Controlled Chaos (Deadly Dreams Book 1) Read Free Page B

slept with her and didn’t call her back? Because that was pretty blatant.” Steve laughed. He always enjoyed seeing me strike out. In this case, I hadn’t even stepped into the batter’s box.
    “You think?” I said. I wasn’t a man-whore or anything. Just a guy who liked to have a good time. I always remembered a face. I took a drink of my beer and sighed. This girl officially thought she was out of my league; therefore she made zero attempt at flirtation. That, or she was in a committed relationship, and was loyal to her dude no matter what.
    Steve looked at me and gave me a serious stare. “So, you told them to pull the plug?”
    “Yep, I sure did. He had zero percent chance of coming out of it.”
    “I’m sorry, man. Look, we don’t have to watch the game. Do you want to go somewhere to get your mind off it, like shoot pool or something?”
    “Isn’t that the same thing we’re pretty much doing here?”
    “No,” Steve said, “we would not only be watching the game, eating wings, and drinking beer. We would also be shooting pool.”
    “Nah,” I said.
    “What else will we do? I sure as hell don’t want to go to church and pray about it.”
    “I’m just so tired that I’m not there in time. By the time these guys get to me, they are so far gone that it’s hopeless. I wish once I could get there before it happens. Stop someone from doing something awful to themselves and others. It’s not just him. It’s all my outpatients. I feel like I’m not even helping. I just wish that one time I could stop someone from ever getting addicted. Be there at the very beginning.”
    As I said those words, something came over my body and the room started spinning. I thought I was about to throw up. I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes.
    “You okay, man?” Steve asked me.
    “Yeah,” I said, catching my breath. “I just got a little nauseous there.”
    “You’re not having a seizure or anything?”
    “You know I don’t have them while I am awake?” I said to my friend, who knew full well about my epileptic sleep paralysis diagnosis.
    “Then we won’t shoot pool, but I don’t think you’ll mind me taking the rest of your wings and fries instead.”
    “Go ahead,” I said. I pushed my plate in front of Steve and he began his second eating wind. “I’m going to make it a point to look into it first thing Monday morning.” Steve paused and swallowed his food. “You know, stopping someone before they hurt themselves or others is a common thing we all feel in our line of work. We give a shit about people,” Steve said. “It’s a curse. Even in my line of work. People come to me when it’s too late. I would love to be able to talk to families and tell the parents to love their kids better before they run away. Or speak to a man before he makes an impulsive decision to murder or hurt someone. It would be a great job to have that gift. To stop people before awful things happen, but that isn’t the way it works. You and I get called when it’s too late.”
    “I know,” I said. “And it sucks. It makes me question why I got my degree in psychology, just to be a drug counselor.”
    “You can always take the necessary steps to become a psychologist.” Steve gave me the usual look he gave me when this subject came up. Steve had wanted me to finish my doctorate for years, so I could get a cozy office and charge rich people an absurd amount of money to fix their issues, or at least make them think I did.
    “You know why I do what I do,” I said to Steve.
    “Your parents, Hunter. They would want the best for you. You can only fall on the sword in their name for so long.”
    I nodded and thought about my parents. My mom died when I was sixteen, and my dad died a year later. They were both drug addicts. Eventually, drugs killed them both. I came home one day and found my mom hunched over: an overdose in bathroom, Marilyn Monroe style. She was dead by the time I got to her. My dad got so high one