Ricochet (Addicted #1.5)

by Krista Ritchie

  So, he may not be rooting for me exactly. But he’s supporting our relationship. That’s even better. I can’t help but smile.

  Ryke actually smiles back. “You’re okay, Calloway.” With this he pats my shoulder and then turns around, heading for the warmth of the indoors.

  Rose shovels a light layer of snow into the trashcan, and the fire hisses and smoke plumes in the air. She tosses the shovel to the side and smacks her hands together to clean off the dirt. When she sees me watching, she nears and tightens my coat around me, finding the hooks to snap it closed.

  “Thank you,” I tell her, “for these three months.”

  Her eyes flicker to mine. “You did all the work.”

  “Not true,” I say with a small laugh. She found my therapist. She decorated the house. She spent more time helping me than I can even add up. “I’m happy I’m here.”

  “Me too,” she says, her eyes softening again. She’s starting to get good at that. Her arm wraps around my shoulder. As we go inside, I know that the future may not be so easy. I know that there will be more issues to deal with.

  But I can’t imagine going back to how things were.

  Now it’s time to start building relationships.

  I think I’m ready.

  {12}

  Lo comes home tomorrow.

  I don’t think my brain can process anything else for the day, yet I’m sitting in Dr. Banning’s office trying to go over some heavy topics before Lo returns. My poor brain is about to emergency eject right out of my skull.

  But I don’t want to quit, not when I’m so close to having some sort of breakthrough about my addiction. I feel like I’m on the verge of answers. I just need something to click.

  Dr. Banning runs a hand down the side of her short black bob, her eyes intent on her notepad for the moment. My fingernails are bitten down to the beds, and I rub the tops in an attempt to ease the sting. It only hurts more.

  “Lily.” Dr. Banning finally looks up and I meet her gaze. She gives me a warm consoling smile and I relax a little. “You told me you were having a housewarming party. How did that go?’

  “Fine,” I say, running my hands on my jeans and inwardly cringing at the word. Fine. Such a stupid word really. It feels empty and weightless. It’s the kind of word you use to hide the truth.

  “And your parents know that Lo will be returning home from rehab. How do they feel about him living with you after all of this?”

  I mull over the question, hearing my mother’s response instead of my own. “Work it out.” Three words that had me more confused than anything.

  “They’ve always approved of our relationship,” I tell Dr. Banning. “Rehab didn’t change that. I’m not sure anything would.”

  “What if you told them about your addiction?” she questions.

  My stomach churns at the very thought, but I imagine my mother with her cold judgment and my father’s shame for having a dirty, disgusting daughter. I couldn’t…

  “They wouldn’t understand.”

  “How do you know?”

  I try to think of an answer better than I just know. But I can’t.

  Dr. Banning leans forward a little in her chair and asks, “What about the housewarming party, really? You’re in your new home with your friends and your family, but Lo isn’t there. That has to be difficult.”

  “Shouldn’t you be asking me about sex?” This question has been my go-to digression tactic.

  “We’ll get to that later. Right now, I want to talk about the party.” Obviously, she’s picked up on my strategies. I end up giving in.

  “I felt awkward,” I mutter. “But I always feel awkward so it really wasn’t much different.” I scratch my arm, but without any fingernails it’s more like rubbing than scratching.

  “Why would you feel awkward around your family?”

  I have so many secrets, sometimes they feel like they’re crushing me from the inside out. Keeping my addiction from my family has always put this intangible gap between us. But something stops me from telling Dr. Banning. A lump lodges in my throat as I blink a couple times, utterly confused.

  Because I think I know…I think I know that I’ve always felt this way, even before my addiction. Before there were any secrets at all.

  I try to remember the mornings where I woke up in my own house. Where I clambered downstairs in my pajamas to have breakfast with my family. I can smell bacon and eggs, and I can see Lucinda standing over the stove asking me if I want mushrooms or tomato in the scramble. It’s not the right memory though. Our chef was named Margaret. Lucinda cooked for Jonathan Hale.

  “It’s not right,” I mutter under my breath.

  “What’s not right, Lily?”

  Let me think. Nights. Nights were at my house. But that was before I left for Lo’s to hang out and sleepover. Yes. I’m what…seven. I can see the television screen with silly cartoons, and I hear Poppy playing the piano in the background. Rose was on the floor, reading the first Harry Potter. My mother’s heels clapped into the room and she looked between me and Rose. She strode to the bookshelf and came back to jerk Rose’s novel from her grip, replacing the magical world with To Kill a Mockingbird.

  Our mother tucked the fantasy novel under her elbow and walked right out of the room without another glance.

  “I can’t…” I shake my head, tears pricking my eyes. I don’t like this answer. Take it back.

  “Lily,” Dr. Banning says but I’m still shaking my head.

  I see all the years flash in and out. I see each of my sisters suffocating, being silently molded by a mother who just wants the best. I see me being free of that. But why does it hurt? It shouldn’t fucking hurt.

  “It’s stupid. It’s so stupid,” I complain and touch my hands to my eyes.

  “Lily,” she says slowly. “You have to let it in.”

  “Let what in?”

  “The pain.”

  My bottom lip trembles and I just keep on shaking my head. “It’s stupid.”

  “Why do you think that, Lily?” she asks fervently. “Your pain isn’t worth less than anyone else’s.”

  “You don’t understand. I shouldn’t feel this way.” I point to my chest. “I have money. I come from a privileged life. I refuse to throw a pity party for myself.”

  “You can’t refuse to feel hurt just because you think that you don’t deserve to feel it.”

  I don’t know if I believe her. I think I should. “My sisters got the raw deal,” I say in defense, my cheeks stained with tears. “I got off.” No controlling mother. No piano lessons or ballet recitals.

  “You never give yourself a break,” she tells me. “You’ve never given yourself a chance to feel. Do you understand?”

  The emptiness. I guess it’s where that pain should be.

  “It’s just you and me,” Dr. Banning says. “I don’t care about your last name. I don’t care about what your sisters went through. All I care about is you, Lily.”

  It takes me a few moments to gather the strength to start talking about the thoughts that unsettle my head. A couple tears fall onto my hands and I manage to say, “When I was really little, my mother used to put me in classes like she did the other girls. Art. Singing. Piano…Everything.” I bite my lip, nodding to myself as I remember. “I lasted about a day in each. I just never picked up talents like Poppy and Rose.” I pause and cringe at my own words. So what Lily Calloway? You’re not talented. You don’t need to cry about it.

  “Keep going,” Dr. Banning urges.

  I shake my head now, but the memory continues to spill. “When the school sent me to remedial math in third grade, I think that was the last time my mother paid attention to me. I wasn’t sociable and congenial like Poppy. I wasn’t smart like Rose.” I wipe my eye. “And I never grew tall and beautiful like Daisy. I think…I think I was something she wished she could return. Like a generic handbag. But she couldn’t. So she just acted like I didn’t exist…”

  She let me spend nights at L
o’s. Let me do whatever I wanted. And that freedom turned out to be as suffocating as her control.

  “I never felt like she loved me,” I mutter under my breath. “I never felt worthy enough.”

  I shake my head again. I don’t want this to be the answer. It should be something more. It should be a horrific, life-threatening event. Not these stupid feelings.

  “When are you going to stop punishing yourself for what you feel?” Dr. Banning asks me.

  “I don’t know how,” I choke

  “You’re human, Lily. You hurt just like the rest of us. It’s okay.”

  I nod now, changing course a little. I want to get there. To allow myself to feel pained by my childhood without feeling irreparable guilt at the same time. I just don’t know how to compartmentalize these emotions. How do I bear the hurt of being lonely without hating myself at the same time? Because my sisters would have given anything for the freedom I had. Because the world would give anything for the life I was born into. I feel selfish and stupid. Worthless and pathetic. Ugly and used.

  Sex made me whole again.

  One time turned into two. Two turned to three. And then I just couldn’t stop.

  Dr. Banning passes me a box of tissues and I pluck a few from the carton, blowing my nose and trying to compose myself.

  When the quiet lingers, I say, “I don’t want that to be the answer. No one will understand.” I’m some girl who decided to fill the emptiness in her heart with sex. Neglect and loneliness drove me to this place. A single choice to start and then the inability to stop.

  “I understand,” Dr. Banning tells me. “Rose will understand. And in time, your family will too. You just have to give people the chance, Lily, and you have to learn not to be ashamed of how you arrived here. It’s not your fault.”

  Her voice soothes me, relaxing my torpid thoughts to mush. She scribbles something down in her notepad and my brain screams at me for not hitting eject earlier. But there’s unfortunately still more to discuss, especially with tomorrow looming.

  “What about Lo?” I ask, clearing my throat. I sweep the last of my tears away. “What should I do now that he’s coming back?”

  She unlocks her cabinet drawer and I watch her pull out a small white envelope. “Before I give you this,” she says, “I want to congratulate you on your ninety days of celibacy.”

  I think I hear her wrong. “I haven’t been celibate.”

  Her smile is warm. “Have you had sex with another partner?”

  “Lo and I had…Skype sex,” I say, flushing a little at the words.

  “But he hasn’t actually penetrated you,” she reminds me. I turn even redder at the word penetrate and silently wonder how she didn’t even blink when she said it.

  “So I’ve been celibate?” I say, a little unbelieving.

  “For your personal treatment and what you needed to do, yes you have completed your celibacy period. You should be proud of yourself.”

  There’s really only one thought on my mind. “So I can have sex with Lo?” I want to jump up from the chair and do a jig or something silly. I also feel a little bipolar. A second ago I was crying and now I’m more excited than ever.

  “Yes and no,” Dr. Banning says, and crushes me yet again. This emotional rollercoaster is killing my stomach.

  She slides the white envelope towards me. “Based on our sessions, I’ve listed your limits. Sexual acts that you should never participate in and acts that you should limit yourself. Think of these as guidelines or rules for sex.” I always thought the words sex and rules should never be synonymous. I guess things will definitely be changing for me.

  I take it quickly and press my finger against the crease to rip the seam.

  “Before you open it,” she cuts me off. “I’m going to advise you not to look at it.”

  I frown. That doesn’t make any sense. “How will I know what not to do?”

  “Have you ever heard of the saying ‘people want what they can’t have?’” she asks. I don’t like where this is going. “In my experience, every time someone chooses to read that envelope, it’s much more difficult to abide by it. They get scared and they usually never share the information with their sexual partner. You have a choice, Lily. You can either look inside the envelope now or you can give it to Lo and let him take care of it.”

  That sounds like a huge decision, one that could change everything. Reading it now could seriously terrify me. I can just imagine the words sex once a month written in clean scrawl. I think I’d have a panic attack. With Lo around, abstaining from sex will be a thousand times more difficult, and I know how draining telling me no will be. But that’s exactly why I should give it to him, so I don’t punk out and toss the letter in the trash. Let him decide my fate. My nerves spike at the thought of being in that unbearable unknown. But maybe Dr. Banning was right.

  Giving up something isn’t the same thing as losing control.

  “You don’t have to decide now,” Dr. Banning says, “and when you and Lo feel ready, you both can see me together.”

  Great. I’ve never had a one-hundred percent heart-to-heart about addiction with Lo. Not sure how therapy with him will turn out. Another hurdle to look forward to.

  I slip the envelope into my back pocket and give Dr. Banning a quick thanks and handshake before I leave. On the way out, my stomach overturns. I know how well choices can alter the future.

  We started a fake relationship. We ended it. We dated. We loved. And then we separated. Pain, happiness, joy and hurt ricochet from each path taken and from each memory uncovered.

  One decision can change my life forever.

  3 ½ YEARS AGO

  I hold the strap to my Captain America plush backpack, which can easily alternate into a pillow if need be. Every time I’ve spent the night at Lo’s house, I stuff my toiletries and clothes into the little inside pocket. With my seventeenth birthday in a couple days, I should probably retire the backpack for a more mature option. Like Batman. But Lo would kill me if I went DC on him.

  I shift on his doorstep, not used to entering his place by the front door. I usually go through the window. Much cooler. Having to wait on the stoop of the enormous mansion just reminds me that tonight is a little different than most. I raise my knuckles to the door but decide to use the lion metal knocker instead. I slam it a couple times and twiddle with the strap to my backpack. Waiting.

  After a solid minute, the door swings open, more lights streaming onto the stoop. And my mouth falls and my face scrunches. Lo stands before me, but he’s…

  “What are you wearing?” we both say at the same time.

  What am I wearing?! He has on black slacks and a white button-down, looking nearly twenty-two. His light brown hair is still a little messy, but it’s systematically disheveled. He’s clean-shaven, and his cheeks sharpen, pouting his lips as he stares from my toes to my head.

  “What the fuck?” he says lightly, shrugging at me like I’ve turned into an intergalactic alien. I am exactly the same. He is the one who’s different.

  “I didn’t know there was a dress code tonight,” I refute.

  He crosses his arms and cocks his head to the side.

  “Don’t give me that look,” I snap back, pushing my way through the door since he has rudely not invited me in yet. The living room awaits to the right of us, the vaulted ceiling and crystal chandelier shining a great deal of light onto leather furniture and expensive animal-skin rugs. I try not to think about what animals I may be stepping on when I’m at his house.

  He locks the door, and I throw my backpack on the nearest couch. When I turn back to face him, he still wears that same crazy look. “What?” I say.

  “You’re wearing dinosaur slippers and long johns,” he says like I’ve gone crazy.

  I glance down at my nightly wardrobe. My baggy long johns sag at the crotch, and my green dinosaur slippers make my feet look huge. I also wear one of Lo’s long-sleeve shirts that he left at my house the other day—the Philadelphia 76ers
logo printed on the front. I shrug. “I wear this all the time when I spend the night here.”

  “That was before,” he tells me.

  I hear his unspoken words: that was before, when we weren’t dating and in a fake relationship. Two weeks ago, Lo was suspended from school, and his father went apeshit, threatening to ship Lo off to military academy, actually showing him the forms. I spent the whole day anxiously pacing my room as we tried to find solutions on how to pacify his father.

  And this was it. Make his father believe that Lo is a changed man by dating a girl he thought he’d never be worthy of. Me. A Calloway. When in fact, I’m just as fucked up as his son. Go figure.

  When we made the announcement of our new relationship status, his father hadn’t really believed it. Which is why I’m in Lo’s living room tonight instead of his bedroom where we usually pour over comics and I watch him drink himself to sleep. Tonight, we’re supposed to prove how in love we are.

  And then everything will be okay again. Lo will stay here. He’ll be a “changed man” and we’ll both continue to go on as normal. Except for the fake relationship part.

  I shift anxiously. “Sorry,” I mutter, all of a sudden self-conscious. He dressed nice for me, and here I am, in baggy long johns and his oversized tee. The slippers are still cool.

  “You’re right,” he tells me, his amber eyes grazing my whole body. “It doesn’t matter.” He undoes the top three buttons of his shirt.

  My breath sticks to my throat.

  “You look cute,” he says. A smile plays at his lips, and he laughs at my long johns again. “Are those mine?”

  I’m still frozen on the you look cute part. I can’t tell if that was all show or not. I mean, no one is here to witness the performance of our romantic rendezvous, but at the same time, we are supposed to be practicing before his father walks through the door.

  “Yeah,” I manage to say. “I stole them after the camping trip in October.” Almost a full year ago. He didn’t notice then, so I’m surprised that he does now. Or maybe he just never mentioned it before.