Page 34 of Mended Fences

I’d done everything they asked. Groups. Individual therapy. Mindfulness bullshit that actually turned out to be not-so-bullshit. Even fucking art therapy, though I’d rather die than admit to anyone how much I’d gotten out of painting my feelings or whatever.

ELLIOT

Anyone seen my wife?

NATALIE

Tessa’s with me and Elena. Girls’ day.

Pedicures

MOM

GOOD! My sweet girls need the break!

My thumb froze over Elena’s name. Suddenly, I was back in that first week, shaking and sweating through withdrawal, confessing to Jackson about the married woman I couldn’t stop thinking about.

“Tell me about her.”

So I had. Everything. The night I met her at Callaghan’s. Snowboarding. The texts that had become my lifeline when they were all I had of her.

The assault.

The spiral.

The accident.

“You’ve got a lot of work to do on yourself first.”

Looking back, he was right. I’d been in no shape to be anyone’s savior when I couldn’t even save myself.

Emma Everton added Elena Ventura to the group.

MOM

Welcome to the family chaos, honey!

I stared at the screen, my heart doing that familiar stutter it always did at any mention of her.Elena Ventura.The name hit different now—I had no idea what was happening in her life, if she was okay, where her sleazeball husband was. Twelve weeks was a long time to be completely cut off from someone who’d become such a lifeline.

Mom had always been a collector of strays. She’d practically adopted Tessa the second Dad brought her home after her car got stuck in a snowy ditch. Guess Elena was her newest adoptee. Probably saw exactly what I had a year ago: a brilliant but broken woman who worked too hard and was loved too little.

Jackson’s voice echoed in my head.“Focus on your recovery. One day at a time. The rest will fall into place.”

I closed the message thread, opened my browser, and searched for the nearest NA meeting.

Step one: find a meeting.

The closest meetingto Sable Point was located in a facility I hadnot planned to visit again for a long, long time—for many reasons.

For starters, this was the last place I’d been before rehab, recovering from a few self-inflicted but mild wounds while my sister fought for her life. Second, it was the workplace of the one woman I wanted to see but wasn’t ready to.

I’d been sitting in the Ashford Hospital parking lot for twenty minutes, watching people come and go through the automatic doors. Each time they slid open, my heart jumped into my throat. Would this be the time I saw her?

The meeting started in ten minutes. Second floor, Room 214, according to the AA website. Simple enough. So why couldn’t I make my legs move?

My phone buzzed—Jackson checking in. Again. My therapist was nothing if not persistent.

JACKSON