The 12 Steps

Step 4

Step 4: Courage - Take a personal inventory of ourselves.

Song: Ashes by Celine Dion

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L I A M

I always had this plan. A plan where I would graduate high school with the highest GPA, get a full-ride baseball scholarship to Stanford University, and then work my way to the major league baseball teams. It was a plan I had made with Lincoln when we were younger. A dream we shared to play baseball together.

A dream that died when he overdosed.

The thing my parents kept calling the 'accident'.

It's crazy because he hid his addiction so well that we didn't know until it was too late. Maybe that's why they kept calling it that or maybe they wanted to convince themselves that it truly was an accident. Every time I tried to remember the good memories that I had with Lincoln, it was always tainted with the little signs of his slowly growing addiction that I hadn't noticed before.

The mood swings that I thought were just his frustration of not being able to use his arm or the normal annoyance of having your mother nag you about taking too much medication. I realized he only ever got upset or defensive when it came to his medication. All this time I thought it was because of his arm. Maybe it was part of it.

After he left for rehab, I tried to go on like everything was fine. I convinced myself that Lincoln was just away on a trip with Uncle Zach, but it didn't last. I kept on remembering and remembering.

I hated remembering. I just wanted to shut it off. The memories. The feelings. All of it. And I think I succeeded because I didn't have to deal with them anymore after six months.

Max said it was because of my PTSD. He said, "It's not uncommon for people with PTSD to experience emotion numbing and memory loss." That was his favorite word. PTSD. I don't know why but every time he said it, it pissed me off. He would always talk with this tone like he knew me more than I knew myself.

But no one knew me more than me.

He even assigned me homework. I was not happy about that and I made sure that he knew. So, he threatened me by bringing up the topic from the last session about what he likes to call 'my deflection' so I told him I would do the damn homework if it got him to shut up about the ridiculous theory he came up with. I hated hearing about his theories and he would always ask me if he could share it with me. As if I had a choice.

His theories were stupid. Like deflection? Emotion numbing? Were they even a real thing?

He wanted me to write down my strengths and weaknesses in the journal he gave me. I hated having to do that for teachers, and now he wanted me to do it for therapy. How is that supposed to help me?

He said it was 'taking inventory' like I was supposed to know what that meant.

I didn't know what I was supposed to write. I mean, I knew, but I didn't know what to write down for answers.

And if I was being completely honest, I didn't care.

That's why I haven't done it.

"Wake up, Bradford!" a voice shouted.

The fog in my head cleared up and I used my hand to shield my face from the sun. Alex yelled from the plate, he was holding up the bat and his helmet, with a look that said 'Aren't you batting?'

I grabbed my bat and ran out of the dugout, glancing over at Coach to see him shake his head as he looked at me. I had been in my head all day. I made sure to always be on top of my game during baseball practice but I couldn't control my mind today.