This was a tricky time for anyone in rehab and Giles needed to be guided gently. If he became too overwhelmed with grief or regret, there was a chance he’d leave, to run back to his old painkiller.
The Cloisters regime was tough. Yes, the patients were pushed way out of their comfort zones, but always with exquisite care. They were monitored with a gimlet eye so that we knew when to hold back, when to press hard, when to abruptly change strategy and show them some love.
‘You’ve come a long, long way in the last twenty-nine days,’ I said. ‘You’re becoming a whole new person. It’s painful, all this clarity, but it’ll be worth it. Over time, you can try to make things right with the people you hurt.’
‘They’ll never forgive me.’
Who knew if they would or they wouldn’t and if they didn’t, that was their right. But … ‘No matter what,’ I said, ‘you can live through this and anything else life throws at you, without relapsing.’
I walked him back to group and, on a whim, crooked a finger to extract Harlie, just to check she was okay after Simon’s departure.
She swished into the consulting room, everything on point – brows, lashes, skin and hair. In the outside world, she managed a CosMedical clinic （called Rich Girl Face – I loved the name）， where she had access to all kinds of tweakments.
‘So,’ I said. ‘Simon?’
‘What about him?’ She was cagey.
‘You and he were … close?’
‘You mean I fancied him?’ Her glare was combative. Then, ‘Maybe I did. For thirty seconds. Big mistake.’
‘Don’t beat yourself up about it,’ I said. ‘Happens all the time in here. When your drug of choice is taken away, you’ll look for other ways to make yourself feel good.’
‘Yeah, but,’ she said, ‘I heard about him and Prissie. They’re all trash, aren’t they? Liars and cheaters, the whole shower of them.’
‘Who exactly are you talking about?’
Immediately her mouth bunched up, as if it had been pulled tight with a string. She didn’t want to let the name escape. In our first session, two and a half weeks ago, she’d growled, ‘That fucker is dead to me.’
‘Who?’ I repeated.
‘Nnnnnn,’ she hummed, from behind her sealed lips, her eyes bright and popping. I swear to God, despite her fury, she was hilarious.
Eventually she exhaled and let herself speak. ‘Caleb.’
Her ex-husband. He’d left her about a year ago. I’d texted, emailed and called, trying to persuade him to come in to confront her, but all I’d got was a deafening silence. He was probably trying to move on with his life – who could blame him?
However, two of her friends had shown up and their colourful, exhaustive accounts of her drunken capers had horrified her into seeing she wasn’t just a party girl but an actual alcoholic.
‘Other than Simon, how are you?’ I asked.
‘Peachy, Rachel. Yourself?’
I waited.
‘I only came in here to learn how to drink normally.’ Her voice wobbled; I wasn’t sure if it was with grief or fury. ‘But according to you, I can never drink again. My life is over and I’m only twenty-nine.’
‘What about Tegan?’ I asked. ‘What if she’d had the chance to stop drinking?’
‘Stop trying to guilt me!’
Gently, I reminded her, ‘Tegan died. From alcohol poisoning.’ Tegan had been one of her closest friends. After her death, Harlie’s parents and friends had done an intervention, so that Harlie wouldn’t be the next casualty.
‘If Tegan had been given the choice between dying or getting sober, which do you think she’d have taken?’
‘I don’t know.’
She did know. But right now, it was too painful for her to accept.
After she’d left, I opened the file on the newbie who was arriving tomorrow. Ella Black, aged twenty-eight, her particular poison apparently prescription sleeping tablets. She’d been persuaded she needed rehab after she’d taken her boyfriend’s car for a drive at 3 a.m. and crashed it into the front window of a house. Despite breaking her collarbone, she’d climbed out, walked home, gone back to bed and woken up with no memory of what had taken place.
There had also been a few late-night Facebook incidents. She worked as a social media content provider for an airline – a high-status, well-paid job, according to her boyfriend Jonah, the owner of the crashed car.