Page 37 of To Her

Geri

R ehab passed in tears, vomit, and lots of painful therapy sessions. One thing people don't talk about is the struggle you go through when you're in there. The questions you get asked, the things you have to pull up from the depths where they need to stay.

The facility my mother had found was nestled in the English countryside, all exposed beams and stone walls, trying desperately to look like a quaint country retreat rather than what it was—a place where broken people came to be put back together.

My room was small but private, with a narrow bed, a desk by the window overlooking the gardens, and a bathroom so compact I could barely turn around in the shower.

But it was clean and quiet, and after the chaos of the past few months, that alone felt like a luxury.

The first week was purely physical—my body purging itself of the last traces of chemicals, rebelling against their absence with a vengeance that left me weak and hollow.

I'd thought I'd done most of the detoxing before I left, but apparently my system had other ideas.

The nurses were kind but firm, bringing me water and clean sheets when I soaked mine through with sweat, checking my vitals with practiced efficiency, assuring me that this would pass.

And it did, eventually. The shaking subsided, the nausea became manageable, the headaches dulled from splitting to merely throbbing. But as my body began to heal, the real work started—the work I'd been dreading since I agreed to come here.

Therapy.

I found therapy wasn't my friend. When I pulled up things, it made me spiral, but I did it anyway for the sake of being in here. But I knew I wouldn't attend again once I was out.

Dr. Winters was my primary therapist—a woman in her fifties with silver-streaked dark hair and eyes that seemed to see right through my bullshit. Our first session had set the tone for what was to come.

"So, Geraldine," she'd said, consulting the file in her lap. "This isn't your first time in recovery."

It hadn't been a question, but I'd answered anyway. "No."

"And what do you think was different about this relapse?"

I'd shrugged, already uncomfortable. "I don't know. It just happened."

She'd looked at me for a long moment, her expression neutral. "Things don't 'just happen,' Geraldine. Especially not relapses. They're the culmination of choices, of patterns, of unresolved issues."

"Fine," I'd snapped. "I made bad choices. I know that. That's why I'm here."

"Why are you here?" she'd asked, ignoring my tone.

"To get clean."

"You could get clean anywhere. Lock yourself in a room for a few weeks, and physically, you'd achieve the same result. Why are you here, specifically?"

The question had caught me off-guard. Why was I here? Because my mother had arranged it? Because Con had encouraged it? Because I'd hit rock bottom on New Year's Eve?

"I don't want to be that person anymore," I'd finally said, my voice small. "The one who runs. The one who hurts people. The one who's always looking for the next escape."

She'd nodded, seemingly satisfied with that answer. "Good. That's something we can work with."

And work we did. Three times a week, one-on-one sessions where she'd probe and push and question, forcing me to examine parts of myself I'd spent years burying.

Group therapy daily, where I'd listen to other people's stories—some so similar to mine it was eerie, others so different I could barely comprehend them—and gradually, reluctantly, share my own.

The questions were relentless. Why did I run from intimacy? Why did I sabotage relationships? What was I so afraid of? What was I trying to numb with the drugs and alcohol? What had happened to make me believe I wasn't worthy of love?

That last one had been the hardest. Because the answer wasn't one big, dramatic event—it was a thousand tiny moments, a lifetime of feeling like I was never quite enough, of believing that if people really knew me, they wouldn't stay.

"But that's not true, is it?" Dr. Winters had challenged during our fourth week. "You have people who know you—really know you—and they're still there. Your mother. Your brother. Your friend James. Con."

I'd flinched at Con's name, as I always did. "They don't know everything."

"Then tell them," she'd said simply. "Start with one truth you've been hiding, and see what happens."

So I had. Not all at once, and not to everyone. But bit by bit, I'd started to open up—first in my calls to James, then in conversations with my mother during her visits.

My mum visited me weekly and always brought me a bag of lollies.

She was my biggest cheerleader. We might not have gotten along throughout the years, and she might have only called me to check in, but I had come to understand that wasn't her fault—it was mine.

I had pushed everyone away, and the fact that she called me weekly to check in was the only way I allowed her to show that she cared, not how she wanted to, but it had been me.

So I had started to open up with her more and allowed her in more.

Our relationship had started to flourish, to grow.

The first time she'd visited, a week after I'd arrived, had been awkward. We'd sat in the visitors' lounge, making stilted small talk, both of us dancing around the elephant in the room—the fact that I was back in rehab, that I'd failed again.

"I brought you these," she'd said, handing me a paper bag filled with boiled sweets—the same kind she used to give me as a child when I was sick.

"Thanks, Mum," I'd replied, touched by the gesture despite myself.

We'd lapsed into silence again, the only sound the crinkling of the sweet wrapper as I'd unwrapped one and popped it in my mouth.

"I'm sorry," I'd finally said, the words feeling inadequate but necessary.

She'd reached across the table and taken my hand, her own cool and dry against my clammy palm. "I know, love. I know."

And somehow, that simple acknowledgment had broken something open between us.

I'd started to cry, quiet tears at first, then heaving sobs that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside me.

She'd moved to sit beside me, her arm around my shoulders, letting me cry it out just as James had done at the airport.

"I've made such a mess of everything," I'd choked out when I could speak again.

"Yes," she'd agreed, her honesty startling me. "But you're here now. You're trying to fix it. That's what matters."

After that, her visits had become the highlight of my weeks. She'd bring me sweets and news from home, and I'd gradually share more with her—about my life back home, about the friends I'd made and lost, about Con. Not everything, not yet. But more than I ever had before.

"He sounds like a good man," she'd said one day, after I'd told her about how Con had helped me through the initial detox, how he'd stayed with me despite everything.

"He is," I'd agreed, a lump forming in my throat. "Too good for me."

She'd frowned at that. "Don't say that, Geraldine. You're worthy of love. You always have been."

I'd wanted to believe her. But there was still so much she didn't know, so much I hadn't told anyone except Dr. Winters. And even with her, I'd only scratched the surface.

The deeper work came in the quiet hours, alone in my room, when I'd sit at the desk and write.

Dr. Winters had suggested journaling as a way to process my thoughts, to practice being honest with myself before I could be honest with others.

At first, I'd resisted—writing had never been my thing, and the idea of putting my darkest thoughts on paper seemed terrifying.

But one night, unable to sleep, I'd picked up the notebook she'd given me and started to write. Not about my day or my feelings, but a letter to Con.

Dear Con,

I don't know if I'll ever send this. Probably not. But I need to write it anyway.

I'm sorry. For everything. For running away when things got real between us. For not explaining why. For disappearing and then showing up again only when I needed something. For making you watch me self-destruct. For calling you on New Year's Eve and putting you in that position.

You deserve better than what I've given you. You deserve someone whole, someone who doesn't run, someone who can love you without fear.

The truth is, I do love you. I think I have since that first day at the restaurant, when you looked at me like I was the most fascinating person you'd ever met.

No one had ever looked at me like that before.

It terrified me. Because I knew if you really knew me—all of me—you wouldn't look at me that way anymore.

So here's the truth, or part of it anyway…

And then I'd written it all down—the things I'd never told anyone, the reasons I ran, the darkness I carried inside me. It had poured out of me, page after page, until my hand cramped and tears blurred my vision.

When I'd finished, I'd read it over once, then torn the pages from the notebook and burned them in the small metal trash can in my bathroom, watching the flames consume my confessions, my secrets, my shame.

But something had shifted in me after that night. As if the act of writing it all down, of admitting it even just to myself, had loosened something that had been knotted tight inside me for years.

The next day in therapy, I'd told Dr. Winters one of the things I'd written in that letter—not the worst thing, but a start. She hadn't looked shocked or disgusted. She'd just nodded and asked, "How does it feel to say that out loud?"

"Terrifying," I'd admitted. "But also... I don't know. Like maybe it doesn't have as much power over me when it's not a secret anymore."

She'd smiled then, the first real smile I'd seen from her. "Exactly."