One Night Stand: The New Millennium

31. Stronger

February 12th, 2012
8:31 AM
Skylar POV

I'm not the most religious person, and I haven't been for a very long time. With every trial and tribulation, I lose faith. I gained some back when MJ made it through his overdose. But that same peace of faith has been snatched away since Whitney died.

Michael & I sat silently in the kitchen after a restless night of sleep, trying to digest the news.

I'd just spoken to her days before. We spoke about how crazy it was that we hadn't see each other since Michael & I's anniversary party back in 2006, both saying how hectic life had gotten. But we planned to meet up in the near future, we both had to figure out what was good for our schedules.

Now she's gone.

I looked over at Michael, who was starring blankly at the wall. Reaching across the table, I grabbed his left hand & gave it a squeeze. He didn't look at me, but gave my hand a squeeze back. And we continued to sit in silence, trying to come to terms with the loss of our friend.

12:45 PM
MJ POV

"So where do you want to start?" Taylor asked as we sat down for our session. I furrowed my eyebrows.

"You're the therapist, aren't you supposed to be knowing where to start?"

"I know where I want to start, but I want you to be comfortable. You finally started to want to cooperate only last night, so I don't want to go into anything that'll make you want to change your mind. So tell me, Michael, where do you want to start?" I took a moment to think about it. My life was such a shitshow that I didn't know where to begin.

"I don't know..." I shrugged.

"Okay," Taylor tapped her pen a few times on her notebook. "What caused you to start doing cocaine?"

"Well, I was at Diddy's All White Party, and Amber Rose & Demi Moore-"

"No, I mean, what events in your life caused you to turn to drugs to cope?"

"Oh," I said, shifting in my seat. "Um... my break up with my fiancé and becoming a father. Well specifically, having a baby by an evil bi- I mean woman." Taylor wrote something in her notebook.

"Can you tell me about those events?"

"Do I have to?" I groaned. That shit loomed over me like a bad storm already, I was tired of even referring to them.

"No, not if you don't want to start your healing process." I sucked my teeth.

"Fine." So I told Taylor the story. Actually, I started back from before I met Jade. I told her how I used to get around, how I stopped that shit once I met Jade, how happy I was with her, how I never thought about cheating on her, even after I met Mia, about the night of the proposal, how I blocked Mia out of my life after I realized how wrong I had been, and how Mia popped up at my 21st birthday party and ruined everything for me.

"And how did it feel when you took the first hit of cocaine?" Taylor asked. I bit my lip, thinking back. Thinking about it made me miss it, fuck.

"It felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest. I felt relieved, my sadness and anger weren't weighing me down. For the first time in weeks, I felt good. Not even good, great. Invincible even. Like everything would be alright, like I could get Jade back, like the whole thing was a nightmare I'd wake up from. But as you can see, I didn't wake up from it, and shit only got worse from there."