Fuck, I was screwed up. Still. I’d felt cured with Hudson, but I still didn’t know how to handle emotions. I didn’t know what normal people did when they hurt. I regretted missing my group session the day before. I needed it now.
Or at least I needed Lauren—my favorite group leader.
In the evenings, Lauren volunteered to lead Addicts Anonymous and some other groups at a Unitarian church nearby. I’d attended faithfully for years, only recently slipping into a part-time goer. But I hadn’t found Lauren at Addicts Anonymous. I’d originally met her at Stanton Addiction Center, a rehab facility where she worked as a counselor during the day. I’d been a patient for a short time after I’d violated my restraining order with Paul. Brian, decent lawyer that he was, had been able to negotiate that instead of jail time.
It was a quarter to noon. If I hurried, I could probably catch her on her lunch break.
I texted Jordan and within twenty minutes I’d made it to the center.
I checked in at the front desk and got a pass to the staff wing. After finding Lauren’s office dark, I went to the lunchroom for employees and spotted her with a group of orderlies laughing around the pop vending machine.
“Hey, girl.” She stepped away from her friends when she saw me to give me a hug. “I was disappointed when I didn’t see you yesterday at group.”
I smiled tensely, eager to get her alone. “Sorry about that. Stuff came up.”
“The fact that you sought me out here leads me to believe that it wasn’t good stuff.”
“Some of it was. Very good stuff. And some of it definitely not good stuff.” I glanced toward an empty table in the back of the room. “Do you have time to talk?”
She held up the brown paper bag she’d been clutching. “As long as you don’t mind me chowing down while you do.”
“Chow away.”
I didn’t talk until we were seated at the table. Then, I filled Lauren in on the highlights of the past week—the shift in my relationship with Hudson, moving into the penthouse, seeing Paul again, the secrets I’d kept, and finally, what Hudson had done regarding David. I was quick about it, knowing that Lauren’s lunch was only an hour. When I was done, I felt worn out, like I’d been throwing up for the last thirty-five minutes.
Lauren took a napkin and wiped her mouth, her lunch long finished now. “Well, that’s quite a week of events. What have you learned by saying all of that out loud?”
This was one of her favorite therapy techniques—turning a venting session into an opportunity for self-examination. “I don’t know.” I was out of practice at this. I took a deep breath and thought a moment. “I see my culpability in Hudson’s betrayal. I kept secrets from him first.” It was difficult to admit, but crucial. How could I expect him to think that being honest and upfront was a must for me? I certainly hadn’t demonstrated the same to him.
“Very good. What else?”
God, wasn’t that one enough? I searched for more. “I’ve realized I don’t know how to handle my feelings. I used to cling and obsess when I felt off. What am I supposed to do instead?”
“Exactly what you’re doing. You deal with them constructively.” Lauren sat forward, her hands clasped on the table in front of her. “Listen, honey, being healthy doesn’t mean you don’t feel things anymore. You will always feel things—good and bad, depending on the day, depending on the minute. That’s called life. Being healthy is talking your emotions out, writing them down, realizing that you don’t have to do anything to change them. Sometimes you just have to ride them out.”
“Well, that sucks.”
“Doesn’t it?” She sat back in her chair. “There’s something else I want to point out that I don’t know if you’re seeing.”
Lauren usually avoided highlighting issues that her clients hadn’t stumbled onto themselves. She believed that if someone couldn’t yet see the forest, then they weren’t ready to deal with it. If she was pointing it out to me, it had to be vital. I wrung my hands in my lap. “What’s that?”
“Hudson—I don’t know him personally, but his behavior sounds familiar.”
For a minute I wondered if she’d encountered him at some point in therapy of his own. I knew barely anything about his treatment programs. I guessed it was possible.
But then I realized what Lauren was getting at. I felt the blood rush from my face. “You mean, he sounds like me. Like me in the past.”
“Jealous, manipulative, deceitful.” She ticked them off on her fingers, one horrible adjective per digit.