On Thin Ice 1 Read online

  On Thin Ice 1

  On Thin Ice 1

  Victoria Villeneuve

  Copyright 2013 by Victoria Villeneuve

  Smashwords Edition

  I stared at the clock on the other side of the wall. Its monotonous ticking let me know time after time that another second of my life had slipped away, another second was gone that I could never get back. It didn’t matter though. As far as I was concerned, the closer I was to death, the better. After all, what was the point of being on this earth for however many more seconds? In the end everyone dies, most of us having done absolutely nothing noteworthy to either help or harm mankind.

  These sombre thoughts were normal for me these days. I’m sure it’s the sort of thing my therapist would love to hear, the sort of thing she would encourage. I smiled to myself as I thought about her encouraging me to speak, encouraging me to speak my mind. I knew my complete lack of interest in telling her about my thoughts, in telling her about what goes on in my head, frustrated her.

  “Kylie, you need to allow yourself to heal. You can’t continue to punish yourself, or you’ll never move on with your life.”

  What Doctor Emma, as everyone called her, didn’t realize, was that I didn’t want to heal. I wasn’t going to heal. I wanted to wallow in my depression, I wanted to punish myself. I deserved every terrible thought that crossed my mind, no matter what anyone said.

  Finally, enough ticks of my life had slipped past that the minute hand was veering closer and closer to the top of the clock. I was going to be late if I didn’t get going soon. I got up off the couch I was lying on and made my way through the hallway.

  Sometimes I wondered why they painted the hallways in this place beige. It was so sterile, so boring. It was like they did the absolute bare minimum they had to in order to make this place seem like not a doctor’s office, and justify the prices they charged to attend this place. I always thought to myself that maybe the people in here would be happier if the walls were purple, and blue, and red, and yellow. Of course, there was always a chance some of the people who were addicted to substances far more mind altering than I would think they were high, and perhaps it wasn’t the best idea. Still, I didn’t think it would kill them to add a bit of color to the place.

  I guess rehab centers in general aren’t supposed to be homely. They’re supposed to be a place where you go in, get off whatever you were addicted to, and get out, hopefully with a better mindset to tackle the problems of real life without a relapse. In my case, it was alcohol. For me, as with so many other people, the addiction to alcohol was a reaction to something in my life. I had never had a problem with alcohol before, until I did. The real problem was getting over what had happened, and I knew that wasn’t something I was going to do. I didn’t want to do it. If I let myself get over it, that was letting me off easy. I didn’t deserve to be free from those memories.

  When I was maybe thirty yards down the hall I reached the door I wanted, turned the knob and let myself in.

  As always, the room had a bit more than a dozen chairs spread in a circle, half of them already filled. I sat about as far as I could from Doctor Emma, who took the chair facing the door. I vaguely looked around, all of the faces in the chairs the same familiar ones as were there every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon.

  Sitting next to Doctor Emma, as always, was Sam. He had been in a car accident about a year ago and gotten addicted to painkillers. When his wife left, he finally realized he had a problem, and checked himself into the clinic. He had a beard now, and his black hair was getting pretty scraggly, but I could still tell there was a handsome man lurking under there somewhere. When he went back to the real world, I always thought Sam would be fine. He had run a successful business, which I think his son was now in charge of while he was here.

  Amanda sat next to Sam. She was what most people think of when they think of drug addicts. She got in with a bad crowd in high school and became addicted to meth. She pimped herself out for a while, but her rich family found her and forced her into rehab. The brown roots of her platinum blonde hair were showing, but at least it had stopped falling out as much as it had before. She was starting to put on weight, but I could still see her ribs through the tight tank top she wore with skinny jeans that somehow managed to look loose on her. I had never seen skinny jeans look loose on anyone before. Amanda was nice enough, but quiet. She mostly kept to herself, and I was fine with that.

  Two chairs to Doctor Emma’s left was Fiona. She was an alcoholic like myself, although she was about fifteen years older, and probably the closest thing I had to a friend in here. She had brown hair down to her shoulders in one of those trendy cuts you might expect Victoria Beckham to wear, and eyes of the exact same shade. Her face was always perfectly made up. Even when she was at her worst, she always wore so much makeup sometimes I wondered if I’d ever seen her real face. I didn’t know why she was in here apart from the alcoholism. I didn’t know if she had a deep seated secret that led her to drinking, if something in her life, a memory had made it worse. She was like me, she didn’t like to share, and I think that was why we found ourselves making a connection. We never spoke about what we were in here for. I only knew her addiction was alcohol, like mine. She nodded at me as I caught her eye. We would speak about banalities, about things that didn’t matter, and it made us both happier.

  I sat down in my chair and stared at the floor. There was a piece of dirt almost exactly in the center of one of the tiles, and I willed it to move an inch to the left to be in perfect symmetry with the rest of the floor. I had always been a little bit crazy like that. Time to zone out for an hour. I never participated in these group therapy sessions. Why bother? I was broken, I didn’t want to heal. What was the point? I was vaguely aware of a slow procession of more people, another half dozen or so coming in. Chairs screeched against the linoleum floor as the residents of the Charles Madison Center for Sobriety all took their seats, ready for the biweekly session of sharing their lives with strangers.

  Doctor Emma said nothing, flipping through the notes on her lap as people entered, absentmindedly playing with a strand of her straight, long black hair, until all of the chairs had been filled. Then she looked around the room, cleared her throat and began to speak.

  “Welcome, everyone. Thank you for coming.” Right. She said this every week, as though we had any choice in the matter.

  “Before we begin, I’d like to introduce you all to the newest member of our group. Daniel, we would all appreciate it if you told us a few words about yourself.”

  I dragged my eyes away from the speck of dirt on the floor to see who the new guy was. I looked up and noticed everyone looking to my left. He was three seats away from me, and as soon as I saw him, my breath caught in my throat.

  Daniel was hands down the sexiest man I’d ever seen in my life. I was pretty sure I just stared at him for a while, my jaw hanging wide open. His eyes were dark, deep pools of mystery. His hair was of the same color, scruffy, but not overly so. It gave him that perfect just-got-out-of-bed look. His jaw had a hint of stubble, but his cheekbones, as perfect as if they’d been carved from marble, were still noticeable underneath.

  A shiver shot down my spine, a shiver unlike any I’d felt in a long, long time. My eyes moved away from his perfect face down to his body. The tight, long sleeved sports shirt he wore showed off the fact that he was incredibly muscular. I could see the ripples and bulges in all the right places, and although I couldn’t tell for sure, I wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a six pack under that fabric. Despite the athletic top he wore jeans and sneakers to finish off his outfit, and as he shifted in his chair to start speaking, my mouth went dry.

  “Hey, I’m Daniel. I, um, I’m here because I’m addicted to p
ain meds, and because my boss says I can’t go back to work until I’m over it.” He smiled when he said that last bit, and I thought I was going to melt right there in my chair and ooze down to the floor. What the hell was wrong with me?

  “Hi Daniel” came the monotonous chant from everyone except me; I was busy trying to figure out why my heart rate had suddenly shot through the roof and why my blood felt like it was simmering inside of me. This wasn’t the sort of reaction I was used to having when new people were introduced. Hell, this wasn’t the sort of reaction I was used to having, at all. For months now I had only felt pain, guilt and sadness. Feelings like this, feeling like something inside of me was tingling, feeling like my entire body was on fire, this sort of thing wasn’t what I was used to.

  “Excellent. We welcome Daniel to our group, and we hope to share in his journey of healing” Doctor Emma continued, before she began to flip through her notes.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off Daniel. I have no idea what Doctor Emma said next, all I could think about was that man sitting only a few feet away. I didn’t understand what these feelings running through my body were. I had never felt anything like this before. What was my body doing? Why was I staring at this guy? I began to squirm in my seat, feeling the heat building up inside of me. Suddenly, I heard my name called.

  “Kylie? Kylie, are you listening?”

  “Sorry Doctor Emma. I must have zoned out for a second. Could you repeat that?”

  “Kylie, today we’re discussing the impact sports have had in our lives. I’m wondering if there’s anything you would like to share with us on the topic?” Doctor Emma asked, her hazel eyes earnestly looking at me, hoping against all hope that today would be the day I would spill, that today I would reveal all of my secrets and start to heal.

  I wasn’t going to. I had come in here planning on giving my usual excuse as to why I didn’t want to participate in the discussion. But I looked around and saw Daniel’s face expectantly looking at mine, and something made me tell a story. For the first time in the months that I had been here, for the first time after coming here twice a week and making up reasons as to why I didn’t want to share, I spoke. After all, sports had nothing to do with the history of my life. Sure, I played some as a kid, but it had nothing to do with my life now, and it certainly wasn’t going to help me heal. I figured I could tell one little story. I couldn’t remember the last time I had actually done something like this, actually tried to impress a man. I couldn’t deny that was why I did it. I was trying to impress this Daniel guy, and I had no idea why.

  “I didn’t play a lot of organized sports when I was little, but I would play soccer with my friends at recess or after school, and I rode my bike along the road a lot. There was another girl in my class though, Kirsten Gill, who played every sport imaginable. One day she came to class with her leg in a cast. She had broken it that weekend skiing, and she got so much attention I was unexplainably jealous. I have no idea what got into me, I had never been jealous like that before.”

  I paused and smiled to myself slightly at the silliness of what I was about to admit.

  “That afternoon,” I continued, “I took my bike out onto the road and decided to pedal as fast as I could and jump off, in the hopes that I would also break something, and that I would get as much attention as Kirsten did. I went all the way down the hill at the end of the street as fast as I could, then lost control and went tumbling to the ground. When I got up, there were blood and scrapes all over me. My entire body stung, and I cried the whole walk back to the house. The only good thing was I looked so awful I was certain I was going to get at least as much attention as Kirsten did, even though I didn’t have a cast. Well, my mom made me stay home from school for a week while I recovered, so no one ever even got to see my injuries. I cried every single day from a combination of the pain and the sadness at not getting to have everyone fawn over me. It’s so silly when I think about it now, I can’t even imagine why I would have thought it was a good idea, but there you go.”

  “Thank you for sharing, Kylie” Doctor Emma told me. If she was pleased or surprised at my sharing, she didn’t show it at all. I looked around. Daniel was looking at me, a small smile on his face that I couldn’t quite make out. I could feel a blush crawling up my face. Did I have a crush on this guy?

  “Daniel, would you like to tell us about the impact sports has had on your life?”

  Daniel nodded. When he spoke, his low, manly voice sent shivers running through me.

  “Sports has affected every part of my life. I guess like most guys, I grew up playing sports. I think sports, more than school or anything else, has turned me into the person I am today.”

  I wondered if that meant his addiction as well. I began to wonder about Daniel. What brought him here? Was he going to stay long? What happened in his life that led to his addiction? This was a center for people who could afford to come here. This wasn’t a center for the poor. I was lucky that my parents were willing to pay the bills, although I was too ashamed to face them. I wondered what Daniel did in his other life. Was he a lawyer? A doctor, like I had studied to be? Somehow, none of those seemed to fit.

  For the first time since I’d come here, I wasn’t happy that Doctor Emma let us go. I wanted to stay in the circle, hear more about this Daniel guy. I had no idea why my body reacted the way it did at him. That wasn’t like me at all. I hadn’t had a boyfriend in years now. Hell, I hadn’t ever had a reaction like this to a man, even when I was dating. What was my problem?

  Doctor Emma encouraged us to come and see her whenever we needed, as she always did, before we all stood up and left. I didn’t wait for Fiona as I usually did, instead I immediately left the room and went back into the sterile, beige hallway. I needed to go to my room and figure out what the hell was going on with me. I needed to figure out why my body reacted like this.

  “Excuse me, wait!” I suddenly heard a voice behind me, as fingers tapped my shoulders lightly, and I froze. I turned around slowly, and found myself staring into Daniel’s chest. That perfectly formed, muscular chest. Looking up I found his face, my eyes looking directly into his deep brown ones. There was pain in those eyes, but also curiosity.

  “I just wanted to tell you, I really liked your story,” Daniel told me, shooting me that smile that sent fire running through me once more. Standing now, my legs felt like jelly, like I was going to faint just from being in Daniel’s presence.

  “Thanks,” I told him, trying to smile.

  “Kylie,” Daniel repeated, slowly, as though trying on the name for the first time. The way he had just said my name, it sounded so different coming from his mouth. It sounded so pure, so sexy somehow, not the plain Jane name I always thought of it as.

  “That was your name, right? It’s nice to meet you Kylie” Daniel told me, flashing me another smile as he held out his hand.

  “Yeah. You too,” were the only words I could muster in reply, and even they sounded dumb and hollow coming from my mouth. I stood there in silence I watched Daniel continue down the hallway. I wondered what his story was, where he came from. There was something about him, something that I couldn’t quite place my finger on it but that made my body react in ways I just wasn’t used to when he was around me. I wasn’t comfortable with it, I didn’t like it. I could really use a drink right now I thought to myself, but I quickly forced the thought from my brain. I wasn’t going there. Absolutely not. Not again. I might not want to heal, but I also didn’t want to depend on alcohol to make the pain go away again.

  “Hey, new guy’s pretty hot, don’t you think?” Fiona asked as she came up next to me.

  “I guess he’s okay. I hadn’t really noticed,” I lied in reply, not really wanting to confide with anybody as to what I had just felt.

  “Bullshit! Don’t think I didn’t notice you spent the entire group therapy section staring at the guy, not to mention you actually said something for the first time ever.”

  “I did not!” I protested, but I k
new my words were falling on empty ears. “I just figured I’d tell my story because Doctor Emma’s been on my case about letting my feelings out, about trying to heal, and that story about me jumping off my bike has absolutely nothing to do with my life now.”

  “Whatever you say dear,” Fiona replied, obviously not believing my terrible excuses. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing, personally. Boys are fun, just don’t get too attached to them.”

  “You’re impossible. Where is he from anyways?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything about him at all. My guess is some rich kid who played lacrosse in college.”

  “Really? You think he’s that young?” I would’ve placed Daniel’s age at closer to 30, which would have made him a full six years older than me.

  “I guess not. When you get old like me, Kylie, it becomes a lot harder to tell people’s ages. You’ll know one day.”

  “You’re ancient Fiona, I guess late 30s is the new late 70s,” I told her, rolling my eyes.

  “Whatever. I have a date with Sam to play Monopoly in the lounge, because unlike you I’m not afraid of boys and just because I’m an alcoholic doesn’t mean I can’t have some fun.”

  “You and I both know that you cheat at Monopoly and that this place has a strict no dating policy. Sam’s about to be disappointed on two levels.”

  “Sure, but as long as it’s only pretend, there’s no problem!”

  I laughed to myself as I watched Fiona walk down the hall. She was looking good. I was already here when Fiona arrived, I’d been at the clinic for around a month. She had looked like the perfect suburban housewife then, well dressed, healthy looking. I never would have guessed she had a drinking problem if I’d seen her in the street.

  The next few weeks had been hard on her. She lost a lot of weight, I knew she wasn’t eating, the bags under her eyes indicated that she wasn’t sleeping either. We never talked about our problems, but slowly she began to get better, and I realized as she walked down the hall that she was looking a lot better. I wondered if it wasn’t going to be too long before she would be discharged, going back to her family, her two kids in college still not knowing that she was here. They both went to colleges out of state, and seeing as it was the middle of the school year, as long as Fiona was out of here sometime in the next two months they would never even know she had been gone.