Chapter 7

“Miss Baxter, I appreciate your offer. I really do. But I’ll probably lose my endorsement from the prosthetics company if they find out I’m in rehab.”

“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you almost burned the house down.”

She didn’t sound angry. In fact, she was so calm about it that I felt even more like an idiot. And what did I do? I decided to dig myself in deeper.

“Miss Baxter?” I said. “I really do think they’ll drop my sponsorship. Would you—would you be willing to let me do outpatient? Please? If putting me over you knee would make you—”

“Young lady, do not suppose that you can tell me what I should or should not do.” She had stopped rubbing my shoulder and moved her hand to rest on the mattress, and it sounded like the kindly Miss Baxter had departed again.

“If you even knew what it meant to be across my knee,” she said, “I assure you, you would not be so eager. I have not always been a nice person.”