[Chapter Eleven] Insight

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 Chapter Eleven- Insight 

Julian's Pov

She was breaking; I knew that when I walked back into the room and saw her curled up on her side, her shoulders shook slightly as she cried. She had been pretty good the last couple days, I knew it wouldn't last. I don't know how she was keeping herself together so long.

I gave Lacey her food and set mine and hers down before going over to her bed. She was still curled up in my shirt so I crawled into bed with her and wrapped my arms around her so she was pulled against my chest.

Robert had a point though; I was never friends with girls and it was going to be a challenge.

I felt like her an I were so similar in attitude, so I knew that she wouldn't let me hold her like I wanted to, and I knew when her body tensed what was about to come. She pushed my arms off of her and turned to face me.

"Don't touch me and get out of my bed" she snapped at me and I sighed.

"Bailey, calm down." I told her and she pushed me and I rolled out of the bed and hit the floor with a loud thud and a pain to my side, shit that hurt.

"I told you to get out." She glared down at me and I was having a really hard time keeping my temper under control right now. I could usually manage but it wasn't close to the surface and if she didn't calm down I was going to lose it.

"Bailey." I warned as I stood up and held her glare.

"Just go! Both of you, just leave!" she screamed and I nodded.

"Lacey, let's go." I told her, she needed time, I could respect that, and I also needed to get out of here. I've spent so much time around her the past week or so, and a break wouldn't be a bad thing.

"But" she started and I shot her a glare which made her shut up and then grab her stuff.

"I'll come to check on you later" I kissed her forehead and she turned her head away.

"Don't." she warned

"I'll come back over around nine or so." I told her.

"No, I don't want you too."

"I'll be back." I told her again before I left the room.

She needed time and tomorrow I would give that to her, I would be at therapy and the gym and just do whatever to leave her be and see how that gets her.

I think I was just a bit impatient for her to be better. I forget sometimes about how many emotions she's probably going through, how she must be feeling. I forget that I need to give her time to process and that this is all new to her, so I would take a step back and let her figure it out for herself                                                                                                                  

There were some things that people could help with but there were a lot that you had to figure out on your own. You had to accept things and be comfortable with the vulnerability you're going to show and be okay with being at rock bottom to build yourself back up.

It's a different environment here, and she would learn that in time. I think that things will get easier for her after a couple sessions, and group was the scariest but one of the most helpful. People tell you how you're not alone, but most of the time you can't being yourself to believe that, but when you go to group and see the faces of other people going through it too, it proves that you aren't.

You share stories and experiences, you learn to open up with them, and you see that this happens to more people than you think.

It doesn't make you a bad person and it doesn't make you a failure. It means you made a mistake and you're learning from it so that you can better yourself in life. Addiction is hard enough without people telling you how big of a mistake you made, we all already knew that.

I knew when I got addicted and I knew I would regret it from the start but at the time I just didn't care. Cocaine helped me feel again and it helped me get through the hard times, but looking back now it just made them harder.

I had a great career and a bright future, but as soon as this gets out, I'll be labeled just another star gone bad. They won't see or care about the daily struggles I went through.

They won't care that I detoxed hard, they don't care that I cried almost every day when I realized just what I had done to myself, they won't try to understand why I did it, they don't care that I'm getting help. They don't care about any of that.

They just want a story, and when this one leaks, they will get one.

People won't want to work with me thinking me of a risk, and everyone will be waiting for me to start with drugs again thinking  there will be no way I'll be able to stay away since I'm an addict.

I couldn't say that for the longest time and it's still hard to say. It feels foreign, like those words can't be true.

I'm a drug addict. I am addicted to cocaine.

It's hard to comprehend that I actually got addicted to something so harsh, it's something I still have to say to make myself believe it.

In my case the reckless drinking and sex came next. I was actually really good about it before, but I would go to parties, get high, drink and the next thing I knew I was waking up feeling like crap and looking for my fix lying next to a girl who I didn't even recognize.

At the time I didn't care about what I was doing, I was stupid. When I was forced to get sober I was relived and shocked to know I was clean from any sexually transmitted infections, and then once I got clean and sober I got angry.

I felt and still feel so much self-hatred for what I did, I felt disgusted that I would sleep with that many people, let alone strangers, and it wasn't a few. I don't even actually know the number, but I feel like mine rivals that of a call girl.

I'm still not in a great place now, and I remember what it felt like at the stage Bailey is in. Time, that was what she needed. So I kept running trying to get out all my frustrations and then I grabbed my gloves and hit the bag.

I needed to think what the next step was. Should I go back tonight, I said I would, but should I? Should I make the effort to see her? Maybe I should let her come to me; maybe I should give her full time to figure out that I was on her side, that I wasn't going anywhere.

But if I didn't go back, would she think I was done and didn't want to be her friend anymore?

I put my head in my gloves and groaned, this is so fucking complicated!

This was so much easier when I stuck to myself and didn't talk. It was easier not to be friends and to be a loner, that way I didn't have to deal with, well this.

I didn't have to consider other people's feelings, I didn't have to drive myself insane trying to figure someone out, I didn't have to communicate, I didn't have to open up, I didn't have to expose myself, I just didn't have to do anything I didn't want to do.

But is that a good thing? I used to think so, but now I'm not so sure. I needed to push forward and be better, and she's the only person besides Robert who made me want to do that.

But what I wanted to know was why?

I don't know if I'll ever figure that out besides the obvious reason.

My gloved fist made contact with the bag in combination, each punch felt heavier and my arms started burning slightly. I shot my leg out and swung a kick and landed and continued with punches.

I was exhausted but I pushed harder through it. I pushed until I collapsed onto my knees panting for breath. I was frustrated and when you didn't control that you didn't last as long.

I wiped the sweat with my glove, but it obviously didn't do as much good so I unwrapped the gloves and grabbed the towel. I took a drink while I calmed my breath and then walked back to my room to take a much needed shower.

My internal battle continued as I turned the hot water on and stood under it, letting it rinse part of the sweat from my body.

As I washed I couldn't help but think about my past as well, something I've been trying to avoid as much as possible ever since I got in here. There were some thing that I could manage, but my family was a big thing I refused to talk about. I told Robert a couple things, but that's it.

I didn't want to talk about how disappointed they were in me when they found out, how they refused to talk to me when I went into rehab, the horrible things they said about me. I didn't want to remember the look of heartbreak in my mom's eyes as my dad pulled her off of me and told her she was forbidden from communicating with me.

The look of disgust on my dad's face with the son he never gave much thought to. My brother was a doctor, and that was the best thing that he could be, following in dad's shoes. When I dropped out of medical school and started acting my father didn't speak to me for a year. I was now beneath him; according to him he knew that I didn't have what it took to be a doctor myself and I could never measure up to what my brother would be so I quit.

He didn't care what I wanted, that I actually had better grades than my brother, that I worked harder and that I was so much more than he was, he didn't care that I wanted to be absolutely nothing like him, he just cared about Carter.

Carter was a screw up, and should never have become a doctor, it was only a matter of time before he fucked something up and got sued, but knowing my father, he would find a way to make it my fault.

It would be something like if I didn't become an addict I wouldn't have negatively impacted Carter's life which made him make whatever mistake he made. It would make no sense, but in my dad's mind it would make perfect sense.

I despised my father and how he controlled everyone around him, and I was always the bad one because I didn't bow down to him, I always told myself I would never do that, he would never win. He could control everyone else but he would never get to me.

My brother and he deserved to be miserable together, but my mother was one of the sweetest people to ever live and she was stuck in a terrible marriage with an emotionally and physically abusive man, marriage is forever, there is no such thing as divorce in my family, so she's never going to leave him no matter how many times he hits her.

But my dad is so respectable and he's the perfect loving doctor that no one would believe that was the only love he ever showed. When injuries happened, we didn't need the hospital because my dad could fix us up. When people asked questions my dad could lie his way out of anything.

The anger built up inside me at the thought of him and I threw my fist at the wall and cursed and then did it again. Thinking about him brought out all the worst in me and when I looked down and saw red I cursed again and looked at the blood pouring from the cuts. I opened and closed my hand and hissed in slight pain.

I shut the water off and carefully wrapped a towel around my waist before I grabbed some gaze and wrapped my hand up. I could do this stuff in my sleep, and since they wouldn't give me medication there was no need to go to the on call doctor to get it fixed.

It was eight thirty and I missed dinner, but I didn't really care. The thoughts of my family make me sick and I don't think I could stomach anything right now anyways. I grabbed my journal and write a little before I changed my bandage and headed to Bailey's room.

I didn't know if she would let me stay, but I had to try. I told her I would be back and I'm back. I wouldn't admit to her that I think I needed her more to sleep than she needed me. I still had pretty fucked up nightmares and she made them better, she relaxed me.

I walked to her door and opened it to see her lying in her bed facing the door.

"I told you not to come back." she snapped

"And I told you I would" I shut the door and leaned against the wall with my arms crossed "Where's Lacey?" I asked

"Shower" she glared at me and I smirked at her just to piss her off, probably not the smartest thing, but it amused me.

"Tired?" I asked

"No" she said but you could see she was lying

"Lies"

"Nope"

"Word" I said

"What?" she asked

"One" I said again and she looked at me like I was crazy

"What?" she asked again

"Are we going to continue with one word responses or have an actual conversation?" I asked her

"Whatever."

"Are you tried Bailey?" I asked her again

"No, I am not." She said sarcastically.

"Bullshit." I said as she yawned

"I don't care what you think" she snapped and I rolled my eyes and took my shirt off as I walked towards her bed.

"Scoot your ass over." I said and she crossed her arms

"No." she said and I gave her a look that clearly said 'really?' "Fine." She moved over and gave me room beside her but she kept her arms crossed and continued to lay on her back.

I grabbed one of her arms and pulled her towards me and just like I thought, she didn't protest as I moved her arms across my stomach, she said nothing and just rested her head on my chest. She wiggled around getting comfortable.

The end result was me lying on my back with one of her legs up on me and her arm wrapped around my torso with her head on my chest. I moved the arm she was laying on to hold onto her tighter and my other hand rested on her knee and lower thigh.

I looked at my hands and was reminded yet again how small she was, it felt like my hand was hand the length of her upper leg.

"Back again?" Lacey asked when she walked in the room

"Yes. Good night." I told her and she dropped her towel and climbed into bed naked, to which I just rolled my eyes. I think she was trying to show off for Bailey, I don't think she accepts that Bailey is straight.

"Thank you." she whispered drowsily some time later

"For what?" I asked her

"Coming back" she mumbled and kissed my chest. I watched her silently as she dozed off and her breaths evened.

"You're welcome" I told her and kissed her forehead

"You care about her." Lacey said and I looked over at her and she was just watching us.

"I do." I agreed

"And you have feelings for her."

"It seems like everything is just amplified in here, you know?"

"I get that, everything happens twice as fast. Be careful with her, for your sake too."

"I'm definitely trying." I looked back towards Bailey "I really am." I sighed and was once again at a loss for what to do.

It was too soon to really develop feelings for her, wasn't it? It had only been a little over a week. And not only was it too soon but it wasn't right. She was in a weird place, she had thins to figure out and it would be wrong of me to try anything with her.

But she had to feel something too if she let me come back and would allow me to sleep with her, if she would curl up to me, I don't think I'm imagining that, or at least I hope I'm not.

I debated in my mind for an hour before I decided that tomorrow morning I would leave and I would give her space until she came to me. I would give her as much time as she needed and when she started working things out, and was less confused then she could tell me what she wanted.

I could help her through some things later on, but the best thing for her was to get to know Lacey and get through her first few group sessions first, so for her sake, I would back off.

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