I had some help

Fifty-six

Morgan woke each morning to the muted light filtering through the blinds of his room at the rehab center in California. The days had begun to blur together, but the mornings always started the same—group therapy. He would shuffle into the circle of chairs, surrounded by strangers, each wearing the same haunted look he saw in the mirror. They were all running from something, just like him.

He listened to the others talk, but rarely spoke unless pushed. One morning, a guy across the circle, his voice raw with emotion, said, "Sometimes I feel like I'm just running from my past. No matter how far I go, it's always there. Right behind me."

The words hit Morgan harder than he expected. He could relate. Hell, he’d been running for as long as he could remember, but the past always found a way to catch up. Without thinking, he muttered, "I get that." His voice sounded distant to his own ears. "It's like I keep trying to outrun everything I’ve done, but it just... never goes away."

The group leader, Karen, always calm, always patient, gave him a look of quiet encouragement. "Running won’t get you where you want to be, Morgan. You have to face it. You have to confront what you’ve been running from."

Her words stuck with him, even as he tried to push them away. It wasn’t something he wanted to admit—that he’d spent years dodging his mistakes, hurting people along the way. But the truth was there, no longer avoidable.

When he met with Dr. Green for individual therapy, those same thoughts resurfaced. Dr. Green had a way of cutting straight to the heart of things, never letting him dodge the hard questions. "Morgan," Dr. Green asked one afternoon, "why do you think you’ve struggled to make lasting changes?"

Morgan shifted uncomfortably in his chair, staring at the floor. He hated these moments, the ones where he couldn’t hide behind excuses. But after a long pause, he finally spoke. "I thought I could handle it all on my own," he admitted, the words heavy. "I didn’t want to ask for help, didn’t want to admit I needed it. But I was wrong. And now... I’ve hurt people. People I love."

Saying it out loud felt like tearing open an old wound, but it also brought an odd sense of relief. He had spent so long pretending his actions hadn’t left a trail of destruction behind him, especially when it came to Alex. Now, there was no hiding from it.

Dr. Green’s gaze was steady but not unkind. "Acknowledging that is important, Morgan. But remember, this isn’t just about you. It’s about understanding how your behavior affects others. Healing comes when you take responsibility for the harm you’ve caused."

That hit him hard. He had been so wrapped up in his own guilt, his own shame, that he hadn’t thought enough about the ripple effect of his actions—the way his choices had hurt people he cared about, had pushed them away. He thought of Alex, how his lies and selfishness had cut deeper than either of them had realized.

In the life skills workshops, Morgan started to learn how to deal with the pressure he’d been running from for years. They taught him practical tools for coping with stress, for facing difficult situations instead of avoiding them. One afternoon, they ran through role-playing exercises, practicing how to make better choices in moments of conflict or temptation.

"You can’t control everything that happens to you." The instructor said, "But you can always control how you respond."

Morgan nodded, but the truth of it still felt foreign to him. In the past, his response had always been to grit his teeth, to push through, to shut out the pain and keep going. But that hadn’t worked. That’s what had gotten him here in the first place.

During a break, he found himself talking to one of the other participants, voicing the thoughts that had been swirling in his head. "I used to think that if I just pushed harder, if I stayed tough, everything would work itself out." He admitted, staring at the ground. "But now I see... that wasn’t strength. It was avoidance. I wasn’t facing anything. I was running from it."