, marching past Adam and away from Dr. Koch’s now-closed door.

  “What?” He follows me along the hall to the main foyer, where I stop and face him.

  “My chocolate. I need it. Come on, I really am going to have a breakdown.”

  “Breakthrough.”

  “Yeah, I got that from Talia, too.” I’m so frustrated—from being shot down by Dr. Koch, from being deliciously, painfully scorched from the best kiss of my life, and then pushed away, from the roommate drama, the family drama, all of it. It’s not all on Adam, but he’s the one in front of me, and so I look at him and just want to shake him. Take him by the shoulders and shake him, or shove him into the nearby fountain, or throw him to the ground and make him kiss me again.

  “Talia’s a smart girl sometimes,” Adam says, all mentor-ish, which is to say disgustingly cool and calm, like he didn’t feel anything, or doesn’t feel it now, anyway.

  “Oh, sure. Talia who’s been stealing my stuff. Witnessed by Jade, who attacked me. She’s been a great help.”

  “What?”

  “Last class. Yup.”

  “Physically?”

  “Yes, and verbally, and emotionally.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I glance a
t him and raise my eyebrows.

  “I was busy with the closed subject.”

  “You see?” he says. “That’s why it’s closed.”

  “Fine.”

  “Good.”

  “Point being, I am feeling vulnerable and unsafe, Adam. Not to mention very frustrated and confused and aggravated.”

  “Chocolate’s not going to help that.”

  “Not true. Chocolate always helps. It soothes me, it gives me energy…and I need energy to get through all the drama I apparently bring upon myself and all the breaking through I’m supposedly doing.”

  “No.”

  “Your favorite word,” I say, and he turns red. “Come on. You could just bring some of it to your office and I’ll eat it there. It’s not even like I’m going to gobble it. With dark chocolate you have to eat it really slowly; you lick it, sort of. So you don’t need much. You could watch me the whole time.”

  For a second he looks pained. “That is so many terrible ideas in one, I can’t even believe it,” he says. “So many, and on so many levels.”

  “Oh,” I say, suddenly feeling a tiny bit better, because getting to Adam almost always makes me feel better, I realize. “Are you saying you’d find that…”

  “Inappropriate? A bad idea? Yes.”

  “But no one needs to know,” I say. “I’ll even give you some. You can leave the office door open…”

  “Do you have any idea how you sound? No. No way, no chance. I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation.”

  My head is pounding and I feel…needy and lonely and every kind of hungry. I feel like I’m going to lose it if I don’t get…something. Like there is a void, an achy, sad, unsatisfied place inside me that needs to be fed, taken care of, fixed. Freedom from Sunrise might fix it, a drive in a really fast car with the top down might fix it, Adam in a dark place with his mouth on mine would definitely fix it.

  Chocolate won’t fix it, but it would help temporarily.

  “I need it, Adam. I’m not addicted to it, I just need it. I’m telling you, there are studies about women and…and hormones and chocolate. A girl has to have some chocolate when she’s going through all these crises. I have not one but two lunatic roommates to deal with, as you know, and I’m starving and stressed out and exhausted.”

  “You seem pretty energetic to me.”

  “Are you kidding? I feel like my limbs are made of Silly Putty. Nothing is working.”

  “Except your mouth,” he observes as we stop in front of the dining hall doors.

  “Oh, you should talk!”

  Bam, there it is—I got to him again. He turns abruptly, walks away three steps, mutters to himself, comes back.

  “Look,” he says determinedly, “I’ve got something I need to deal with, but I’ll be back soon. No chocolate. Have some lunch instead. And I suggest you discuss this habit with Dr. Owens.”

  “Fine, but just so you know? If I’m addicted to chocolate, I plan to keep using.”

  He goes—a relief and a loss at the same time. I head into the dining hall, where I march past Talia and send powerful celebu-spawn piss-off vibes to everyone else.

  Jade is nowhere to be seen. I hope she’s enjoying her breakthrough as much as I’m enjoying mine.

  I eat four large bowls of plain yogurt with multiple tablespoons of honey. After that I am still hungry, sick-hungry like I have a bottomless pit instead of a stomach, sick-hungry with a need that feels hot, desperate, needy, and clawing.

  It takes two grilled mozzarella sandwiches followed by a cup of steamed cauliflower covered in ranch dressing and two and a half dinner rolls before I finally hit the zone where I feel floaty and somewhat relaxed, but nothing will completely make the world go away, which is what I need.

  Then Talia is standing in front of me trying to apologize and I can barely hear the words.

  “I need your card,” I say, interrupting her.

  “What?”

  “Your card. Will you give it to me? On loan?”

  “W-why?”

  “Because, as I’m sure you know, I’m having a very shitty day,” I say in a low voice. “I have five seconds of Adam-free time and I’d like to go outside.”

  “Sure, but I could take y—”

  “Alone.”

  “You’re not going to—”

  “I’m just going for a walk.”

  “Okay,” she says, nodding, and then does a surreptitious look around and slides it over to me. “I’ll just…say I lost it. Or something. Or maybe I won’t need it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Can we talk, though? Later?”

  “When I can talk to anyone, I promise I’ll talk with you.”

  Outside, I choose a path, take off at a run, and run hard, run until my lungs are bursting, and then I collapse onto a rock that overlooks the path down to the ocean, throw up over the side, and then lie there facedown, forehead balanced on the rock.

  Lying there with the heat of the rock under me and the sound of the ocean below, it occurs to me that running wasn’t the best plan after the massive amount of food I just had…and that what I did with the food was the epitome of addictive behavior.

  And then my brain starts replaying the things Jade said about me, imagining myself in her eyes, and I feel my insides starting to heave again.

  “That you, Carlyle?”

  Oh shit.

  “No,” I say into the rock.

  Wade chuckles.

  “Really, it’s not.”

  “You don’t look too good.”

  “Thanks.”

  I feel him sitting down next to me, and then his hand is on my back.

  Wade. Wow, I keep forgetting about him.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks.

  “Oh, just everything.”

  “Aww.” His hand moves, rubbing in circles. At first this makes me tense, but then I start to relax, because it’s nice. And it’s Wade, who, regardless of my crush (do I still have one?) and his extreme, irrefutable hotness, used to be my friend. A nice guy. And here he is, being a nice guy again.

  We stay like that for a couple of minutes, not talking, me facedown.

  “So…you ever going to sit up? Or turn over so I can see you at least?” He tugs at my arm. I slowly sit up, wondering whether I’m about to get the same contact high at the sight of him I usually do, or if this thing with Adam has caused it to go away.

  He surveys my face, and I survey his. He remains so decadently handsome, it’s sick. I’m still affected; I think maybe you would have to be dead not to be. And yet it’s not a full-body palpitation or a slow burn, either. It’s not sneaky and irritating and thought-provoking like the thing with Adam; it’s a flash, a heat wave, cotton candy versus cheesecake or…I don’t know.

  But given the state of my insides (recently heaving), I should probably stop with the food comparisons and focus on him as what he is for certain—an old friend.

  “I’m all fucked up,” I say.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. My mute roommate just attacked me in group—said a bunch of shitty things about me. Some of them, upon reflection, might even be true. And I’ve got problems with the other roommate, too. Plus, Dr. Koch just gave me some serious carrot and stick—you know, good-cop-bad-cop, but all in one person, and Adam…well, never mind him. It’s basically that overall I feel like I’m losing it. And I don’t like people seeing me like this. Especially you.”

  “Hey, I’m the one whose trailer you slept in that night your dad left you on set, remember? I’ve got your back.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And I’d take your front, too,” he says, the side of his mouth quirking. “If you’d let me.”

  “Wade. Oh my God, you did not just make that joke.”

  “What?” he says. “I’m just trying to lighten the mood.”

  I wrinkle my nose. “Have you ever seen what happens to cotton candy if you leave it out in the heat?”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mi
nd.”

  “Okay, it was a bad joke,” he says. “Thing is, Carlyle, I’ve never said a word about that, or the stuff we both know your dad was up to that night. And I won’t.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I hope you’re not still thinking of leaving.”

  “Well…”

  “Because I think you’d miss out. I mean, you have a chance to figure things out—why not take it?”

  “I know. I guess…I don’t know, I might. I don’t like being bossed around, though. I don’t respond well.”

  “Well, selfishly, I want you to stay. Not just because of…you know, that I want to jump your bones, which I do.”

  This statement does not cause me to feel like it would have a few days ago. It’s not that it has zero effect—it makes me feel good, i.e. attractive and wanted. And it gives me a bit of a flutter, but not a massive one. I almost wish it did, since Wade remains charming and beautiful, and Adam doesn’t want to be with me anyway.

  “The thing is, Carlyle, you remind me of a better me. Less jaded, all that stuff. Plus I have this fantasy of being with you at Disneyland.”

  “Ha. That was the carrot. One of them anyway.”

  “What about me?”

  “What do you mean, what about me?”

  “Am I a carrot?”

  “That’s a good question,” I say. But I’m more worried that he’s cotton candy, which if left in the heat deflates, shrinking into just a plain sticky ball of sugar.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It takes me the afternoon to come to the conclusion that I need to survive this rehab thing with my sanity intact, and I can’t do that with the denial police breathing down my neck and Adam glued to my side when it’s obviously going to be…difficult. Even I can see it’s not a healthy situation for us to be together all day, every day, how having him constantly by my side, even if I’m annoyed with him half the time, could become an addiction.

  Lust, even frustrated lust, it turns out, is seductive.

  I need to turn things around, get Adam off full-time Lola duty. I need to cooperate, in other words.

  And frankly, even if I’m not, strictly speaking, an addict, I’ve learned that I do have an addictive personality. Plus there are a few other problematic areas in my life that might benefit from being addressed—my friendships, my family issues, my coping mechanisms, my habit of alienating the very people I want to bring closer, my being so ridiculously screwed up that I thought it was a great idea to fake my way into rehab…to give a few examples.