despite the way I shook.
With a moan, I flushed the toilet and pulled myself up to an erect position. I caught a glimpse of my pale face in the mirror and the wild panic in my eyes. I splashed water onto my face over and over as doubts crashed into my with such force I had to hold on to the counter.
One week left to go at the center and now was the time I was freaking out. I can’t do this. How was I supposed to go back out there in the world to deal with people on a daily basis?
There was the upcoming trial with Louis that I had to be present for. Around my sessions here at the center, I’d been in dialogue with my lawyer about the progress of the case. He’d requested a speedy trial which we had been granted since the defendant had no desire to drag things out either. Apparently Louis’s father had tried to keep the whole sordid affair out of the media which hadn’t worked. I had disabled all my social media handles in an effort to focus on my recovery.
Jeanine had cautioned me that the six weeks weren’t meant to cure me. It was to center me and equip me with the tools necessary to fight the self-doubt and handle the bad days.
I didn’t feel equipped.
I could feel it in my bones that I was going to fail. I was going to disappoint Callum again and even worse.
I’d come to have expectations of myself. Expectations to do better. To live better. I was so used to expectations leading to disappointment. How could I not disappoint?
I made myself go back to bed instead of staring in the mirror. Jeanine said the change was inside. That was the change that mattered, but how could I know the change was there when I looked the same?
Sleep didn’t come easily. My mind was too active, contriving a million things that could go wrong when I left the center next week. I’d come to rely on Jeanine for practical advice. How was I supposed to complete my transformation without her?
When sleep eventually came, it was plagued with nightmares, but they were different this time. They weren’t of the crash but of me. Failing. Failing Callum. Failing my mother. Failing myself.
Dawn broke, and I was still in bed, sluggish and not wanting to see anyone. I stayed past the hour I usually took breakfast. The center endorsed healthy eating habits, which meant a reasonable eating hour and absolutely no meal skipping. I couldn’t bear the thought of food, though. What I longed for was a cup of Callum’s coffee brewed specially for me, poured into a cup with five hearts, not four.
Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes as I clutched the sheet over my head. What the hell was wrong with me? Everything had been so good. The therapy sessions were amazing. The exercises I took part in daily helped me to find the missing pieces in my life.
I was so enthusiastic about returning to Battersea to set my plans into motion, and now that the moment was almost here, I wanted to rewind time.
It was too insufficient.
I was still a wreck.
There was still so much I didn’t know.
I must’ve fallen asleep at some point because I was jerked awake by a loud, persistent knocking on my door.
“Go away!” I pulled the pillow over my head. I wasn’t in the mood for company. I just wanted to wallow for the day. To wait until this mood passed and I was back to the happy me again. Before the night came and my insecurities with it when I was alone.
“Ashton, it’s me. Please open the door.”
Mom? Shit, I’d forgotten Jeanine had planned a session between us. She hadn’t given me the exact date Mother would come, but I’d known it would be this week, since it was my last.
I dragged my feet to the door. This was the worst day for Mother to be here. Why couldn’t she have come on one of the days when everything was going right? Instead, she had shown up on one of my rare off days.
I cracked the door open and peered out at her. As usual, she was dressed to the nines in a brown leather pencil skirt, knee-high boots, and a light brown jacket over a yellow top. Julia Keyes’s image screamed money, and she wasn’t about to let the world forget it.
“Mom? What are you doing