But in case she didn’t know that, he figured he better remind her.
“Feel great. I hate this place and I’m ready to go.”
A few people nodded in agreement. It was mostly men, fellow athletes who were too far gone and needing to clean up. Jordie was nothing like these guys and didn’t understand why he was in here with pill poppers and true alcoholics.
“We still have about an hour left.”
“Yeah, I know, but I mean out of this place.”
Her brows came in. She was a cute little thing, nice legs and okay tits. She had sweet little green eyes though and a small little mouth that resulted in a small little meditative voice. “You have forty-five days left, Jordie.”
“Don’t remind me,” he groaned, leaning back and letting his head drop.
“In the forty-five days we’ve been together, you have shared absolutely nothing with me and nothing with the other therapist before me at your group meetings.”
“Because there isn’t anything to share.”
“Sure, there is. You’re an alcoholic.”
“No, I like to drink,” he said, still with his head hanging. “That doesn’t constitute an alcoholic.”
“It does when you drink to not feel something.”
He glared. “I mean, what’s the point of drinking if it’s not to forget? Everyone does it.”
“In moderation. Before you entered here, you’d gone to PT drunk five out of the six sessions, according to your physical therapist. And you also went drunk to your group meetings that were planned while we waited for a spot to open up here.”
He shrugged. “Hey, those are good odds in my opinion. And plus, they all drove me to drinking because I hate them so much.”
She tsked while a few of the guys laughed. “You shouldn’t be going drunk at all.”
“Sure, and I won’t ever again,” he said, sitting up then. “Now, can I leave?”
Her eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms. “The answer is still no.”
“There isn’t anything for me here. This place isn’t going to magically fix me. I’m not going to be ready for a sober life once I leave. I’m good. I don’t want to talk, I don’t even want to drink anymore, so maybe it has worked. I don’t fucking know. I just want to play hockey and be out of here.”
“There is a lot wrong with you,” she countered without missing a beat.
Jordie scoffed, rolling his eyes before setting her with a dark, challenging look. The whole time he had been here, she had hounded him for information, trying to get him to open up about shit he didn’t even want to speak about. He was good having all his past secrets deep inside him. And plus, they had nothing to do with the fact that he liked to drink. He drank because it numbed the pain.
The pain of his career hanging in the balance.
The pain of not knowing the future.
Most of all, the pain of letting Kacey go.
Therapist Lady knew none of this. She knew nothing, only what was on paper. And he didn’t think it was any of her business about anything else. She wanted to know about his past? Read his file and leave him the fuck alone, was his opinion.
But yet, she continued to come at him. It was time to shut her up. “Oh, yeah? Please enlighten me, Ms. Therapist Lady.”
Glaring, she held his gaze for a moment and then looked down at her file, clearing her throat. His chest seized up right as he realized what she was about to do. Before he could stop her though, she was talking.
“Well, let’s see, shall we?” she said very slowly. “But first, you’re okay if I share?” she asked, her eyes challenging, and he shrugged. He refused to be weak in front of these wack-jobs and her stuffy ass.
“Do you, lady.”
She smiled coyly. “Okay, well, your mother has been married ten times in the course of your life. When you were four, you were raped by her third husband, more than once. You were found on the bed bleeding and unresponsive from multiple areas after he beat you almost to death—”