Addicted. Zoey Williams
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will pick up on my sarcasm.
DFIU, Talia. Just promise me that one thing. Please make an effort to ensure this whole thing goes smoothly. This place has a zero-tolerance policy for any breach of the rules. One strike and you’re out.
I make an annoyed noise at the phone and Sydney asks what’s the matter. I flash her my phone.
“DFIU?” she asks.
“Don’t eff it up.” I can’t count how many times Dottie’s ever texted me that. I turn to Sydney. “Trust me,” I say, “the sooner the investors come back, the sooner I get to go back to Los Angeles and hopefully start filming. I will not eff this up.”
Got it, I text Dottie back.
I watch as the cityscape rolls by through the private car’s blacked-out windows and though I miss being able to see the ocean, it’s kind of pretty, actually. The sun has started to set. There’s a lot more green out here than I expected for a city and the air smells cleaner, sweeter somehow. Nashville itself is pretty small and soon enough the restaurants, storefronts and apartments start to give way to the more residential outskirts. It seems like every house we pass has a sprawling, pristinely kept yard. All of the neighborhoods have a charming and homey feel, not to mention much more character than the immaculate carbon-copy mansions on either side of the palm-tree-lined streets of my neighborhood. Though I’m hundreds of miles away from where I call home, I’m surprised by how quickly I feel pretty comfortable here. I roll down my window and take a deep breath of the air that is certainly not the smog of LA.
We turn off a main road and, after passing a well-manicured hedge, roll up to a large white gate. Our driver leans out the window to press a white keycard to a panel. The doors slide open and the white Colonial house I saw in the brochure comes into view.
When we stop in the round driveway, Sydney says, “And this is where I say goodbye.”
After giving me a hug she hands me a piece of paper folded in half. “I’ll be staying in a hotel just ten minutes away. Call me if you need to. Otherwise, I’ll see you in fourteen days.”
I give her a mock salute. “See you then, Captain Organized.”
I get out of the car and realize the driver has already left all my bags in a neat pile on the porch. I turn back and watch the car drive away. I’m all alone at rehab. This is real.
I turn around and face the house, straightening my shoulders and lifting my chin. It’s gotten fairly dark out—I’m not even sure what time it is—and there’s a faint sound of crickets chirping coming from the bushes and flowers at the bottom of the steps. I feel the cool spring breeze on my face and I take in a deep breath. “Let’s get this over with,” I say to myself.
I walk up the steps of the white wraparound porch and open the door at the top. Inside, the foyer looks like it’s been decorated by a very cheerful grandmother. The hardwood floors are immaculate and large potted plants sit on either side of a light blue antique-looking desk. There are framed cross-stitch patterns with sayings like One Day at a Time and It Gets Better! surrounded by candy-colored flowers hanging on the walls. There’s an ornate carpeted staircase right in the middle of the entrance hall and a vintage-looking upholstered settee at the bottom of it.
I plop my carry-on duffel on the blue desk and discover a chubby woman with a streak of white in her short red hair is sitting behind it.
I jump. “Oh! You surprised me,” I say dumbly.
The woman smiles to herself like she had planned that sneak attack. She’s wearing sparkly bright purple cat-eye reading glasses and looks up at me from her creased paperback book. “Name, dear?” she asks with a slight drawl. She looks more like a sweet Southern grandma than someone who’s in charge of preventing people from touching themselves.
“Talia Truman.”
She gets up from her chair and I easily tower over her by a couple of feet.
“Hi, Talia. I’m Doctor Brothers, but all my patients call me Judy. Welcome to New Beginnings,” she says, shaking my hand. It’s the most generic name for a rehab facility they could have picked and I almost laugh. She shuffles around her desk and picks up a manila folder with my last name written in block letters on the side. “We’ve been expecting you!” she exclaims delightedly. “You’re the television star, right?”
I snort. “Hardly. Haven’t worked in a year.”
“Right,” she says merrily, as if she didn’t hear me. “For now I’m going to be working with you in group sessions and I’ll give you your schedule first thing tomorrow morning. But for right now, I’m going to search your belongings for any type of contraband and then you can come with me for our last meeting of the day, the community meeting. Unzip all of your bags, please,” she orders as she snaps on a pair of rubber gloves.
I unzip my duffel and then bend down to open my larger bags on the floor. Judy comes out from behind the desk and starts ruffling through my things after setting a clipboard down next to her.
“Now,” she says, wiggling her fingers as if she’s just itching to go through my stuff. “Do you have any weapons—guns, knives, bombs, box cutters, pepper spray—”
“What?” I say, taken aback. “No, of course not.”
Judy gives me a slight smile. “I’m sorry, but I have to go over the entire list, dear. Standard procedure. You’d be surprised what people try to sneak in here.”
She looks back at the paper on the clipboard. “Drugs, alcohol, prescription drugs, any illicit substance that could hurt yourself or others?” she says brightly, as if she was asking me to join her for a tea party.
“No.” Though I wished I had some right about now.
She lifts a bra from my bag, inspects it for a second and then puts it down. “A little too lacy for this place, but I’ll let it slide.” Next, she pinches my electric toothbrush between her thumb and pointer finger as if it was the pin of a grenade and tsks her tongue.
“I’m going to have to take this, Ms. Truman,” she says before slipping the toothbrush into a clear plastic bag.
“What? I can’t brush my teeth?” I ask, confused.
“It’s not your teeth I’m worried about you using this on, dear,” Judy says as she pulls her glasses down the bridge of her nose and glances at me over them.
I suddenly get her meaning and laugh. “No, no, no. I swear that thing only goes in my mouth. I wasn’t planning on—”
Judy raises a hand to stop me. “I’ve heard every excuse in the book, Miss Truman. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you’re given a nonbattery-operated toothbrush before you go to bed.” She cocks her head to one side, smiling tightly as she puts all my stuff back into my bags. “Wonderful. You’re all set for our community meeting, then. It’ll be a nice introduction to the people you’ll be joining in group therapy during most of your stay here.” She looks over my shoulder, behind me. “Oh, here comes one of them now. We can all walk down together. Matthew?”
I turn to see who she’s talking to and my breath catches. Sauntering down the hallway, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his chin held high—almost in defiance—is one of the hottest guys I’ve ever seen. He’s tall with broad shoulders, a tapered waist and jet-black hair. His sweatshirt sleeves are pushed up to show off his meaty forearms. As he eyes me up and down, I feel a shiver run through me. Then our gazes meet. Despite his punkish gait and facial expression, he has a young-looking face complete with baby blue eyes and two dimples that flash on his cheeks when he smirks at me before he looks away so fast I wonder if I imagined it.
“Talia, this is Matthew Skylar. Matthew, would you mind showing Talia to the community meeting room? I’ll be right behind you two.”
Matt shrugs his shoulders, turns and begins to walk down the hallway. For a moment, I’m frozen in place and then I realize, oh, right, I’m supposed to follow this guy.