30 Days In Rehab

Day 6: Saturday

Work almost made me forget to update.

My covers are ripped off me, "get up." Dawson commands. I lift my pillow and put it on top of my head. "Stephanie I'm serious. You need to tell me why when I was walking in a nurse pulled me to the side and said that you had a slight breakdown. What the fuck is a slight breakdown? What happened yesterday?! I mean I'm not here for one day and shit goes to hell-- Stephanie!" My pillow is ripped from my hands. Cool hands slide under my arms and flip me, turning me onto my back. "Stephanie, why did she say that you were asking if he was alive? What would make you ask that?"

I blink at Dawson as he stares down at me. He clenches his jaw, exhaling before nodding, "you wanna play like this? Cool, we can play like this. Stephanie, I be damned if I let you go back to the way you were at the hospital." He grips my arms and sits me up. "Now either you can walk or I can drag you, you choose." He slides me to the edge of the bed and I fall off, crashing to the floor. "Fine, I'll drag you then." He mutters. He grips under my arms and slides me across the floor, muttering about how he's not going to let me fall back into my shell.

After a minute, he somehow gets me into the tub, under the showerhead. Cold water splashes down on me suddenly and I gasp, covering my face, wiping my hair off my forehead. "Dawson, what the fuck!" I scream, my voice hoarse from all the crying I did last night. "Oh now you can speak?" He asks sarcastically. I begin moving to get out of the tub but Dawson swipes my hand making me fall back down.

"No, sit there and freeze! You don't want to talk so catch a cold! I'll start turning the hot water on as soon as you start talking."

I shiver, "Dawson, I'll get hypothermia." He chuckles, "then you best start talking, sis."

I roll my eyes, "don't say that."

"Say what?"

"S-sis... That word doesn't sound right coming from you."

"Well, sis, you sound cold," he sits down on the closed toilet, "do you want to start explaining?" I lean my head against the shower wall, not caring if dried soap gets into my hair. "Kara visited and we bickered. I belittled her, hurt her feelings and... She told me that Daniel came to her after the whole supermarket ordeal." I pause, closing my eyes so that the water will hide my tears. "They slept together... I told her that she was lying and she told me to ask him. I said that-that Daniel is dead and her response was 'is he?'"

Dawson scoffs, "I'll have her arrested by the end of the day."

I smile a bit, "how? What law did she break?" I ask, peeking over at him. He shrugs, "I don't know yet, but I'll figure it out at one point." He reaches over and turns the hot water dial a little and the water becomes less cold. But don't get it twisted; it's still cold as fuck.

"How did that make you feel?" He questions. I look away from him, my eyes trained on the tiled wall in front of me. "I don't know. I do know but I don't at the same time. A part of me knee that he was gone but another part of me... Another part of me began to hope that he was alive and that everything was a big misunderstanding. Because I know that if someone was to come to me right now and say that Daniel was outside of this place, alive, waiting on me to find him... I would suddenly be back to normal. There would be no more quiet spells, Humpty Dumpty personas, no more random moments of anger and sadness, no more loneliness," I begin crying again, this time without shame. "I know that I would forgive everything that he's done, apologize for everything that I've said. I would put everything behind me and love him even stronger than I already do. I know that I would be okay again." I pause, covering my face just so I can sob into my hands.