Page 11

EIGHT

WESLEY

Three weeks later…

For the most part, the tremors have stopped, but the nausea, insomnia, and lethargy haven’t. I feel like shit every day and I’m sure I look worse. Fuck, I just need a drink or a quick bump to get me level, then I can work this program. But going cold turkey like this fucking hurts.

Worse than the physical pain is the mental head fuck. Without the drugs and the drink, thoughts intrude. Thoughts I don’t want or need.

Thoughts about Jaxon.

He looked really good. Or at least I think he did. A week into my forced recovery, I couldn’t focus on much but putting one foot in front of the other. Surviving the next day, hour, minute, second in front of me.

I’m still in disbelief that he showed up. It took me a few days to realize he wasn’t an apparition and that he came to tell me that Suzette died.

Fuck her. I thought she’d died years ago.

After I signed my record deal, she tried to get back in my life, even attempting to release some tell-all book about me and my childhood.

But an injunction from my lawyers and threats to sue her into the dirt made her slink back into her bullshit corner and leave me the fuck alone.

I’m glad she’s dead. One less fucked-up parent walking the Earth. Now she can join Perry in hell.

Even with my brain fog, I can remember how Jaxon looked.

Same steel gray eyes that were a touch too serious.

Same slim body, though he’s filled out, his muscles pulling at his fancy suit jacket.

In the years we’ve been separated, he’s let his facial hair grow, a nice goatee that connects, giving him a distinguished appearance.

He must have followed in his father’s footsteps and become a lawyer. He looked the part. It suits him.

The surge of happiness I felt when I realized who he was surprised me, but the anger that took over wasn’t. Even after all this time, I haven’t forgiven him. I probably never will.

I scoff and cross my arms over my chest, leaning back in my chair. It takes me a moment to remember I’m in my therapy session, and the doctor across from me has been waiting on me to say something, anything.

His eyebrow ticks up and he leans forward. “What’s on your mind?”

I scoff. “Why do you care? Think you’ll get an autograph out of the deal? Sorry, can’t supplement your income while you sell my signature online.”

“Mr. Morgan, I have been doing this for over twenty years and have met people more famous than you. At no point have I tried to solicit their signature to…” he waves his hand in the air, “supplement my income, as you say.”

That stings. Being famous, being a good singer, is all I have. I know there are people with more notoriety than me, but it hurt for him to throw that in my face.

Instead of showing my offense, I shoot from my chair and head for the door. “This is bullshit.”

My hand is on the knob when the doctor says, “Your ninety days won’t begin until you start working your steps.”

I whirl around. “What? I’ve been here for almost four weeks. I have ten left.”

“This is not a standard rehabilitation facility,” he says, speaking slowly as if I’m an asshole that can’t understand him. “Our job is to keep you from coming back. The way we ensure that is to make sure you work the program. You have to give yourself to a higher power and?—”

I scoff. “Please none of that Jesus shit. I’m an atheist.”

Doctor Steinfeld smiles gently at me. “As am I. I can tailor your steps to a program that has nothing to do with religion. How does that sound?”

“I don’t care. Being here is bullshit.”

“Mr. Morgan, all you’ve done is eat and sleep.

You haven’t opened up in group meetings, and this is our third session, and you haven’t said a word.

Your manager has informed us that you may attempt to leave on your own recognizance, and you have every right to do so.

But in the event that you do, he said he will place you under a conservatorship and have you admitted. ”

I’m sure it’s a bluff. Zed wouldn’t do that. Would he?

My brain is operating how it should, all thoughts and feelings clear for the first time in decades. Fear seizes me, digging its claws in. No matter how much I tell myself it couldn’t happen, a small voice says, “ but what if it could?”

I’ve lived enough of my life on someone else’s terms—I can’t do it again, even in the hypothetical.

In a gentler tone this time, the doctor says, “Sit down, Mr. Morgan. I will help you through this. It won’t be as bad as you think. But your addiction has a source, and we need to get to the bottom of it so you can move forward.”

A cold laugh leaves my throat. “Move forward? Doc, I fucking spewed my fucking guts on the stage and the entire fucking world saw it! I’m a fucking pariah! There is no moving forward.”

“What gives you that idea?” Doctor Steinfeld clicks a pen and takes some notes but angles his body to give me his undivided attention.

“Oh, let me think,” I say sarcastically, pacing the room. “I beat the shit out of some fans, more than once. I never showed up to meet and greets. I didn’t like to sign autographs. Oh, did I mention I threw up on stage because I was wasted out of my fucking mind?”

He nods and sits back. “You did. We all make mistakes, Mr. Morgan.”

“Call me Wesley. Mr. Morgan makes me think of rum, and I’m in here to stay away from the stuff.”

Doctor Steinfeld nods in approval. “That’s a good start. That’s the first step, admitting you have a problem, and you want help.”

I scoff. “Whatever.”

“Mr. Mor—Wesley, we all make mistakes. You are a rare talent. If you get help and actually stick with your sobriety, your fans will be there waiting for you.”

I’m not so sure about that. I’ve been on a downward spiral for years. The more sober I get, the more I think on the mistakes I made and how I might not be able to come back from them.

Being sober fucking sucks. No more fog of ambivalence surrounding me. Everything is too clear, too coherent. I see it all, and I fucking hate it .

I hate myself.

Doctor Steinfeld and I talk for another thirty minutes about what started me on this path to destruction—my mother’s disregard for my well being—but I don’t see any kind of breakthrough. All I feel is hopeless and fucking down, a mirror being put in my face that I want to smash to fucking bits.

“Do you have anything else you want to talk about?”

“When can I leave?”

“As soon as you start working with us to get clean. The goal isn’t to have you sober until you can get back to the drugs and the alcohol; the goal is to have you change your entire lifestyle.

Where your life does not revolve around drugs or getting high.

It will be about building your future and what you want for yourself. ”

“And what if I just want to get high?” I shrug, foregoing a lie.

We’re in fucking therapy after all. “What if when I leave here, I want to take a bottle of fucking pills to blot out the thoughts that won’t stop?

” I tap the side of my head so hard that it starts to throb.

“Being sober is for people who can’t control their lives. I was?—”

“You were what?” he asks, looking at me as if he’s staring into my soul. “You were in control when you collapsed on stage? When you beat three people to a pulp? When you drank too much and ended up vomiting on stage? Is that control to you?”

I stand up and pace again. “Throwing my past in my face? Is that what therapists are supposed to fucking do?”

“No, we’re supposed to be honest with you so you can start your journey.”

I grunt, thinking about what he said. But what the fuck does he know? He only knows what he sees on television and what I tell him. “When I get out of here, I plan to live my life how I already was.”

“Let me ask you something. Do you think your occupation has contributed to your habit?”

“Of course it has. What rock star doesn’t party from time to time? It’s what we do.”

He clicks that annoying fucking pen again and makes some notes. When he’s finished, he says, “Occasional partying and being drunk and high all day are two different things, Wesley. If you were to go back to touring the country, sometimes the world, do you think you’ll fall into your old habits?”

“Maybe. I want to. I like how I feel when I’m high. When I have a few shots in the morning. My life is fucking fantastic when I’m high.”

Doctor Steinfeld sets his pen down and folds his hands in his lap. “Are you taking this seriously?”

“As seriously as I can when I’m threatened with a fucking conservatorship. Look, tell me what you want me to say, and I’ll say it. Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll do it. I just want fucking out of here.”

A long sigh leaves his lips, like I’ve gotten under his skin. Good. He can switch me to someone else that doesn’t give a shit, and they can tell me the easiest way out of here. Pretending I like this feeling of clarity is starting to grate on my fucking nerves.

“I want you to want to get better, Wesley. There’s nothing you can say or do that will make me believe that but changed behavior. What are you so afraid of if you get clean?”

I clamp my mouth shut, not willing to give him that information. He hasn’t earned it, and I don’t want to put into words why I need the drugs .

Sitting back on the sofa, I cross my arms over my chest and look down at the floor. “How long do we have left?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

For the next fifteen minutes, we sit in silence, with me unwilling to answer anymore of his questions. I don’t want to talk anymore. I don’t want to share anything else. I don’t want to talk about anything with anyone until I get a drink or a bump. Not until I feel like a normal person again.

The timer goes off on his desk, and he releases a sad sigh.

“That’s it for today. You’ll have another session with me next week.

We’ll be working together two days a week.

If you’d like, you can come in and sit for an hour in silence, but it’ll be more productive if we can talk.

” I don’t say anything, and he nods in what could be understanding or irritation.

“Your schedule says you have yoga then dinner. Free time will be two hours before bedtime.”

I shove out of the chair. “I’ve been here for nearly a fucking month. I know what I have to do for the rest of the day.”

I’m almost at the door when Doctor Steinfeld calls to me.

I turn around with a raised eyebrow, wanting to leave so I can walk off the anxiety crawling over my skin, making me shiver and goose bumps crop up all over my flesh.

“There will be a day where you hit rock bottom. What happened to you on that stage wasn’t it.

That was the catalyst to get you the help you very much need.

When you’re at your lowest, when there’s nothing for you to do but climb back up, I’ll be there, and I’ll help you along the way. I swear it.”

“That won’t fucking happen, Doc,” I huff, then storm out of his office to blow off yoga.