#so like these are two old selfparas combined with some added fun so i'm sorry if it's a little messy

[striker-brayden]

Location: Betsy’s Office Date: August 17 Time: 11am

trigger warnings: Drug abuse, addiction, alcohol mention, mentions of vomit, and a brief hint of suicide.

“You ever going to let me add booze to one these things?” Brayden asks as Betsy hands him his mug of hot chocolate, giving him an amused look before shaking her head, “Of course not.”

He only asked to stall the inevitable, but he rolls his eyes anyway before taking a slow sip. It feels wrong to be drinking such a hot, rich drink in the middle of August, but he’s not complaining. It gives him something to focus on other than the session. He can sense where this session going, even though it hasn’t even started yet. The Foxes have to meet with Betsy in the beginning of each semester, but Brayden already meets with her frequently, so it’s almost just another day for him.

“Are you excited for the season?” Betsy asks.

“I don’t know,” He shrugs. “I guess I was a little. Grant and I worked on some strategy last year that I still remember.”

“Was?” Betsy repeats, tilting her head as she watches him.

“Landon’s the Assistant Coach for the Ravens now,” He shrugs nonchalantly, averting his gaze to his mug. He plays it off like it’s not a big deal, even though it has his mind whirling.

“I see. And you thought this would be your first season without him,” She adds.

“It still is, I guess. He’s not really playing…he’s just there,” Brayden mutters as he stares down at his hot chocolate. Landon is always there, even when he thinks he got rid of him. When Landon graduated high school, he thought that would be the last of him, but that got fucked up when Brayden also joined a Class I Exy team, leading him to face Landon on the court.

Shaking his head, he looks up at her, “I don’t want to talk about him.”

Taking the hint, she nods and scribbles something in her notebook, “That’s fine. Who are you living with this year? The same group?”

“Arlo, Sterling, and Grayson,” He answers flatly.

“Arlo,” She observes, smiling a little. “You two have become pretty good friends, right?”

Betsy says that like she wasn’t the one who talked Brayden through his meltdown last year. She encouraged him to apologize after he basically verbally attacked Arlo for suggesting they were anything more than acquaintances. Brayden suspects she just wants to hear him say the words.

“Yeah,” He nods, refusing to give her anything more.

Bee nods, clearly in approval, as she take a few notes. “You came a long way last year, Brayden. You made friends, and you were proactive in practices. I really want to see you continue to progress.”

“Why do I feel like there’s a ‘but’ coming next?” He asks slowly.

“No, there’s no ‘but.’ I just know that progress can be scary or overwhelming, and sometimes it can cause people to regress instead. You don’t want to talk about your brother, but I think he’s an important topic to touch on, given what you just learned.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” He says, shifting his gaze to the window.  

“There is,” She responds quietly. “I know how hard it is for you every time you see him, and this change of plans could be potentially triggering for you.”

Brayden hates that word. Trigger. It’s thrown around so often now. Everything’s a trigger, and he hates being associated with something that makes him sound so pitiful. His jaw twitches in response, licking his lips before he speaks up, “Well, I’m not going to fuck up, so it’s fine.”

Betsy is quiet for a moment, but Brayden knows it’s because she’s jotting down notes, he can hear her pen against the paper, the sound alone makes his skin crawl. He’s been attending these sessions since he first came to Palmetto and they never get easier. And yet, he still stays with her every summer. He doesn’t have a choice, but he doesn’t put up a fight either.

He hates talking about Landon, because all it does is bring up the shitty memories of being back at home. Memories of feeling so invisible that he might as well have been dead. Of being so desperate for a fix that he would’ve done anything to get his hands on it. And through it all, his mother was too caught up in Landon to realize that her younger son was a drug addict, and Landon thought he was so pathetic that he just didn’t care.

“It’s an achievement each time you see your brother again and remain clean. You should be proud that you reacted to his new job so well,” She finally says when she looks up at him again before adding, “How did you feel when you found out? How did you get past it?”

“Fine,” He says shortly, his lips pursed in a tight line.

“You didn’t have any reaction?” By her tone, Brayden can tell she doesn’t believe him, prompting him to roll his eyes in frustration.

“I was fucking pissed. But I can’t do anything about it. So, I distracted myself. I hung out with Arlo or whatever. It’s not a big deal,” He knows he’s being defensive, and it’s not helping his case. He’s so afraid she’s going to dig deeper into his relationship with both Landon and Arlo that he’s trying to beat her to the punch.

Bee’s face remains neutral, even though he’s slowly unraveling. It’s not like she hasn’t seen it before. She simply nods, “You still try to brush past the topic whenever we talk about Arlo. I thought we got past this last year.”

There it is. It’s his own fault, but he knew the topic would land here eventually. He finds himself reaching for the mug of hot chocolate without meaning to, craving some sort of heat right now. Betsy’s fucking conniving with the stuff, somehow knowing the Foxes will eventually turn to it even if they deny it at first.

“I did. I just don’t want to talk about him,” He retorts, the edge in his voice clear now as the mug shakes in his hands, some of its contents spilling on to his sweats.  

Brayden notices her gaze go to his hands. She’s known him long enough to know what it means. She’s effecting him, picking him apart bit by bit.

“This is a safe space, Brayden. If you need to talk about him or Landon you can. And it’s important for your recovery that you don’t drown yourself by keeping it all inside. Did something happen with Arlo over the summer?”

Brayden knows she doesn’t mean it that way, but his mind automatically goes to the amount of almosts. That moment when their faces were too close while they watched fireworks from the roof of the car, or the one where their hands brushed as they shared a bag of chips during a HGTV binge. The summer was made of moments between them that were just too close. Where they could’ve crossed a line that Brayden can’t allow.

You can’t have him, you can’t have him, you can’t have him.

Brayden lets out a laugh that sounds a little too hysterical and shakes his head almost violently in response. “I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t know why we still talk at all. I’m clean, and I’ve been clean for years now, so I shouldn’t have to keep going to these sessions.” Bee doesn’t even flinch as Brayden’s voice raises. She sits there stoically, pen in hand as she studies him patiently.

“Brayden,” She begins after she lets him breathe for a moment. “Heroin is one of the most difficult drugs to recover from. That’s why so many addicts end up relapsing multiple times throughout the duration of many years. They say that many recovering heroin addicts never fully stop wanting to use. And when they’re confronted with a difficult situation, many will feel the urge to rely on it again. That’s why it’s important that we continue our sessions, so you stay on the correct path. You relapsed, and no one wants to see that happen again. We need to talk about what led your addiction in the first place and what keeps you from actually letting people in.”

“What does this have to do with Arlo?” He retorts. He’s heard it all before. He knows that he’s most likely going to spend the rest of his life actively trying not to fall back into his old bad habits.

“You still won’t let him in even when you’re friends, and I’m sure this stems from how your family made you feel,”  She informs him

“I don’t need Arlo or Landon,” He mumbles stubbornly, staring down at his shaking hands.

“You say you don’t need anyone, but you turned to drugs when you didn’t have anyone,” She reminds him. “Your mother and your brother hurt you, and so you pushed them away in response–“

“They went willingly,” Brayden interrupts quickly, but Bee keeps going.

“And now, you push anyone away who reaches out to you as a test to see who will stay and who will go. Even the ones who do pass your test, like Arlo, you keep at a distance. I don’t think you really want to be alone. I think you’re afraid of what will happen if you do have someone. You’re afraid they’ll leave,” She lets the words sink in before she adds the topping to the cake. “You can let yourself have things, Brayden. You’re allowed to be happy.”

“No,” Brayden’s out of his chair before his mind can catch up to his body, slamming his mug back down on the table. To his horror, his eyes begin to sting, and he really needs to get out of this room before he pukes or, worse, cries. “I don’t get to just have things. It doesn’t work like that. Just because I’m fucking in love with him–”

It’s the first time he’s said the words aloud or even mentally, and he just blurted it out to his fucking therapist. Afraid of what he’ll do next, he doesn’t spare her a second glance before he quickly leaves the room, letting the door slam shut behind him.