Kiss the Sky (Addicted #3)(44)

I pinch the bridge of my nose as I reread the last text from Rose.

It’s on soon. I’ll tape it just in case. – Rose

The first commercial for the reality show airs tonight. And Rose is already preparing for me to miss it. For most, being late for some stupid thirty-second television promo spot wouldn’t be a big deal. They’d shrug it off.

But it’s not okay.

All it takes is one time. One single moment where I walk through the door ten minutes late and everything could change. The what ifs in life aren’t impossibilities. What ifs are parallel paths that could happen—that could be. In one moment, a what if can be fact.

Scott Van Wright is a what if.

If I hadn’t heard the shower turn on, the pipes rumbling through the walls and ceiling, then I would have never gone upstairs. If I had no desire to tell Rose to go back to bed, to take a shower later, then I would have never heard Scott’s voice through the door, tangled with hers.

What if I never entered the bathroom to break apart what could have been?

Scott forcing himself on Rose is an image that cripples all the others in my head—it’s what makes my spot in this car and not with her so painful.

Another honk fractures my thoughts. I accelerate and close the small gap to appease the * behind me. My eyes shift to the exit signs and the words blur together, almost unreadable. I blink and try to focus, but it barely helps.

Don’t worry. Do not f*cking worry, Connor.

I’m starting to feel the effects of 36-hours without sleep. The night is my graveyard shift. Proposals for class. Business emails for Cobalt Inc. Everything and anything that needs my attention. I’ve pulled all-nighters before, sure, but I have a rule to never exceed the 36-hour mark. Sleep deprivation promotes brain inefficiency.

This is what I get for ditching my limo. I could have taken a nap in the backseat while Gilligan drove me to Philadelphia. But as soon as filming began, I opted to drive myself in a silver sedan. I may have been granted luxury, but I work hard. And if I’m videotaped being carted around in my limousine, all anyone will see is a lazy son of a bitch.

My eyes sag, and I feel the exhaustion weighing on my muscles. I make the conscious decision to carefully pull off the next exit and park in front of a drug store.

I take out my cellphone and walk inside.

“I need you to prescribe me Adderall,” I into the receiver. My loafers clap against the tiled floor and the attendant gives me a narrowed look. With my black slacks and white button-down, I look better suited for Wall Street than some drug store off a freeway.

“No.” Frederick doesn’t even hesitate. “And next time you call, you can lead with hello.”

I grind my teeth as I stop in front of the boxes of decongestants. Frederick has been my therapist since my parents’ divorce. My mother’s words: I can hire someone if you need to talk. So I spent weeks combing through potential psychiatrists to give the whole “talking” thing a go.

Frederick was on the college fast track, and I met him when he graduated med school at just twenty-four. He had this air about him. He was hungry for knowledge, and that kind of passion was lost in the other thirty and forty-year-old shrinks that I had interviewed. So I chose him.

He’s been my psychiatrist for twelve years. I would call him my best friend, but he constantly reminds me that friends can’t be bought. He earns a staggering sum from me every year, and I overpay for these moments—the ones where I call him up at any hour of the day and he gives me his full undivided attention.

Our last session, we discussed Scott Van Wright, and I tried (rather poorly) not to call the producer names like I was seven and spitting on a bully. But I think I may have used the words “fallible, conceited human bacteria” when Frederick asked me what I thought of him.

Thankfully psychiatrists have an ethical duty to keep secrets.

“Hello, Frederick,” I say, trying to keep my tone even. He’s the only person who has seen me at my worst. Broken. Unusable. But I like to keep those moments as infrequent as possible. “You can call the nearest pharmacy in Philadelphia. I’ll pick it up there.”

“I can, but I won’t.”

I let out a long breath as I scan the shelves. “This is not the time to be obdurate. I’m late as it is.”

“First, calm down,” he says, and I hear rustling on the other end. Papers shuffling around maybe. He likes to take notes.

“I am calm,” I say, layering on the complacency in my voice for further effect.

“You just used the word obdurate,” Frederick refutes. “Usually you just refer to me as a stubborn swine. Do you see the difference?”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“Then don’t patronize me,” he rebuts. Normal therapists shouldn’t be this argumentative, but I’m not a normal patient either. “You remember our conversation right before your freshman year at Penn?”

“We’ve had many conversations, Rick,” I say casually. My fingers skim over two different brands of nasal decongestants. I check the labels for the ingredients.

“The conversation about Adderall, Connor.”

I clench my teeth harder, my back molars aching. Before college, I told Frederick that if I ever came to him for Adderall to deny me the prescription. No matter what. I wanted to succeed in college on my own merits. Without stimulants or enhancers. I wanted to prove to myself that I was better than everyone else and that I didn’t need a goddamn pill to do it.