“Nope.”
“I’m getting ready to go home for the evening. I’ll see you tomorrow. Try to get up and eat something in the morning. It will help you feel better. And drink lots of water to combat the withdrawals.”
“I’ll be all right. I don’t use that much. Shouldn’t have too bad of withdrawals. Have a good night.”
Even as I said the words,
I didn’t believe them. The truth was that I had brought the alcohol and drugs with me because I knew the withdrawals could be bad. After two days in the hospital from nearly drowning, I had started into full-blown withdrawals. I convinced them that I was feeling well enough to leave, but the first thing I did while I was packing to come to rehab was drink and snort a line. Even on the damn plane to Aspen, I used; I had to make sure I got one last hit in before I arrived.
By morning, I would be nauseous, sweating, and agitated. But I had a plan. I would stick to my room. Sleep as much as possible. Drink water and just hunker down and make it through the next two to three days. Everything would be better once I made it through the initial days.
Or at least that was what I expected. I really didn’t have that much experience because I always went back to using before I could manage to get off of everything.
Sure, I had gotten off of the drugs before – well, the cocaine at least. While my company was in its prime, I was just smoking marijuana at night to sleep and partying on the weekends. I had a full week of working and not much time for partying at all. But after the company sold, I found myself with as much time as I wanted on my hands. I had so much money, there wasn’t a need to work ever again if I didn’t want to. But I had nothing to do with myself.
Spencer seemed to handle the freedom of our company sale a little better than I did. Right away, he was out looking for the next thing we could get into. He still came out to party on the weekends, but all week, he stayed busy with business meetings and his family. At least he had a family who loved him; I couldn’t say as much. He had a lot more control over his life than I did, but he wasn’t having nearly as much fun as I was.
After losing my mother when I was younger, I just never felt like I belonged with my father or brother. They ran the family mortuary business and had planned on me coming in to help them. So, when I went off to college, they put up with it but didn’t like it.
Slowly, as the first year went by, my father seemed to get more and more agitated with me when I would talk to him. So, I stopped talking to him. Eventually, we had a huge argument over some unknown thing, and my father said he didn’t know who I was. After that, our conversations were minimal.
My father expected I would fail and come running home to him. But I didn’t fail. I got into California Polytechnic State University, one of the best and most innovative schools on the West Coast. I met Spencer, and together we came up with a new smart phone app that made selling tickets to concerts easier than buying online. When Ticketmaster bought us out for a cool $400 million, we split the funds and that was that.
My father hadn’t talked to me in over two years and my brother had barely managed a phone call on my birthday. I wasn’t about to tell them about all of my success. If they couldn’t be there for me when I was a simple, college student, I didn’t need them now that I was rich.
But, inevitably, the news had gotten back to them. Newspaper articles in national papers had been shared by family and friends. When my brother called me one afternoon, I was actually excited to see his number pop up, until he started yelling.
“You couldn’t even be bothered to tell us?”
“Tell you what?” I had played stupid.
“That you are rich now.”
“I’m not rich.”
“You’re a selfish asshole,” Heath had yelled into my ear. “You haven’t been home to see Dad in years and now you have tons of money and no excuses, but you still won’t come. You deserve to live a lonely and boring life.”
When we hung up, his words had lingered in my mind, and it was the first time I threw a giant party.
Spending thousands of dollars on a party seemed like the right thing to do. I invited my friends from work, told them they could invite their friends too, and before I knew it, my house party was so outrageous that it was covered by the entertainment news in the area.
Then I was famous. At least in San Francisco. The pretty women started to show up at the parties, and with pretty ladies came a whole new level of party. I bought more and more liquor. I tried my first line of cocaine.
Things got out of control really quickly and I stopped thinking about or calling my family at all. If they wanted to disown me with their behavior, I was fine with that. I didn’t need them. I hadn’t even talked to them more than a half-dozen times in the previous five years. I was over it; I could do it alone.
Chapter Three
Cassidy
“How was work?” my mom asked when I got home.
“The usual.”
“You know, we need help with the ski rental area. You could always come do that if it’s too depressing out there at the rehab place.”
“It’s not depressing, Mom. I like it there.”
“Honey, with your past, it just seems like you might want to stay away from people who are like that,” my father added.