Happy

"Life's beautiful; why blow it?"

It feels a little like a crash landing, to go from being a mindless, selfish addict, to being human again. A human being with all the right feelings, and thoughts, and guilt. Oh, so much guilt. It’s almost too much to deal with at times.

She had always assumed that drugs and alcohol were her problem, and that everything would be okay as soon as she got sober. But every time she got clean, she'd run straight back to drugs.

Now, she realises that the crux of her addiction was bigger than just bad behaviour. It's her thinking; the way she made the world completely about her and her sadness and her hate and her anger, to the point that anything good was completely obscured by her narcissism. Instead of realising she was hurting her family, she could only complain that if it weren’t for their repeated interventions, they would still have a good relationship — that they should let her do whatever the hell she wanted. It didn’t matter that half the time she begged them to intervene.

She just couldn’t see it.

Once, after holing up for days in her apartment, after their first intervention that ended with everyone just yelling at her and her storming out with Dean (her parents had offered to help Dean too if he wanted), she found her way to her dad’s clinic and banged on his door, wailing that she needed help.

Captain. Dad, I'm sorry. I need help. Please. Please.

Alright, kitten. It's okay.

I screwed up, Dad. Now, I don't know how to get out of it.

Let me finish up with Mrs. Ibanescu. Mmhm?

Okay.

Aileen, would you take Addison to my office?

But, three minutes later, when he tried to get her to talk, she had talked herself out of it and she brushed him off.

She said it wasn’t serious and she went straight home to Dean.

It's easier to lose yourself in drugs than it is to cope with life.

Now, as she goes back to her room, Addison closes the door behind her with a sinking feeling in her gut — a feeling that had quickly turned to a deep and aching pain. As soon as she slides the lock across, she leans back heavily against the door, eyes falling closed as she swallows hard. A shaky hand lifted to rub over her abdomen and she feels the muscles twitching and contorting there, below the expanse of her skin.

Her mostly pleasant, uneventful day has been quickly whisked away by the night — a night spent pressed in tight against cool, white tiles with her head hung low over the toilet bowl. By the time dawn crept through her room with its low, milky light, she was spent.

Medication comes with breakfast. They give her just enough of a reprieve from the cold sweats, shakes, and nausea that she could finally sleep. It is the weekend and over the weekends, a lot of people would leave — the building would be much more empty then, everyone scarce. Quiet. Lonely, almost. She has no one to spend her weekends with and no one comes to see her.

Granted, she is in Colorado after all.

This is not her first stint in rehab. Actually this is her second time in this very facility. The first having ended when she convinced another patient to runaway with her and they hitchhiked their way back to New York.

The last she heard of him was that he had overdosed.

Five failed attempts (excluding overdoses and detoxification that had her hospitalised). She's decided this is her last try to cleanse herself or this problem, one that she can't seem to shake from her shoulders.

This has to be the last time.

Please.

The lifestyle she lived was exhausting and as she looked back, all it did was made her really sad.

It ends here, once and for all, there really is no going back for her. Because if she does, she won't be waking up.

She'll make sure she doesn't.

The first rehab she went to was in a high-end treatment centre that cost her father 90,000 dollars for a month-long stay. He was thrilled that she was seeking help. But she said she'd only go if Dean was going with her.

Her father was not very happy, then.

She hoped to find a career as an actress — who knows who she would meet at a treatment centre in Los Angeles? Her capacity for self-deception would have been funny if it weren’t so tragic. There she was in Malibu, wearing a sweater — a sweater in Southern California summer for crying out loud — her untamed bleach blonde hair with overgrown roots, hoping to be 'discovered'.

She had no idea how delusional she was.

The treatment centre was a sprawling set of lodges overlooking the Pacific Ocean. It housed roughly two dozen patients at a time. The first thing she did was collapse on her bed and sleep for three days straight. When she finally woke up, she saw two sets of eyes peering at her.

“I’m Candice,” one girl said.

“And I’m Lilian,” said the other. “And you’re in Drew Barrymore’s old bed. She just left.”

There, she went to every meeting, talked earnestly to her counsellors, exercised, learned to meditate, and took part in group therapy and psychodrama, a technique where they use role-play to work through their issues. Still, she wasn’t getting better. All she could think about was getting home and getting high, which they promptly did, the moment they landed.

Then, came Silver Hill, in New Canaan. This one lasted three days before they kicked her out for fooling around with another patient.

She finds that she can't really have friends. She either sleep with them or ruin their lives or kill them, even — however you want to see it.

From there, she went to treatment in New Hemisphere, where she dismissed the notion of addiction to such a degree that she was asked to leave after 10 days because she was undermining the recovery of other people. They told her they had never seen someone so deep in denial before.

Fine! I'm going! I didn't even want to be here in the first place!

One time, she was so high that she sat cross-legged in the middle of the intersection at Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street, stopping traffic. The police took her to Mount Sinai, and later she was sent to a psychiatric ward in NewYork Presbyterian where she was chastised and judged and treated so poorly, as though she was lower than scum, by the same people whom she had gone to medical school with. She checked herself out after a few days and Bizzy forced her into an outpatient facility in Connecticut.

She hated it there.

She was even more miserable sober than she was when she used. She couldn’t sit still. She was feverish all the time. Without drugs, she became addicted to controlling her weight, and developed a form of exercise bulimia, where she'd eat entire boxes of cakes and pastries and run for hours to burn off the calories. She told the counsellors she was getting worse. They encouraged her to stop focusing on the negative — that she was giving new patients the impression that their programme didn’t work.

But it did not.

And it was always on her. The blame and the finger pointing. She felt like everything was her fault.

A few days before her treatment was over, she relapsed. She went to a bar in downtown Boston (how she ended up in Boston is still a mystery.), downed a few shots of Jack Daniel's and found a Candy dealer within minutes.

She snorted a tonne that night. She missed curfew, and bought clean urine from the dealer’s mom so she could pass the drug test at rehab in the morning. The counsellors busted her the next day, and, three days later, her father put her on a plane to Provence so she could see her grandmother before either one of them dies.

She thought there was no saving her.

The last time she went to a facility was because Derek caught her almost jumping off the balcony of her condo.

Well, that and one other reason was why he ratted her out to her parents.

She's sick, Bizzy. It's not just the drugs. She's hearing voices again.

Because Derek had told her to go out onto the balcony, that a plane was coming to save her from this hell she was living. So, she gingerly made her way to the balcony and slid open the door, wanting to make him happy again. He was also so disappointed with her. That look - it was a constant on his face and she wanted to change it. She stepped into the cool night air and tried to climb over the railing. As she started her descent, he screamed, and rushed outside, grabbing her; he’d told her no such thing.

She had hallucinated the conversation.

That evening she couldn't sleep, no matter how hard she tried. Her head spun and throbbed, skin sticky with cold-sweat. She needed more, she knew that and it was also she could think about. She hadn't had a chance to re-up like she planned to because Derek had been at her apartmentall day long (leaving the apartment would mean that she was going to see her dealer and he'd know that. Besides she didn't feel like fight him again.) and she didn't want to do drugs when he was around; that was one of her rules. Granted, she had already broken every rule she had made for herself— so why keep this one?

She would have to be very desperate to shot up in front of Derek.That would be her rock bottom.

He shook her, murmuring her name, telling her it was okay, that it was just a nightmare — but didn't he know she was awake? And then, she sat bolt upright head in hands, talking furiously.

"Shut up," she was yelling, "Just shut up." Then, she was sobbing, rocking, "Please, please, just stop talking."

He pulled her towards him so that her head was resting on his shoulder, rocking her, "It's okay. You're safe," he repeated.

She turned to look at him, and she realised that Derek was awake too. It wasn't all in her head. Then, she started to cry, great racking sobs as he held her, and rocked her and stroked her hair. "Help me, Derek," she whispered, "Make them stop."

"Make what stop?" he asked gently, but that only made it worse.

He sat there and held her for a long, long time, until she finally pulled away and stumbled off to the bathroom, where he found her several minutes later, hands clenched onto the washbasin, staring at herself in the mirror and having a furious whispered conversation — with herself? Trying to talk herself out of needing more drugs, maybe? — because what she was going through had to be withdrawals. Right? She had only shot up a couple of hours ago. She was in the bathroom 'taking a bath' for a very long time, but since her tolerance was atrocious now, she was going through withdrawals like clockwork.

He stood silently, wondering how best to announce his presence. But then, as he stood and listened to what she was saying, he realised with a cold, gut churning realisation that what he was witnessing was one side of a conversation with somebody that only she could hear.

Derek had spent the last eight months of his life in the pits of Mount Sinai, with a fair number of mental health patients among all the rest. In that time he had met patients with just about every variation of depression, self-harm, personality disorder and psychosis that you could come across in a textbook; but witnessing the woman he loved in the throws of full-blown auditory hallucinations was almost more than he could bear. He resisted the impulse to allow himself to crumble, to slide to the floor on knees that had suddenly gone weak, bury his head in his arms and cry, and forced himself into work mode.

"What are they saying?" he asked quietly.

Addison startled, only just registering his presence.

"The voices that you're talking to," he continued calmly, "What are they saying?"

She closed her eyes and shook her head. He allowed her a few minutes of silence before grasping her shoulders, "Come back to bed," he said, trying to keep his voice calm and level.

"That's only going to make it worse."

"Then, we'll find you something to make it better."

"You're not going to like it," she whispered, still unable to look at him, but allowing him to guide her gently back to bed. Once she was on the bed, her eyes fluttered to his.

Derek sighed, rubbing his face frustratingly with his hands. "Fine. Just a few milligrams and I'll be watching."

And that was what he did the entire night; watching her.

He listened as she called her dealer. Ten minutes later, there was a knock on the door. She paid him and walked past him without so much as a glance or acknowledgment, even, and into her bedroom. As he followed her, he found her sitting on the edge of the bed, back turned towards him.

He could never understand her problem with drugs. She didn't seem or look the type to be hooked, to have a problem — not like Amy. And now, she was chasing the dragon to chase away the memories and the darkness.

This drug was dangerous enough though, serious drugs, not just the odd joint or an ecstasy tablet on a Saturday night. But this, this proof of what she had procured for herself was because of her stubborn refusal to look at this as an illness.

She had barely gotten the needle out of her arm before she was falling backwards onto the mattress.

Rubbing his face with one hand, he stepped towards her, slipping the needle out of her vein. Her arm — they were cracked, bruised and dirty. Ruined. He went to get alcohol and a cotton swab from the first-aid kit in the bathroom to wipe over her arm to keep them from getting an infection.

He slowly looked around the bedroom.

What had his life become?

He wanted to hate her.

He fucking hated her.

He hated who she'd become.

A shell of herself.

But he loved her — he loved her so very much and he'd do anything for her.

His stomach twisted angrily and he bowed his head, starting to cry.

Even buying drugs for her so she would stop being miserable, he would.

He basically had.

He looked up, and though he could barely see from the tears stinging his eyes, he could make out the rest of the bag on the nightstand.

"Sorry," she mumbled, propping herself up on her elbows. She was so high she could barely keep her eyes open. She was nodding out.

Derek laid down next to her, absolutely spent.

Addison frowned, turning her eyes back towards the ceiling. "Please ... don't be mad ... I'm fucked up... okay?"

Derek didn't moved, just laid stone still beside her. "I'm not mad, Addie. It just saddens me to see you like this." Addison was silent, fading in and out. "Addison?"

"It's okay, Derek. I'm okay."

He gave a bitter laugh. She seemed pretty out of it, so he let himself talk, knowing that she won't be able to remember any of this tomorrow. "It's not though, is it? None of this is okay. I just watched you stick a needle into your vein." It was one thing to be obliviously aware that she did it but to actually watch her ... 'cook' and then, shoot up was something else entirely.

"None of this is okay, Addie," he whispered. "You should get out of this before you end up even more hurt or worse ..."

Dead.

She slowly reached her right arm up and draped it around Derek's waist. "I love you. It will get better, I promise." she mumbled.

He shook his head slowly, "I really don't think so, not this time."

When she woke up, Derek was gone. She didn't think anything of it since it was already well past noon.

So as she stumbled into the living room, after taking another hit, her parents and Archer were there, waiting for her.

Just the three of them.

Over time, she noticed the people in her 'interventions' had gotten lesser and lesser.

Had they all given up on her?

Don't they care about her anymore?

"No. No. No." she said, pointing at the suitcase by her mother's foot. "What's that? I'm not going anywhere."

"Yes, you are." Bizzy said.

"No! What did he tell you! He's lying! It's not true!" she was fuming with rage, so angry at Derek for telling on her.

They gave her an ultimatum — treatment or she'd be cut off from everyone's life for good. No financial assistance, like the Captain had been doing with all her bills. She already had no access to her trust fund or any of her bank accounts. Her mother had the housekeeper come over to stock her refrigerator and cabinets with food every two weeks.

But didn't they know she don't eat?

She had sold her old apartment, which the Captain had gotten for her when she first moved to New York City, to feed her addiction. And now, they've gotten her a new apartment so they wouldn't have to answer their friends at the club as to why their daughter was sleeping in her car or was seen coming out from the Plaza day after day with strange looking men.

"We have tolerated your endeavours, Addison. Drugs, the strange people in your apartment, the prostitution —" her mother said as her face soured with disgust.

"I was an escort. I never slept with any of them."

Her mother made a noncommittal sound. "I cannot go to anywhere without people gawking and whispering behind my back. It is time you follow us."

"No. I’m not a teenager. You can't force me.”

“No, you’re right. You aren’t a teenager. It is far worse. You’re a grown woman who cannot be bothered to try to keep herself alive, so I have to do it for you. While I am doing that I’m afraid that I will be making the rules.”

She was so incredibly miserable with or without the drugs. She knew she needed help but she was so stubborn that she didn't want to accept the fact that she had totally and entirely ruined her life. She didn't see a point in everyone wanting to save her when she clearly didn't want go be saved.

After choosing the latter, she couldn't remember much of what happened next. Just bits and pieces. She remembered feeling the sharp prick of a needle breaking her skin and her being in shock, surprise that turning into anger again. Then, her entire arm was burning from the inside out. She remembered screaming, and being dragged like a ragged doll, kicking and punching at the air.

Apparently, they had held her down and drugged her before flying her across states where she ended up in Colorado.

She remembered finally coming to in the car on the way to the facility and threatened to jump out if they didn't stop.

They did not stop. She did not jump out of the moving car.

It was a half hour drive to the facility, where she spent arms crossed and sitting in between Bizzy and Archer, feeling sick to her stomach. She knew it was the withdrawals kicking in.

Once the car rolled to a stop, Archer helped her out. She quickly elbowed him and attempted to make a run for it but all that resulted was her stumbling and skinning her palms and knees as she fell to the ground.

"Please. Please, Archer. I'll stop. I promise. I'll stop. Just take me home. Please. I'm going to be sick, Archer. I need it. Please."

Archer didn't crack one bit.

"Fine. Asshole. I hate you." she screamed, crossing her arms as they reached the lobby and were met with a women, two nurses and two orderlies. She attempted to shake her arm free but he held onto her up until they searched her pockets for drugs or weapons and the like.

Everyone had been quiet, only nodding and mumbling 'Mmhm' with everything the director sitting at the desk in the lobby of Devereux Behavioural Health was telling them. Archer had gone back to the car without so much as a goodbye.

She could feel it — this facility was not like the others.

While she found herself wanting to run straight out of the building with every new rule or regulation the woman mentioned, her parents seemed to be all too happy to agree to all the terms and conditions of her stay here. It would have looked like they were glad to be rid of her.

Then, it came time to search her bags.

With visible reluctance, she handed her bag over to the man standing next to her, who thanked her politely before putting it down on the table and opening the clasps. The reluctance was as if the bag represented the last thing she owned at this point in time. Everything else had been taken away from her; her home, her education, her contact with the rest of the world …

Everything.

"All seems to be in order, miss," one of the orderlies eventually said when he and his co-worker had neatly folded up all the garments and rearranged the rest of her books and things into the suitcase, which at last allowed her to breathe again.

After only having been inside the building for some thirty minutes — and that was only in the lobby — she was already positive that the two guards probably had a lot more difficulty keeping everyone who was inside of this miserable place in it, than preventing people from outside of it from entering.

"Well, I’ve showed you the terms and conditions of your stay, we’ve signed the paperwork, your clothes and suitcase have been searched through ..." the woman behind the desk summed up, "All we need to do now is for you to just sign this last document and then your admission will be official."

"What does it say?"

She frowned while her eyes quickly skimmed over the document and found a sentence containing the words ‘restraint to institution until further notice’.

"The main thing is that by signing this contract, you agree that you will be staying here until the people in charge of your care are unanimously convinced that you are ready to return to society again," the director told her in the calmest voice, as if detaining people inside this — this ... mental prison was the most normal thing in the world and absolutely could not be disapproved of or seen as inhumane by any sensible person.

"What?" she asked with a look of disbelief and shock for what she was about to sign up for.

"Just sign for it, kitten," she heard the voice of her father encouraging her to go along with what the contract stated, and Addison turned around to look at her parents to see if they were serious about this.

The grave expression on their faces immediately told her that they seemed to agree with these conditions — perhaps even gladly agreed with them — and she had a hard time not saying something she was going to regret towards either her parents or the director of this facility.

Nobody wants you anymore! They're getting rid of you.

"No! No!"

"They won’t, darling," Bizzy told her in a soft and soothing voice that was so unlike her mother.

"It sure does fucking look like it!" she sneered at her with the thought of what she was trying to push her into.

"Miss Montgomery … Or Addison, can I call you that?"

A new voice joined in on the conversation; a new voice coming from a person who had been with them in the lobby since the moment they arrived, but who had not said more than a few words so far.

She nodded at the psychiatric nurse, holding her body tight, clenching down so the shakes wouldn't be too obvious. She wanted to be left alone, but she knew she was never going to get rid of the nurses and guards anytime soon.

"Addison, I can assure you they won’t hold you prisoner here, or even detain you against your will. This regulation is not here to work against you, but purely to protect you from yourself."

It was just a shame that Addison could not get herself to believe a word he said.

"Protect me from myself?" Addison repeated in a mumble.

She had heard that lie before.

To ‘protect her from herself’, a concept that no one had ever really explained to her. It was as if they all used it as an easy excuse to make her do things she didn’t want to do. As if she would immediately respect decisions and view them as being good for her if people told her they were ‘to protect her from herself’.

"You know, you might find yourself wanting to leave sometimes as a result of feeling down for a while," the psych nurse started off, "By signing this contract, you protect yourself from these impulses that can have big consequences, such as signing yourself out on the fly without fully realising what you’re doing. You are, after all, more prone to …" he stopped to think of the right words for a moment, as to not upset her, and eventually chose to finish his sentence with the words: "mood swings and being overemotional, which negatively affects your ability to judge a situation correctly."

Just run! Run before they keep you in for good!

"Shut up." she hissed.

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing." she shrugged.

The older woman eyes her before continuing, "As explained, this regulation is not one to worry about, Addison. In fact, your psychiatrist and parents have already signed for it," she told her.

Addison had no idea if she was hoping that hearing this was going to make her feel more comfortable about putting her signature underneath the contract; because if this had been her aim, Addison was afraid she was going to have to disappoint her.

"You signed for this?!" Addison spat out once she had spun around to face her parents.

She had expected them to at least take a step back, but they didn’t even blink when she looked at them as if they had just sold her soul to the devil himself.

"It’s for your own good," the Captain told her somewhat apologetically but mainly determinedly.

She was furious.

They kidnapped you and now they're going to lock you up!

"Why did they even need your signature on this? I’m twenty-six, you’re not responsible for me anymore! You don’t own me anymore!" she said, and hoped it would hurt.

It was their fault anyway.

"In your current position, they are responsible for you," the woman told her as if she was correcting a three year old repeating a song they had heard on the radio incorrectly. "By signing this paper, your parents have agreed to be the ones to look after you once you’ll be dismissed. That’s also why you can’t leave without their permission, because then they’d have to take care for you in a stage where they might not yet be able to correctly handle your problems."

They’ve dealt with me for long enough to know exactly how to deal with me, she wanted to shout back. But then she was here because of her parents. So they did not really know how to handle her.

"You know what? Fine. Good for them that they signed it, but I won’t," she said as she pushed the paper and pen away from her side of the desk.

If she was not going to do as they said, they were simply going to refuse her the treatment even she knew she was badly in need of. It was cruel, it was inhumane, possibly even illegal, but she knew that this was how things worked here — nine out of ten times, an addict will never agree to treatment.

"We can’t help you if you don’t sign this contract. You have to put your trust in us."

"And give up my legal capacity to make my own decisions?"

"Miss Montgomery," the woman continued ever so calmly, "I hope you do realise that with your mental condition at the moment, it’s better for you to leave making decisions to someone else —"

"My mental condition? I'm not crazy!" she interrupted her mid-sentence, no longer able to oppress her anger towards eternally being treated as if she was crazy, irresponsible, incapable of thinking and acting according to reasonable thinking patterns that they seemed to be afraid she’d lost once the psychosis started taking control of her again.

Yes, she'd had psychotic episodes, twice. Substance-induced psychosis. Yes, she almost jumped off her balcony but that was the drugs. Not her mental condition.

"No one is saying you are crazy, Addison. But as you know, your drug use have been adversely affecting the chemical balance in your brain." the director said, and she felt a wave of anger and hurt washing over her; the feeling of having been betrayed, being exposed, even.

"Are you hearing voices right now, Addison?"

"And what’s your point?"

"My point is, we are not yet exactly sure how your mental capacity affects you and your capability of logical reasoning, and this is why we leave your parents and your therapist to decide for you when you can leave this institution again," she was bringing this information to her as if it was an advantage to her that her parents had been appointed to decide over her fate — as if it was something for her to be grateful about instead of angry.

"We will not hold you prisoner here, and in consultation with your psychiatrist and your parents, you can always leave earlier than we planned for you."

Addison squinted her eyes at her — she knew she was losing and then tears gathering in her eyes attested to that. "I don’t believe you."

"I can guarantee you that Ms. Proctor is speaking the truth." the psychiatric nurse said, looking towards the director, and nodding heavily at her.

"Please just sign the paper, Addison. You know how hard we fought to find you a place here," her mother nearly begged her.

She could never quite resist her mother when she sounded like she was on the edge of tears by something she was putting her through. She didn’t know if she was manipulating her or if it was just a voice in her head telling her this but it was working either way.

These days, she had not been sure of what was real or not.

She loved her parents and needed them more than anything in the world right now, which was why it hurt her even more that they were trying to get rid of her. She just wanted them to love her back, and the problem was that they did, but just not in the way she wanted them to love her. They could not see that she didn’t want professional help; she wanted to be loved by her parents, her family, her friends, and most of all, she wanted to be surrounded by them, something her parents were currently making impossible for her by sending her out to this hell place.

"Come on, kitten," her father said as he stepped forward, picked the pen up from the secretary’s hand, and put in between the fingers of his daughter. "Do it for us."

With shaky hands, anger towards her father for guilt-tripping her into giving in and tears of frustration and pure terror of what people were going to do with her once she had handed her right to decide over her own fate over to them, Addison begrudgingly put her signature at the bottom of the paper, next to that of her psychiatrist, her father’s, and her mother’s.

Betrayers, she found herself thinking.

"So then that’s settled. Thank you for your cooperation," she said, and although her voice did not necessarily sound sarcastic but actually relieved and grateful she was finally cooperating, she still did not trust her. "Now, is there anything you want to say to your parents before Nurse McFarland will show you around the place?"

"Yes," she said while turning to the two betrayers standing at the other side of the desk. "You’re making a big mistake." The last word was not so much said as much as it was squeaked; she was choking on tears and both her and her parents knew she was not going to be able to hold up her composure for much longer.

Still, they were just sending her away to make things easier for themselves, because they didn’t want to deal with her anymore, because they wanted to hurt her for having hurt them with the drugs and the stealing and the constant in and out of facilities and the overdoses.

It wasn't her fault, this time.

"How can you do this to me?" she said as she sobbed her heart out.

"I don’t … I don’t want to be alone," she sniffed in a voice that sounded terribly small.

"Oh, don't be so dramatic, Addison. We’re doing what’s right for you. We don't want to have to bury you." her mother said as she carefully patted her on the shoulder. One. Two. Three. "There, there." was Bizzy's attempt at comforting her. "What is this, Addison? We’re WASPs. We don’t cry, confront or be honest with each other. Now, hush."

"It’s going to be hard right now, but one day you’ll be thankful we sent you here." her father said when her sobbing had subsided. He moved to place a hand around her shoulder to pull her in for a hug.

The feeling of her father embracing her made her feel somewhat less alone, and also, as though she was a little girl once again, but the thought of not getting to experience this feeling any time soon made her sniffling change into actual sobbing within a time span of not more than five seconds.

"I'm so sorry, daddy."

"You’re stronger than you think, Addison. We hope this place will teach you that," the Captain said as he gave her pale cheek a bit of a pinch that made her feel like she was four years old again. Her father would do that to her to step up and go to school during those first few weeks when she had been afraid of the other children in her kindergarten class.

To be completely honest, right now, she felt similar to how her four year old self must have felt; abandoned and sent away by her parents to a place where she was going to be all alone in a multitude of people whom she didn’t know, didn’t want to know, and most of all, where she was going to be submitted to the authority of others who were going to decide what she could and could not do.

The only difference was that the four year old version of herself begrudgingly and anxiously being sent off to school had the advantage of being allowed to go home at three in the afternoon, while the twenty-six year old version of herself currently standing at the lobby of a 'mental institution' guised as a 'behavioural health centre' had no chances of going home again.

X X X

This was the one and only facility she went that didn't appoint her as the fall guy.

She remembers her first meeting post-withdrawals, Dr. Fields, the psychiatrist at the group therapy, looked up from his legal pad, quirking an eyebrow at her. “I know you’re still getting acclimated but maybe you have something to share."

“Well, I think therapy is selfish." she declared.

The guy across from her didn’t react visibly, his lips barely twitching. “Of course it is. It's people who come to talk about their problems and seeking ways to figure out how to function in their own life.”

She turned to him, stuffing her hands into her pockets. “If you think it is selfish, why are you in it?”

He blinked at her like she was stupid. “For the obvious reason — I’m selfish,” he answered simply. "And you are too."

She met his eyes with the courtesy of a glance. Sometimes eyes are able to convey things that words cannot and, in this moment, staring back towards the stranger with a fire burning in her eyes, she tried to do exactly that.

An invitation to dance.

She raised one brow and, with mouth pressed into a tight line, she brought one corner up to curve subtly. And almost-smile.

It was coy and secretive — something only shared briefly between the two of them.

“— Okay. We’ll meet up here again, this time tomorrow .” The group leader’s voice was followed by the sound of people standing and collecting themselves. They were dismissed.

She saw her chance and moved quickly from there, legs unwinding and bringing her to stand, watching as the guy whose name she did not know — did he even said what his name was? — lifts himself from his chair and moves to leave the room. Addison was quick to follow, trailing behind on quick paces.

“Hey, wait a second,” she called finally, rabid footfalls carrying her to catch up and placing herself beside him, walking in-time with his steps."So, I was gonna ask … if you wanted some company. Do you?"

She convinced him into running away with her and he did, which was tragic because he was so easy to believe every word she said. Even the beautiful lies. And she realised she was good at that; letting people hear what they want to hear.

"Miss Montgomery, open the door."

Inside, Addison wakes, if only slowly, with fingers clawing at the bed sheets and a groan tumbling off her lips. She reaches for her clock to check the time, before quickly placing it back down again.

"You know the rules — doors should not be locked." the nurse tells her from behind the door, knocking.

Throwing the covers back, she swings her legs around and off the side of the bed until her bare feet come in contact with the carpet.

“A moment.” Her voice is hoarse and tired when she calls towards the door.

Head in her hands, Addison scrambles for the small cup of medication that had been left for her on the bedside table. Normally, the night staff supervises medication, but because the pills given to her now are primarily to soothe her heaving stomach, she supposes they had simply let her rest when they’d left it.

Long limbs stretch out as she brings a hand up to scratch over her back, a yawn splitting her maw. Smoothing her hair down and out of her features, she also makes sure to check that her pyjamas are straightened as she pads over to the door and unlocks it, prying it open.

And indeed, there stands Nurse Carver - looking rather impatient on the other side.

"You know the rules, Miss Montgomery."

"Yes. Yes, I do," she nodded, "Old habits, I guess." she shrugged, scratching her nose. "Sorry."

Once the door is opened enough, Nurse Carver cranes her jaw to peer inside the room — just a quick glance. When she observes that there's nothing suspicious going on, she passes her a bottle of water. "Drink all the water you can." she said.

For lack of anything better to do, she drinks most of the bottle over the following two minutes, only a small amount remaining. The nurse looks somewhat surprised when she sees it, but made no comment.

"You know the drill." the nurse says, and Addison does as she lead the nurse to follow her to the bathroom for a drug test.

For the first time, she isn't worried. She realises that drugs are more trouble than they are worth. It's easier to lose yourself in drugs than it is to cope with life.

"Do you really have to watch me pee every time?"

The nurse responds with an indistinct noise.

Yes.

Shortly thereafter she handed the sample cup back.

Nurse Carver walks back towards the door. But before she exists into the hallway, she turns around, "Its a beautiful day, Miss Montgomery, you should go outside."

Addison smiles, looking out the window. "Yeah, it's beautiful," she agrees, "I like being alone, though."

She likes to be alone. In fact, she often finds herself needing her space. However, she also finds herself drowning very quickly in her own thoughts when left to her own devices. And so, it is this very confusion, this cycle that kept her on the path of self-destruction. A yearning for clarity and for a method to her own madness.

“But silence can be loud … in its own way.”

She remembers when it was just silence in her life. Alone. The loud white noises when once upon a time, she had felt an absence. She suppose the absence is still there; she just has to fill it up with something she can't — the three "S"s: shoot, snort, and smoke.

“Silence is indeed very loud.”

X X X

The next day, she leaves her room to eat and to sit alone in the warmth of the courtyard.

Other people had occupied the space as well, though not so many as usual due to it being the weekend. They all either talked amongst themselves, or lounged with a book in their lap.

Peaceful.

Almost.

She hopes to make a phone later tonight. And she also hopes everyone had stopped being mad at her, hating her.

She hates herself, too. Hates to think of the shitty things she used to do, the lives she ruined, taken.

It had taken everything in her power to not go directly back to her own room, pack her things and run.

Again?

She knows that it’s all a battle of willpower. She knows that she’d checked herself back into this place to begin with so that she could win this battle out against herself. Giving into her demons would mean yet another failure on her end in the effort to get better, but the desire in her belly that continues to grow is one that’s almost impossible to ignore.