Confining my art to paper had never been something I was particularly good at. It had always looked like shit. And I wasn’t really accustomed to creating anything without being stoned. I couldn’t remember the last time I had picked up a brush when things weren’t fuzzy.
At first it had been a major trigger. The counselors here were big into art therapy and so we were made to spend a lot of time drawing our feelings. I had hated it. It felt wrong.
And every time I had tried, I felt the shadows of withdrawal. Inever flipped out. I never lost my head. But I couldn’t draw anything.
Until I thought of Aubrey. And then words alone weren’t enough to express how I was feeling.
I remembered the time I had taken gallons of paint and drew the broken mirror on the sidewalk out in front of her apartment building. I remembered how pathetic and desperate I had felt. I had needed her to see how much I loved her. How much I needed her. How essential she was to my very existence. I also remembered how fucking high I had been.
But now, being stone cold sober, drawing her released the stuff pent up inside of me. All of the anger and disappointment and longing that I couldn’t give voice to. I had been conditioned over my short lifetime to keep it all bottled up and tucked away. Feelings were messy and I didn’t have time for all of that.
But then I had met a woman who had made it impossible for me to hold anything back. And now, here at rehab, struggling to make things work, all I wanted to do was draw it. To put out there all the things I couldn’t say. For the first time in my life, my artevolved. It was about me getting my head together. About focusing on what I was going to do with my life. How I could change for the better.
And I became sort of addicted to my art, like a placeholder for the drugs or something.
I smoothed the shadowed edge of the round cheek I had just drawn. My fingers caressed the lengths of long blond hair on the page. The picture was so accurate I could almost imagine Aubrey was here. In the flesh. It filled me with warmth to draw her. To paint her. To see her in my mind and to let my fingers create her. I could hold her close like this.
Forever.
I continued to smudge the line of Aubrey’s jaw I had just put on paper. If I closed my eyes, maybe I could pretend it was her. Delusions were my new best friend.
“Whatcha workin’ on?” Pete asked, clearly not getting the hint that I wasn’t in the mood for company. I was trying really hard to keep my mind off the fact that I had asked Aubrey to come today and she had said no.
I closed the notebook and tucked it under my pillow.
“Nothing,” I remarked, getting to my feet.
“Where are you going? The garden is off-limits; that’s where visiting hours are being held today,” Pete told me, putting some authority in his voice.
“Okay, thanks for letting me know.” I walked past Pete, ignoring his continued attempts at conversation. The common room was empty. Either everyone had visitors, or those who didn’t were holed up, depressed, in their rooms. It sucked being one of the few people without anyone to see them. But I refused to feel sorry for myself. I had lived most of my life alone. What else was new?
Unfortunately for me, I had been given a taste of what it felt like to share your life with someone who loved you. And I had gravitated toward it. I had held on to it, crushing it in my hands. And ultimately I had destroyed it.
Now I was left with the memory of what might have been. And that was so much worse than not knowing it at all. I looked at the clock on the wall. It was already 2:00. Only one more hour and I could pretend that visiting day had never happened. At least until next week, when I was reminded once again that no one would be coming to see me.
“Maxx, there you are.”
I looked up to find Stacey standing in the doorway.
“You looking for me?” I asked, flipping the channels on the television, already cursing myself for choosing such an obvious place to hide out for the next hour.
“Yes! You have a visitor. She’s waiting out in the garden,” she said, waving a hand for me to follow her.
I sat there, staring at her like an idiot.
She’swaiting.
“What?” I asked, not quite believing her. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what she was saying. When I had been admitted to Barton House, I had put only two names on my allowed visitors list.
Aubrey Duncan and Landon Demelo.
That was it.
“Who is it?” I asked, almost scared of the answer I would be given.
“She said her name was Aubrey. We checked your file and she’s an allowed visitor. Is that okay? Are you all right with that?” Stacey looked at me with concern.
My heart thudded in my chest and for a moment I thought I might pass out.
