Her Healing Hands

Chapter 7

Rehab Center October 28, 2018

Luke jumped down from bed the next morning, "Jesus." He groaned rubbing the back of his neck.

"Seven a.m. Breakfast in ten minutes." A woman over the PA announced.

Luke began making his bed, but when he lifted his pillow there was a note under it from Joey.

'Don't follow me,' that was all it said.

~^@^~

"As you've all heard by now Joey chose to leave treatment in the middle of the night." Paige announced later that day in therapy, "This is what happens when we forget why we're here. I know we're all going to have a lot of feelings about that."

"Some more than others." The guy sitting next to Luke commented snidely and Luke shot him a glare.

"This is a moment we should all pay attention to, especially you newbies here." Paige added looking around the room, "There's a reason why the program encourages us to stay out of personal relationships the first year."

"We're not in a relationship." Luke ground out, "I have a girlfriend."

"Any kind of relationship." The woman replied calmly, "We can get real close to people in recovery."

"We're friends." He shot out, "How the fuck do you expect people to get through this without friends?"

"We don't." She corrected, "One of the biggest issues that can sometimes happen and just sometimes and I'm not saying this about you, Luke, is we can start to hang our recovery on someone else instead of on ourselves." Paige continued, trying to keep Luke calm, "And you lean too hard on another addict? Shit." She scoffed, "We didn't all end up in here 'cause we're so reliable."

He glared at Paige for a moment before shooting out of his seat, "Luke." She called, "Luke."

"I'm fine." He said and headed out of the room.

"Luke."

"I'm just getting some air." He called back before disappearing out the door.

~^@^~

Luke had walked to a payphone further down the street and used it to try and call his sister.

"Hi, this is Nell. Please leave a message after the beep." But all he got was her answering machine.

"Hey, hey, it's, uh, it's me." Luke began leaving his voicemail, "Uh I, I had a moment. Um, Last night, one of those." He let out a breath of air, "You know what I'm talking about. I just wanted to make sure that you were okay. I, uh, I don't have a phone and you won't reach me at the center. But, you can call there and leave me a message there. I should be back by tonight. I just have to find a friend." Luke paused as he looked around, "And don't, don't worry. I'm fine. I just I just wanted to be sure you're okay. You know. Yeah, okay."

After getting off the phone, Luke walked over to a bench nearby and sat down. His eye began to wander around him and he began to get lost in his thoughts until a barking dog jolted him back to reality.

Hill House Summer 1992

Luke woke up and looked around his bedroom, trying to figure out what had woken him up. He decided to lie back down and try to fall asleep, but then he began to hear a tapping sound and creaking down the hall.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed Tara sit up in her bed as well. She looked over at Luke, "What is that?"

"I don't know." He whispered back as he slipped out of bed, "Come on let's go find out."