Ricochet (Addicted #1.5)(55)

I wouldn’t. Would I? No…

I feel the cold phone being pressed against my ear.

“Lily?” Dr. Banning’s calm voice fills my head. “Can you hear me? What’s wrong?”

Everything. This. I pray for strength, but it won’t come. I want to stand, but my legs won’t move. I need a reason to continue… “I’m sorry I woke you up,” I barely whisper. The words burn my throat, and I shut my eyes as a couple tears escape.

“Don’t be sorry, Lily. That’s what my emergency line is for, okay? Can you talk to me? What are you feeling?”

“Embarrassed.” I squeeze my eyes with two fingers. I’m so ashamed of what I am and what I do. How can I ever stop? It seems…like a mountain I have not been tasked or equipped to climb.

“What else?”

“Tired. Ashamed. Upset.”

“You’re going through a lot right now, Lily,” she tells me. “It’s normal to feel these things, but you have to stay strong. Before you feel out of control, you need to talk to someone and tell them what’s bothering you. It doesn’t have to be me, but I’m always here. How did this start? Is it about Loren?”

“Yes. No…I don’t know,” I mutter. I pause and open up a little, forgetting that Ryke squats by the tub only a foot away. As I talk, a weight begins to slowly (very slowly) rise from my chest. It’s still there, but it lessens just a little. “I’m going to have to stop masturbating, aren’t I?” I lick my chapped lips and cringe at my own words.

“Do you think it’s unhealthy or a gateway into other compulsions?” she asks, her tone serious.

“I do it,” I choke, “and I always want more. It’s never enough.”

“Giving something up isn’t the same thing as losing control. It’s the opposite, Lily. You’re taking back control.”

I try to relax by her statement. While powerful, the full force of it breezes through me and then drifts away. I imagine Rose saying something similar. I hear them. I see the strength in the words. I feel it, but I can’t hold onto it and believe it the way they can. I don’t know why that is.

“Everything is going to be okay,” she emphasizes. “I know it may not feel like that right now, but in time, everything will be okay. You have to start believing you can make it there.”

“I know.”

“Okay, good. Can you give the phone back to your friend?”

Ryke peels the phone from my ear and presses it to his own. I watch his face as he listens to Dr. Banning. I can sit up now. Even if everything still hurts, I try to numb the pain with her encouragement. Be strong, Lil, Lo would tell me. When I come back, I’ll be strong with you. I wipe the rest of my tears, imagining those last words. Praying that’s what his response would be and not the awful your problems are too much for me right now. God, please, let him come back to me.

“Yeah, I can do that,” Ryke nods, his eyes falling to the tiled floor. “He’ll answer. Thanks so much. I really appreciate it. You have no idea.” He hangs up the phone.

“I’m sorry,” I say in a small, tired voice.

Ryke raises his hand. “I’m going to call Lo. You cannot start crying and have a breakdown over the phone. He can’t do anything to help you right now, and you know how much that’ll kill him.”

I nod wildly, my heart lifting at the very idea of speaking to him. “I promise.”

He hesitates before dialing.

I lean my arms against the bathtub rim, nearly falling over to be closer to the receiver—to hear his voice.

After a couple rings, Ryke says, “Hey, did I wake you?” He rolls his eyes. “You’re such a fucking smartass…yeah, well, I have someone here who wants to talk to you.” He pauses and then glares at the ceiling. “No, she’s fine. She just finished talking to her therapist.” He rubs his jaw and then nods to himself before holding out the phone to me.

I grab it quickly, but once I have it against my ear, my thoughts start to sink somewhere foreign. I forget what I planned to say. Maybe I had nothing to tell him. Maybe, I just wanted to hear his voice. I whisper, “Hi.”

“Hey,” Lo replies back. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ryke kicking my comforter back into the living room. He avoids the vibrator and doesn’t ask questions about it, but my cheeks flush, mortified all the same. I sink lower in the tub.

“It’s Daisy’s birthday,” I tell him. “I’m in Mexico.”

“Ryke told me already.”

Oh.

Ryke props the door open against the wall and nods to me. “Don’t close this.” He heads to his chaise, plopping down with an exhausted sigh.

Long, silent tension pools over the phone, and I lose track of what I should say. I’d rather not bring up the fact that I’m sitting in an empty bathtub after an emotional meltdown. I don’t want to give him another reason to avoid me when he returns home. Because who in their right mind would want to take care of this?

I’m about to mention how we’re all going ziplining tomorrow at Daisy’s request, but he beats me.

“So what happened tonight?”

Shit.

“Nothing really, and I don’t think we should talk about it. You’re all the way over there.” Wherever there is. No one will tell me his exact location. He could be in Canada for all I know.