Mr. Mitchell Billionaires' Club Book 2 - Raylin Marks Page 0,163
name yet?”
“We’re still officially undecided.” she shrugged. “Although I think we are going to go with John.” She looked over her shoulder and accelerated onto the freeway to merge into the second lane. “That was Collin’s dad’s name. He passed away not too long ago, and he was like a father to Jacob and Jim. He was there for both of the guys when they lost Howard.” She smiled at me. “In case you somehow manage to run into Collin, don’t tell him. Jake wants to surprise him and Jim. He can be such a big goofball sometimes.”
“I don’t think I’ll be running into Collin any time soon, so don’t worry. That’s such a sweet thing to do, naming your son after him,” I said, and then I took notice of how slow we were driving. “I thought this place was about twenty minutes away,” I said, wondering why the hell we were driving so slowly. “Are you getting off somewhere?”
“Oh, my God. Not you too,” Ash said with a laugh. “Jake despises how slowly I drive on the freeway. I think I’m perfectly safe, don’t you?”
I chewed on my lip. “Well, I know I drive a little too fast, so maybe I’m not the one to judge you, but if we have a ways to go on the freeway?” I scanned around, looking over my shoulder and at her.
Her hands were at ten and two, and she cracked me up with how she looked driving. It was like this was her first time out, and I was the driving instructor who was going to determine whether or not she was getting her license.
“We’re fine here.”
“Next time I am driving,” I teased. “So, your stepmom, Carmen, suggested this meeting? How do you think it’s going to go down? I’m feeling kind of nervous.”
“Carmen told me that one of her nursing friends started going to AA after getting out of a relationship with an addict. She had major codependency issues and some addictive behaviors of her own, so she ended up at a meeting because she didn’t have anyone else to talk to who could understand what she was going through. After seeing the bullshit Derek pulled on you at the beach and then hearing your story, I couldn’t help but think of this.”
“Well, I’m glad you suggested it because I don’t think I would’ve ever thought about it.”
“Let’s see what it’s about,” she said encouragingly. “You never know when wisdom is going to decide to smack you upside the head.”
Ash couldn’t have steered me in a better direction with the suggestion of AA, and she and I started to come to these meetings every Friday night. I felt terrible that she was continuing to drive all the way here to do this with me, but Addy got to see her on a few occasions, and my little girl loved that.
Coming to these meetings was oddly comforting to me. It made me feel a lot less alone in the world. People had it so much worse than me, more than I would’ve never imagined, and I was reminded of that tonight when Sharon spoke.
I felt my stomach drop like I was on a roller coaster and tears well up in my eyes. She was speaking directly to my hardened heart and soul with her realization that even though she’d stopped using, she was still sick. Sick because of the addict. Sick because she was always making excuses to enable her husband and not leave. Her codependency and enabling resulted in her children becoming addicts also, something that she’d thought she worked so hard to prevent. Her entire life had been one, long, miserable fight.
I was in tears when she finished speaking, realizing that I was sick like she was. I’d stopped abusing drugs many years ago, but I never stopped hiding and making excuses. I didn’t see it before, but my choices made me as much of an enabler to Derek as his parents were.
“You doing okay, Av?” Ash asked as we got into her car. She could see I’d been crying since we listened to Sharon’s story, and I could only imagine what was going through her head.
I smiled through my tears. “I think I had a breakthrough,” I said with a certain amount of surprise in my voice. “It’s only the beginning, I know, but I get it now. At least I think I do.”
“Sharon’s story was heartbreaking,” she said, rubbing my arm. “May I ask what part of