Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 135517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135517 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
I was tempted to follow her as I watched her sneak away from the yacht in the middle of the night, and it hurt to accept that this was not what was right for her and only served my selfish need to be close to her. I watched until the car she was in disappeared before running below the deck of my own yacht and throwing myself down on the bed facedown.
I haven’t cried out yet, but I’m close. I find that each time I shed a tear, I feel less heavy and closer to getting to where I want to be. Someone once said that instead of trying to clean out all the muck in your life, you should purge it by adding good things. If I tried to unpack all my screwups, it would take years.
I had myself a good cry before rolling over in bed to stare at the ceiling. I have to make a decision about what it is that I want to do here. So far, I’d only been concentrating on getting clean because I knew I couldn’t do anything else until that was out of the way, but I hadn’t really let myself look beyond that point. Though in the back of my mind, there’s always the thought of getting her back.
Okay, if I’m being honest, that’s always been my endgame, making my way back to her. But I know that I need to do a lot of work before that day comes. I ordered the captain to head back and made arrangements to go back to Arizona to finish what I’d started. The last few days of watching her were going to have to be enough for now.
***
I looked out across the desert from my place on the ground in front of my tent. The sky was one of the prettiest I’d ever seen, with blending shades of red and orange with some pink and grey added in. My first thought was that I wished she was here with me; she’d like it, I’m sure.
The last few weeks had been grueling as heck and more taxing than I’d expected. I’d done the whole rehab thing before but not like this. This was soul-wrenching and, at some points, almost dehumanizing, but I guess some of the things I’d done weren’t so humane, so fair is fair.
It sucks like a son of a bitch having to face the truth about yourself when that truth isn’t good. Facing and accepting are two different things, though, so I’d had to work on that. I know that part of why I didn’t want to accept the whole truth is because I didn’t want to lay claim to the bullshit that I’d done, especially to her, but that was one hurdle I couldn’t walk around. Not if I was genuine in my desire to make things right.
The teacher never let on that he knew who I was, and the fact that he never leaves this place, has no Internet, and seems to have a serious aversion to all things modern supported that fact. But the way he kept me isolated from everyone else kind of gave me a hint that he’d seen through my disguise, which wasn’t much to begin with because it was hot as all seven levels of hell in this place, so minimalist was the way to go.
What’s more, he didn’t care one wit who I was or how much wealth I had. His only interest was in getting me better and not just my addiction but all aspects of my life. I’ve never known the person he brought out of me, never met him.
He was a mixture of the young innocent I was before the fame and the man I always imagined myself being, along with the man I knew she deserved. Knowing that at this time was kind of hard because there were still some things I needed to do back in my old life. Things that I still hadn’t given much thought to how to handle.
I spent the last few days gearing myself up to face what awaited me back there without giving away the fact that when I walked out of this desert, I wouldn’t be the same person I was when I walked in. There was still a huge block of my memory missing, but I knew enough to know that I’d made a huge mistake and just had to learn how to fix it.
I figured the new me would be strong enough to face what may come out better on the other side. So, when it was time to go the next morning after the amazing sunset, I felt ready to face the world. That was until the phone call from Mom. “Ryder, you have to get back here right now.”