Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 114467 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114467 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
“Let’s go. I’ll drive you home,” Evan says. We say goodbye to everyone, and once again, I’m leaving alone. I sit in the back of the car looking out into the road, and I’m thinking about the broken man who fights every single minute to be the better person. The one whose eyes hold the key to his soul, yet it’s locked up so tight no one can get in.
Chapter Seventeen
Viktor
You’re nothing but a washed-up junkie.
My eyes fly open, taking in the dark hotel room. My body is aching, and I need sleep more than ever, but nothing is restful about my dreams.
We just played a game against Colorado and then got on a plane headed to Florida. We won the game by the skin of our teeth. It wasn’t just a fast game; it was a physical game also. The checks into the board got harder and harder as the time went on. Although no one has thrown the junkie word in my face in the past two weeks, it’s still the little voice whispering to me at night.
I toss the covers off me and get out of bed. Looking at the clock, I see it’s 4:00 a.m. I was asleep for three hours, give or take, so I get out of bed and open a seven-dollar bottle of water, not caring at this point. I open the television and flip through the channels, stopping at some movie. I let it play, but my head is elsewhere. In two weeks, I will have been clean for six months. One hundred and eighty-four days.
My throat goes dry, and I drink more water, but nothing is helping tonight. Nothing. My hand starts to get clammy, and my chest suddenly squeezes too tight. I get up and my breathing starts to come in little pants. My whole body starts to tremble just a touch, and little beads of sweat form on my upper lip. The nausea starts in my stomach, and I sit on the side of the bed. I know I’m having panic attack because it happened to me in rehab when I was closing in on the six-day mark. I needed something to calm my nerves, and nothing would put me in a calm place like my drug of choice.
I look at the clock and focus on the numbers going from one minute to the next. One second more and I use all the tools they taught me at rehab. I start with trying to calm my breathing by taking a deep inhale and then exhale. I open my eyes and try focusing on one thing in the room. I reach for it all, but nothing is working this time. Not looking at the numbers, not counting it in my head, not repeating the serenity part. Nothing. I close my eyes and think about my happy place, which is the stupidest thing I have ever heard of, but I will try anything.
I’m taken back to my apartment, my empty apartment with a picnic in the middle. I’ve tried to block her smile out of my head since the pub. I’ve tried not to look for her or even think of her. I have somehow lost this battle, and tonight is no different. I think of her face when she has no makeup on and it’s just her little freckles. I think about her green eyes that turn blue most of the time when she laughs. I think about that little speck at the bottom of her left eye that looks like a black spot. The sound of her laughter echoes in my ears, and my heart suddenly starts beating normal. My breathing is coming in normal now and not in soft pants. I open my eyes now and take a deep breath.
“Maybe I should learn yoga,” I say to myself and finish the water bottle. I get back into bed and turn off the television, then turn on my calm app to the sound of waves. I don’t know how long it takes before I fall asleep, but the blaring alarm has me groaning. I shut it off and roll over. Blinking my eyes open, I see the sun outside shining.
My phone buzzes, and I grab it and see that it’s Jeffrey calling
“Hey,” I grumble out.
“Were you sleeping?” he asks me, and I hear cars honking in the distance.
“I just got up,” I tell him. “It was a rough night.”
“It’s why I’m calling,” he says. “I remember when I was almost to my six months, my head was a mess, and it was all over the place. I would wake up in a pool of sweat. I would also get violently sick.”
“Yeah, I had a panic attack last night.” I tell him all about last night, not bringing up Zoe. That is mine and mine alone. No one is getting that. “At one point, I thought I was having a heart attack.”