Chapter 13

Thursday morning Sarah accompanied Richie to group therapy again. He was proud she made the step to go with him; he hoped she would for the rest of the days too.

If anything did work out between them, she’d see a lot more people, but if she got over her fear of people, mostly men, she wouldn’t be scared anymore, wouldn’t she? He hoped so or it would get really difficult.

In the afternoon they were both off to their own therapies.

Richie knocked on the door he had knocked on almost every day for the last two weeks. Two weeks, he realized, he had been her for two weeks already, he was halfway there. Livin’ – shut up, he told himself.

He thought about how much he had learned already. In group therapy he understood that addiction affected the people closest to him, which made him think of Ava and he knew it was true. During his time off he had spent more time getting drunk than with her and he didn’t want to hurt her at all. She was the most important person in the world to him.

She was the reason he was doing this, for his Princess. She was also the reason he’d succeed in this. He knew this time would be good, after this month he was done. No more alcohol. None at all, he’d be a bore at parties but what does it really matter what someone drinks? From now on he was going to have fun without alcohol.

At least he’d remember the fun he’d had the night before and wouldn’t feel horrible the next day. He was going to get his life right again, on the right track.

First he was going to stop drinking, then after the tour he was going to be home for a whole year. Catch up on lost time with Ava. He would work on his solo, this time Jon would have to wait. And when he did have to travel, he wouldn’t be gone for more than a few days. He was going to be home for Ava.

And between all that he was going to pursue Sarah.

Being with her, he couldn’t drink, he couldn’t do that to her.

He couldn’t believe how many reasons he had to not drink. Therapy had shown how many people he had let down, Ava, all his friends, his millions of fans and even Heather.

On the other hand, he was proud he was doing something about his addiction and the problems that were the reason of it.

This time he’d be fine after he left.

He hoped he would still have Sarah then too; he liked her around him, when she was around, everything just seemed ok, and everything was going to be ok.



A few doors down the hall Sarah was just leaving her private therapy. She closed the door behind her and walked to the stairs to go up to her room. She stopped when she reached the stairs and looked around to the different rooms. Finally ending on the living room, she turned around and walked away from the wooden staircase and towards the living room where a few people were sitting. It was only a handful of people, she’d be ok.

The tv was on and everyone was watching it so she sat down in an empty arm chair and watched too.

Only when the commercials started did someone talk to her. She had talked to Fred before. Well Fred had talked to her, she hadn’t said much back.

This time they did the formal how are you and how was your day. Then Fred introduced her to the four other people in the room. Sarah politely smiled at everyone in the room.

The documentary on tv started again and everyone’s attention went back to it.

It went like that every commercial break. Sarah liked it, she talked for 5 minutes and had 15 minutes to recover of it and talk again. In the short 5 minutes she actually liked having a conversation and sharing her opinion with everyone in the room.

She was actually happy she didn’t have any more sessions in the afternoon. Even though the short conversations weren’t really about anything important, mostly about the documentaries they were watching, she was actually having a good time.

Sarah was proud of herself; she was talking to people instead of hiding in her room like she did most of the time.

Tomorrow her therapist would encourage her to talk to more people. She only had one more week here and she did feel less frightened and not only around Richie. He must have been right about group therapy, look where she was right now.

She had felt nervous the moment she walked in but even now when there were more people in the room than before, she still felt good and realized not every person was a bad person.



When the third documentary she watched was over and the fourth had been a few minutes into it she felt someone sit on the armrest of her chair. She almost jumped up in surprise before realizing who it was. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” He apologized. Sarah smiled at him. “It’s ok, this is just very interesting.” She pointed over at the big tv screen. “Seems all they have here is discovery channel.” Richie said, at least it was on all the time. Where were the music channels?

He got up from the chair and walked over to sit on one of the couched. He would have loved to cuddle up with her in the chair but from this seat on the other end of the room he could watch her.

Her dark blond hair reached to the middle of her back, her eyes were intent on the tv. Then he noticed her lips, so full and pressed together. He was glad he had finally kissed those lips and knew he’d get to again. Just beautiful. His eyes wandered South, her chest rising and falling as she breathed. Those breasts, just perfect, he knew they would fit in his hands perfectly.

Don’t go there, eyes up. He told himself. Slow, he reminded himself, he had to go slow. Thinking of her breasts was not slow. If any chance he had, he had to go slow.

He only had two more weeks left at the center. Sarah was there before him which meant she was leaving sooner, but when? Would he still see her after they both left and had gone back to their own lives?

Finally Sarah felt his eyes on her as the commercials started. They made eye contact and she smiled at him. He looked so sweet caught in his act, Sarah thought.

She realized he looked sweet every time she saw him. Maybe it was something about him. The same thing that made her feel so comfortable around him.

Richie looked away from her and turned his attention to the animals on the tv screen.

Sarah continued watching him. She liked the rock star look he had, now that she knew he was a rock star, it made more sense and he looked good. His dark hair reached to his shoulders. From under his t-shirts sleeves she thought she saw a tattoo on his toned arm.

Sarah wondered if she could keep feeling the comfortable feeling she had around him, after she left. Next Sunday she would go home again, to a new life, would he be in it? She knew had 10 more days with him but did she only want 10 Days? A hundred? Or maybe even a thousand?


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