Chapter 53

“You think I have an alcohol problem? You’re talking about rehab?” I lift my palms in complete disbelief. “Dad? Mom?” I turn imploringly. “I didn’t drink for like over three weeks after I came here, almost four! An alcoholic wouldn’t go more than four hours. I fucked up once, and you want to condemn me to a fucking rehab center. What the hell is wrong with you?” My temper chooses to dominate over wounded pride and pain.

Miss. Predictable!

“I think it’s more than booze, Sophie. I don’t know what else you kids are taking nowadays, but saying you were spiked.... Did you take drugs?” He is deadly serious, and it rips a hole right through my heart. Betrayal at its worst.

“Drugs? Are you fucking kidding me? You know how I feel about drugs, Dad! Why are you even saying this to me? How can you even think that of me?.... Have you even looked at me the last few weeks, seen how different I have tried to be?” yelling, emotionally bawling at him with rage and hysteria breaking free.

“We love you, honey, and we don’t want you to go the same way Leila did, she was so much more streetwise and stronger than you, and we’re scared. We see you struggling, and this is proof, that despite trying so hard, you cannot do this without real help.” My mom is now beside me, gripping my arm and crying over me in desperation. It’s like I have died, and they have a doppelganger standing in their midst or something equally fucked up. I really don’t even know how to react to this.

“This right here is why I left the first time!” I snap harshly, yanking my arm free. “I can’t do this right now, I’ll end up saying something I regret, and I need some space. You two are out of your heads if you think I need to go to rehab. Talk about one extreme to the other, dad.....You either leave me to my own devices and seem scared to say boo to me, or you want to put me in bloody prison for twenty-eight days to dry out among the actual alcoholics. Do you have any clue how fucked up this is?” I pull away and march out to the hall, feet stamping with rage as I make my way to the stairs.

“You’re not to leave this house young lady. I have a call to make to a friend who runs a good place. You are going and that is final, Sophie. I won’t put your mother through this anymore.” My father yells after me, which only makes me madder. I turn on them screaming from the stairs.

“You can’t keep me here... … I’m a fucking adult!!! When are you all going to realize that? You can’t have me locked in a rehab center when I don’t even have an addiction. You’re crazy.... All of you. You can all go the fuck away and leave me alone.” I keep running, trying to ignore the bellowing of my dad below me, forbidding me to leave. I can hear my mom sobbing and him yelling to get him his cell and I just want to scream. There’s a smash as he loses his shit, and something gets thrown across the hall in a rage. It’s more than enough for me.

Startled into past fear, adrenalin kicking in and blinding me as I get caught in the so long ago. Memories of a father who used to smash things over the top of me, hold me down, smack me around when I disobeyed him, come flooding back. That stubborn head goes on, blinkers attached and my heart, pounding through my chest, goes into overdrive.

I know he has no chance of stopping me. Even if he barricades the doors. I’ve been escaping this house since I was fourteen years old and sneaking out to see Arry and his friends. They aren’t about to lock me in when I haven’t even done anything wrong. Not staying for some crazy volatile outburst.

I’m not going to rehab, I don’t fucking need it, but I know it’s not that simple. I have known girls whose families had them drugged up and dragged there, by burly men in white uniforms who give zero shits about whether they have an addiction or not.

Parents pay a lot of money to get their kids clean, and if they are paid to keep you for a full twenty-eight dry out days, then you sure as hell are not going to get out. The thought of one of those places sends the fear of God through me.

I fling on some jeans and a black sweater over sneakers, a beany hat on my head to tame my hair, throw essentials in a rucksack and pull it on my back. Going through the same motions I have done twice in my life, like an automatic response to an internal trigger.

Swiping my handbag to throw in my phone and purse and hooking it around my neck, I walk into my bathroom, pull up the huge window and climb out onto the old tree that grows up the side of the house. I’ll be damned if they’re going to do this to me! I won’t stay here; I won’t let them try to lock me up or hold me down this way.

Climbing down in sheer rage, before I hit the ground running. Sophie of old. I know where I’m heading and it’s anywhere but here.