But he hadn’t gone through with it. Cowardice was not something Max was proud of, but, like his best friend, Carter, had explained: he was twenty years old and had his whole life to live. And live it he did. He got shitfaced, fucked women, dealt in shit he had no business getting involved in, became a regular dealer, got shot at, got arrested, got bailed . . . rinse and repeat.
Not a life so much as an extended hangover, punctuated with pockets of deliriousness. He kept the body shop afloat with the money he made from dealing, paid his employees, and partied from sunset to sunrise. And as the months passed, the pain Max had felt the day of the funeral slowly ebbed, leaving a numbness in which he freely basked. He didn’t feel pain. Christ, he didn’t feel anything. And that was just fine.
He doubted he’d ever feel again. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to.
Until she tumbled into his life . . .
Max lifted his eyes from the sumptuous cream carpet under his feet, settling them on the man sitting opposite him. Elliot waited patiently for Max to say something else, but Max knew he was done. He’d said more than he’d wanted to already. He hadn’t spoken about his father for a long time and scratching at that particular scab was as agonizing as it had been on the day of the funeral eight years before.
He reached for the glass of water on the small wooden table at the side of his chair and took a long sip. The silence was suffocating in its expectancy, causing Max to fidget and shift in his seat.
“From your quiet, I assume we’re done for the day.” Elliot smiled and wrote quickly on the legal pad resting, as it always did, on his knee. Max didn’t answer, but took a deep breath, knowing he’d been let off the hook. Max had learned quickly that Dr. Elliot Watts was a persistent bastard. Yeah, he was a therapist and that shit was his job, but he’d been relentless from the get-go. Nevertheless, Max had to admit he liked him, no matter what dark paths of the past the doc asked him to travel.
“You made some good progress here today, Max,” Elliot continued with a small nod. “I know talking about your father isn’t easy.”
Yeah, no shit.
Scribble, scribble. “So, you’re fifteen days in. How are you finding the medication?”
Max shrugged. He was on a plethora of funky-looking pills, which he had to take each morning: antidepressants, Ritalin, amantadine. Each one had a very specific purpose in helping with the aching despair, sleepless nights, and the cravings. And they did. For the most part. Hell, drugs were drugs.
They weren’t the drugs he wanted, the drugs he knew would kick his anxiety’s ass, the drugs that would stop his dick from being a flaccid waste of time, the drugs that would supress the monstrous appetite that was adding to his waistline, the drugs that beckoned like a fucking siren’s call every time he tried to close his eyes at night.
But drugs were drugs.
With every half-assed beat of his heart, his blood moved sluggishly around his body. It was desperate for the fire of a line, the life, the euphoric detachment. Jesus, he needed a hit. Just one fucking hit.
Elliot sat up a little straighter, as if sensing the hunger that practically crippled Max from the inside out. “How are the night terrors?”
Dread seized Max’s bones. He swallowed and rubbed his hands together. His discomfort spoke volumes. The night terrors were just that: terrifying. Nightmares so vivid and distressing the mere thought of sleep left Max cold. They’d started just days off the powder, just days after he’d been admitted, and, despite Elliot’s prescribed medication, they weren’t abating. The bags under his eyes could attest to that shit.
“We can increase the dose if you need it, Max,” Elliot said softly. “You need your rest.”
Max sighed and gave an imperceptible dip of his chin, his pride unable to outweigh the fear of what waited for him when he slept.
“Okay. I’ll get that changed for you.”
“Thank you.” Max’s voice was quiet, but his gratitude was immeasurable.
“Do you want to talk about the terrors?”
“No.” Max rubbed at his temples, where the grotesque images that accosted him at night threatened to claw out.
Elliot’s silence made Max lift his head. “That bad.”
Max pulled the hood of his sweatshirt farther around his face, burying himself in an attempt to hide. He wore his hood up for both his individual and the group sessions, and weirdly, Elliot didn’t seem to mind. Max wasn’t entirely sure why he did it, but it helped take the edge off the stress he felt at the thought of talking to strangers about shit that had happened years ago. It was a cocoon, a wall that made his stay in rehab a little bit easier.
“Maybe you could write about the terrors in the notebook I gave you last week. I know it’s still empty.” Elliot smiled wryly at the derisive look Max shot him.
Writing in a fucking notebook? No, thanks.