I sat with that for a moment, trying to make sense of what he was saying. He wasn’t wrong—it was easier to focus on one small thing than the whole giant mess. The thought of everything—insurance, money, prescriptions, staying on track—felt like staring at a massive, impossible tree. But the leaves? One conversation with Ledger, one step forward? That was manageable.
“Yeah. I can do that.”
“I think you can too. There are people in your corner to support you.”
“It doesn’t always feel like that. My mom had me young. She worked her ass off to make sure I had everything I needed, but... when I got older, I think she wasn’t always sure what to do next. Sometimes it felt like the only way she knew to help was to step back and hope I figured it out.”
Ralph nodded, jotting something down on his notepad.
“I still carry a lot of resentment about the first time I got out of rehab. She wasn’t there when I walked out the door.”
“Did she come the second time?”
“No. Not at first, anyway. The first time, I left a day earlier than planned, so she couldn’t have been there. And the second time...” I rubbed the back of my neck. “She stayed away for the first year. Thought giving me space was the right move. She told me later she was following advice from a friend and her therapist, that she didn’t want to smother me. But sitting there week after week, watching other people get visits... it didn’t feel like space. It felt like I’d been written off.”
“And when she did come?”
“We talked. She apologized. Said she went too far. And I believe she meant it. But that first month—man, that’s the partthat sticks. That’s the part I keep trying not to carry with me, and it still sneaks in.”
Ralph’s pen scratched against the paper.
“My goal,” I said, breaking the silence, “now that I’m out here, is to sit down with her one day and actually talk about it. You know, clear the air.”
Ralph gave a small nod of approval. “That’s good. You’re moving in the right direction.” He paused for a moment. “So, switching topics—how about dating? Seeing anyone?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to date right now,” I said, leaning against my chair. “I’m focused on my sobriety. That’s all that matters to me right now. I can’t afford distractions.”
Ralph set his notebook down and leaned forward. “Austin, it’s been years since your divorce, according to your chart. You’ve been on this journey for a while. I understand your hesitancy, but you’ve spent years building the tools to keep yourself grounded. You have to trust yourself at some point. You won’t slip because you open yourself up to something new.”
I let out a soft laugh, shaking my head. “Yeah, well, easier said than done.”
“True, but that doesn’t mean you can’t try.”
I gave a half-hearted shrug, still feeling uneasy about the idea. He wasn’t wrong. There had to be a point where I stopped keeping everyone at arm’s length. I simply wasn’t ready to admit it yet.
Ralph glanced at the clock and closed his notebook. “Alright, let’s wrap it up for today. We can talk more about what dating looks like once you get the insurance situation squared away.”
I nodded, standing and grabbing the prescription that had been set aside for me. “Yeah, I’ll make sure to do that.”
As I walked out of the office, Ralph’s words kept turning over in my mind. I’d been looking at life through the lens of needing to fix the whole tree—my sobriety, my relationships—but what I really needed was to break it down, piece by piece. I’d been so focused on getting better, staying sober, but it was time to start testing things out. Dating, talking to my mom about how I really felt about our relationship. It didn’t have to happen all at once.
One leaf at a time.
6
austin
It was officially my first day working with Ledger. He was running a two-week sports camp for kids before the school year started. Earlier in the day, before the kids arrived, Ledger had taken me around the rink, helping me get familiar with the space. After eight hours of kids running around, the energy and noise filling every corner, I was completely spent. We were packing up the equipment on the ice so the figure skaters could take over.
“Feel good to be back here?” Ledger asked, rubbing a hand through his beard.
“On the ice?”
Ledger nodded.
