Lure of the Monster

Can't Push Me Away

Jane was in the kitchen cooking lunch whenever I walked in with Noah. She didn't give me a lecture about being out all night. She didn't say a word about me bringing Noah home. She acted as though she already knew. I wouldn't have put it past Noah to have called her to let her know where I was. How he would have gotten her number, though, I didn't know.

"You two hungry?" Jane asked as she turned off the stove and took a few bowls out of the cupboard. "Alex had a patient to see, but he should be back soon."

"I think I'm going to go grab a shower," I told her, glancing at the food. My stomach churned at the sight of it. "You should grab something, though, Noah."

"Don't mind if I do," Noah said as he took the bowls from Jane and put them on the table.

Jane looked at me for a moment before she turned back to the soup. Noah gave me a reassuring smile before I turned away and walked up the stairs slowly. The pills I'd taken from Noah's house hadn't been anything super strong. Enough to dull the cravings.

I shut the door to my room gently and went over to my closet, pulling my old duffel bag out. I dug through the old workout gear and found the stash that Chris had given me a few weeks ago. I popped the top off the bottle, my hands shaking, and took three pills out. I stuffed the bottle back into the bag and fixed the clothes before I stuck the bag back into the closet and shut the door. I grabbed the water bottle off my bedside table and swallowed the pills, closing my eyes.

I turned and grabbed some clean clothes before I walked down the hallway to the bathroom. I paused outside of the bathroom, listening to Jane and Noah laughing in the kitchen. That was the way that my parents should have treated him. Not as scum, but as any other human being.

It's how I should have treated him.

I stepped into the bathroom and shut the door, leaning against it. I could feel the drugs starting to kick in, the cravings subsiding. My hands stopped shaking. I'd hunt down Chris later that night and find something that would really nip them in the butt.

I quickly showered and when I stepped out and pulled on my clothes, my body had fully relaxed. I walked down the stairs. Noah and Jane sat at the table with empty bowls in front of them, a cup of coffee in each of their hands. I shoved my hands into my sweat pant pockets and leaned against the entryway.

Jane stood to get me a bowl of soup, but I held up a hand. "Don't. I'm fine."

She slowly sat back down, wrapping her hands around her mug. "Are you ready to talk now?"

I pushed off the wall and walked over, sitting between her and Noah. Noah slid his coffee towards me and I wrapped my hands tightly around it.

"I really am fine," I told her. "I just...I just need to figure out what I'm doing and once I do, I'll be okay."

"Your behavior is saying otherwise," Jane said. "Alex and I are worried about you, Beckham, and it really may be best for you if you consider going back to the facility. Maybe stay a little longer this time."

"Jane," I said with a sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose, "that place only made it worse. I don't want to sit around and analyze the actions of my parents and how I dealt with it. I don't want to think about what happened and think about how that might have changed me. I know that it's changed me. Seriously, don't send me to the facility. It doesn't help."

"Then you need to tell us what we can do to help you," she said, reaching over and placing a hand on my arm. "We don't want to see you suffering, Beckham. How can we help?"

I stared down at the coffee, watching as the lingering milk slowly dissolved. I could feel Noah looking at me, waiting for an answer as to how he could help me, too, but I didn't have any answers for them. At least, not any answers that they wanted to hear. The counselors at the facility had told me that I had suffered a great trauma and it would take a long time before I was able to recover from that. I would need to find ways to cope that worked for me. To continually find ways to cope because anything would be a trigger to me, and the techniques would only work for a certain amount of time.