Page 120 of Carter

My apartment is too quiet, even with the city noises outside. The shouts. The sirens. The honks. City life sucks. There’s never any peace.

The microwave beeps, so I get up from the couch to get the leftover takeout from inside and sit back on the couch to eat it while I watch whatever free channels I have because I can’t bring myself to use the streaming services that Nash signed into. I deleted the apps.

There’s nothing good on, so I pick something at random, just for the background noise. My food tastes like ash, but I swallow it down because I need to eat. I need to take care of myself, get back to where I was.

I told myself I could have a week of feeling sorry for myself, for feeling like this, but that’s it. That’s all I get. I can’t take three years again. I won’t come out on the other end.

I stare at my phone that’s beside me on the couch. The only calls or texts I’ve gotten lately are spam or marketing stuff. What I need to remember is that I made this work once; I can do it again.

The only problem now is that I know Nash is there. I know he exists. I know I could reach out to him at any point and he’d talk.

I stay up at night wondering if he’s in pain, if he’s home, if he has anyone taking care of him. It would be so easy to pick up the phone.

This is so much different from last time. In ways, it’s harder. Because Nash is just a phone call away. But it hurts too much, and I’m not strong enough to handle it.

So I force the food down, then get ready to go to group.

I took a short leave from work, using only the benefit time I have, because I’m not in the right head space to deal with the public. It’s best I get over this while I’m at home, alone.

It’s Tuesday, so I have group and won’t skip that. Getting there seems to take forever. My heart rate spikes, but I do well at keeping it in check. It’s been hard to leave my apartment again, but I keep pushing because I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve seen it. With Ryan, I was completely in the dark. Now, I know it’s there. I just have to find it again.

I’m in the group room for just a minute, lingering with the others before Tim walks over to me with a concerned look.

“Carter, are you okay?”

“Fine, why?” I say, forcing a smile.

He gives me one ofthosesmiles, the kind that tells me he sees right through me and my lie.

“You just look a little tired is all.”

“I’m good, Tim. Thanks for asking.”

“I’m glad you’re here today.” He pats my shoulder.

“Me too.”

He turns around to take his seat, which means the rest of us do the same. There are a lot of people here today so it takes a little time to get more chairs set up, but once everyone has a seat, Tim looks around at all of us.

“Thank you all for being here today. Who has something they want to share?”

A new girl talks first. Tells us that she came because her mother forced her, and since she has to be here, she wants to make the best of it, even though she’s an adult and doesn’t have to be here at all. I get the attitude, I get the fight. It’s not easy facing your pain or even talking about it. But in the end, it’s better to let it out than keep it in. That shit drags you down.

Her father was killed in a car accident. She was in the car. She survived. She doesn’t understand why.

Hey, that sounds familiar. So fucking familiar I almost want to laugh. She reminds me of me when I first started coming here. I guess I was a little more willing than she was because I didn’t have a mother to help me through.

“Carter, do you have anything you want to share today?” Tim asks carefully.

He doesn’t usually call people out, but I always share, and he knows I do. And he definitely knows something is up with me today.

I don’t want to, and if I said no, he’d let it go. Forcing people to talk isn’t what this is about.

I don’t want to talk about what happened and bring up this pain—it’s bad enough it just happened last night—but what did I just say? Better out than in. So I get into it. I tell the story. I let everyone know what I went through last night and how it’s so familiar but still hard.

“So, you broke up with him?” Logan asks.

“Yeah,” I say pointedly.