CHAPTER NINETEEN
Admit It
LAKE
During my first year of high school, I left right through the creaky trailer door and consumed myself in the frosty night. I never bothered to sneak through my window because my parents were knocked out on the sofa, or they didn’t care to stop me.
That night, I met Brooks at his house a couple of blocks away from the trailer park.
He unlocks his bedroom window, sliding it open and crawling out. I yawn, unphased as he slides down the shingles of his roof. Then he rubs his palms together, swinging himself into a tree, and dropping a few feet onto the damp grass, solidly on the soles of his shoes.
He hands me a cigarette he stole from his new job at a convenience store. “That’s the last. It’s not good for you.”
I give Brooks a look. “It isn’t? I didn’t know.” My hand fumbles with my lighter. I stick the cigarette between my lips.
He smacks my arm. “Shut the hell up, Lake.”
I light the cigarette, puffing it into my lungs. “Thanks,” I say. “I know they’re not good. I just need a break.”
He sighs. “I know.”
We were new to being teenagers, which meant doing reckless shit without our parents’ knowledge, but that was normal to me. I’d walk out the door and explore the world as it died each night.
Usually, while Brooks was asleep under his warm comforter, I was strolling aimlessly until morning, or stumbling into random block parties. So when he mentioned he was dying to sneak out, I offered to tag along.
I wanted to protect him, from wild animals and the dark, from the thoughts he’d encounter alone, with nothing but the moon watching him.
Brooks was fifteen when he started getting street-smart, but he learned it all from me.
He points to a bulky tree root sticking out of the ground. “Watch out, buddy.”
“Buddy?” I scrunch my nose, stifling my laughter.
I was fourteen, teaching Brooks the basics of recklessness. It wasn’t the only time I watched him swing down from that tree, but our midnight hang-outs only lasted a few months, before his dad and step mum shipped him off to military school.
I sink into the sensation of smoke in my lungs. Brooks trails on about work. He squeezes his arms around his body and shivers uncontrollably from the icy gusts of air.
Then he stops and looks up into the sky. “Sleep is for the weak,” he says, grinning with his eyes half shut.
He was wrong about that. People who can’t shut off their brains and rest are the weak ones.
I didn’t sleep at all last night. I stared at the ceiling, thinking about enclosing Serenity around me. Her shoulder blades pressing back, her collarbone striking through her skin, her big eyes staring wide at me, and that damn black romper she was wearing.
I was damn elated that I had an excuse to touch her for that entire evening. Then her parents left, and with nothing but my eyes, I held that gorgeous girl in place. I wanted to capture her in a world of my own. Put her in a snow globe. Keep her. Help her.
When her eyes fell closed, when I was moments away from tasting her, I saw the strings. Those unseen pieces of red rope that would knit us together. Another reason to live, and to stay. Another reason to try. A certainty to fail.
What if I fail you, Serenity?
Every time I see that woman, I bury my hands in a rag and scrub. I busy them with something, but that didn’t work yesterday. She wasn’t even home, but I couldn’t stop picturing her face. No matter what the hell I polished clean.
I kept telling myself I’d get over the romper. Then I’d remember how I called her sweetheart, held her soft shoulder and squeezed my fingers into her pretty thighs.
She doesn’t leave my head. Instead, I’m fused with insomnia, a mind, and a dick so obsessed with her it hurts. Not to mention the primal thoughts the woman triggers in me. Buy her a house, buy her a steak, be the better man she sees. All the shit I can’t do.
It’s been days since that dinner, but even last night I stayed wide awake thinking about it all.
I went to get her from work. It was the best and worst decision I’ve ever made, but her waiting at some sketchy bus stop, feeling exhausted with blisters forming on her heels, doesn’t sit well with me. Seeing her still made my thoughts more erratic than calm.
I shake my head. I gotta stop recalling it before I burn her eggs.
“Angel,” I call out. “Breakfast.”
I slide a plate onto the counter. Bacon, eggs, and toast. Simple. A minute later, her angelic movements creak the floorboards. She taps down the stairs and then she comes around the corner in nothing but a baggy gray t-shirt. It stops at her mid-thigh. She just threw that on. Moments ago she was curled up in her sheets, likely wearing nothing since her laundry baskets are drowning in dirty clothes.
My hands ache to reach out to her and hold her again. I push my palms onto the counter to soothe me, but nothing changes.
She covers her mouth and yawns. “You made breakfast?”
“Mhm.” I press my body as close to the counter as possible.
She hops up onto the white padded barstool, takes her fork, and shovels it into her eggs. This meal, her bites aren’t micro-sized. She’s eating. Good.
“Your first day at rehab is today.” She reminds me.
I watch her eat. I’m worried about moving, and worried about opening my mouth. I’m anxious about too much shit. I made her breakfast so both of us could forget me acting strange. Yet I’m the one making things awkward.
“This is amazing. Thank—”
“Come with me,” I blurt out. Am I splitting in half? The hell is happening? God, this woman drives me nuts.
Serenity looks up from her plate, eyebrows raised. I turn my back to her—cause I can’t look at her wide eyes for more than two seconds—and throw my toast onto a plate.
“To your rehab meeting?”
I scramble a nod. “They want support present, for the first meeting.” I push my eggs out of the pan, sliding them on top of my toast and bacon. Serenity likes to keep things separated. I’d rather make a sandwich.
I add, “Brooks is busy.”
No, he isn’t.
I turn back, and relief washes over me when she smiles. “I’d love to come with you!” She claps her hands. “Do you mind driving me to work tonight, too? I’ll catch a bus in the morning, after my shift.”
Other than Brooks, Serenity is the most responsible person I know. I wonder how her financial situation got as crappy as it seems.
Guess she’s just in debt. I don’t know who isn’t.
I swallow a bite of my breakfast sandwich and remain steady on the opposite side of the counter. My mind and body are too conflicted to let me sit next to her right now.
“I’ll pick you up, too.”
She shakes her head and waves her hand in front of her face. “No, Lake, my shift ends at five today.”
“I will pick you up, too,” I insist.
I stare at her puzzled face until she nods. Good.
Then I take my phone out of my back pocket to text Brooks. Life without a phone before my overdose was weird as shit. I felt like a founding father. Brooks gave me his old one for my safety, or some bullshit along those lines.
Me: Don’t come today. Angel is going.
Brooks: Throwing me to the curb. Screw you. Also, if you tie Serenity up in your truck and run away from rehab, I’ll find out.
Me: Very funny. Bye.
Angel does a shimmy in her seat, smiling as she bites into her toast. “Mm. Perfect toast.”
“It’s just toast.”
She points a finger at me. “Perfect toast.”
I smile. There’s a glob of butter on the corner of her mouth. I decide not to dwell on the actions I have no control over, so I lean over the counter and swipe it off of her face. The little messy bun on top of her head tilts along with her. I show her my thumb.
“Oh! Thank you!”
“You are way too chirpy for me today.” I grunt.
“Get used to it, Phoenix.”
***
Serenity closes the front door to the house. I clamp the snow brush in my palms, digging at the last bit of ice on the corner of the windshield.
“You already heated the truck?”
I glance over my shoulder, and I watch her squeeze her arms around herself. She’s wearing a puffy beige jacket and a white hat with a poof-ball on top of it.
“Yeah.” I round the side of my truck and grab onto the passenger’s door, popping it open for her.
Serenity doesn’t move. I stare at her, and she stares at me. My eyebrow slowly inclines on my forehead, and she still doesn’t inch forward. I think her brain is short-circuiting. She’s stuck to the ground like cement dried around her ankles.
“Get in.” I point toward the inside of the truck. Where it’s warm.
“You—” She jumbles her words. “I could’ve gotten my door.”
I can see her breath fizzle into the sky. I say nothing else. Not much to say when I got no idea what the hell is happening. I don’t know what compelled me to strut over here and open her door like I’ve done it a million times before, but I did, and it won’t be the last time I do it.
“Angel. I’m cold,” I tell her.
She hums. Then I watch her eyes avert from me, and land on the driver’s side of my truck, but I don’t get a word in before she’s dashing over to my door. “I might as well get yours!”
I sigh through my nose, and without a conscious thought, I sprint after her. She yanks at the handle, but I slap my palm against the door and slam it shut.
“Phoenix!” she giggles, prying at the handle again.
Only one arm free, I wrap it around her waist and haul her away from the truck. She drags her feet into the snow. Her laughter grows, and it twitches a smile onto my lips.
I’m too damn confused to understand my actions. She can learn to deal with it. “Why don’t you take the help—”
She breaks free of my hold, but then her foot slides against a hidden sheet of ice, and her arms shoot up into the air. The snow brush hits the ground with a thud before Serenity gets the chance to fall flat on her ass herself, because I scoop her back into my grasp and somehow keep my balance, stabilizing her.
“Did you just catch me before I fell?” she asks.
Her nails are clawing at my hands, but I don’t tell her. “Mhm. Did you learn your lesson?”
“This is so embarrassing.”
I huff. “That doesn’t answer my question, Angel.”
Her hands leave mine, and she claps them over her face. Driving my smile wider. Fuller. But as much as I enjoy making her flustered, my brother will kill me if I’m late to this meeting, and I can’t get my sister’s letters if I’m dead. So, I bend down, wrap and arm around Serenity’s legs, and in one motion, I swing her into the air, and rest her over my shoulder.
She squeals, flattening her palms into my back and squeezing.
“So damn complicated,” I mumble.
She laughs. “You’re watching too many rom-coms! This is seductive!”
I throw her as soft as I can into her seat, closing the door once she’s situated. My body buzzes, listening to her laughing, during the entire stomp back to the driver’s side. Hell, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m losing my mind.
“You’re the one who makes me watch the rom-coms.” I slam my door shut.
She puffs air through her cheeks, turning her whole body to face the window. “I suppose.”
I fold my lips between my teeth and shake my head at her stupid little attitude. I wanna stop the smile from glowing on my face, but it doesn’t go away, and I can’t think of a single moment in my life where I felt this way. Strings aren’t my thing, but I’m enjoying her company more than the women that only want a night with me.
***
All I can see is my father’s palm striking across my face. He takes the cupcake from my hands, squishing it into pieces, and telling me River’s birthday is insignificant compared to his needs.
My mother laughing in my face when I told her about my middle school graduation.
“Don’t got time for that, Lake.”
“No point anyway. Do you think you’ll do shit in your life?”
Then I drift to the first time I smoked weed. How at peace I was. Eventually, it wasn’t enough. So I travel to the first time I tied a band around my arm, and the first bit of life I jabbed into my blood. Followed by the second time, I got so deranged I blacked out in my dealer’s car, but everything was in perfect harmony. The loud, repetitive memories, my parents’ words, all of it fading with a taste of heroin.
I’m not an idiot. I tried to stay off of H, but those two tastes of tranquility lead me to getting hooked seven months ago. Wish I had a hit now.
I’d have no reason to be here, forced to make myself uncomfortable, accept my failures, and fail at accepting them. I have accomplished nothing. Failed college, dropped out. Can’t keep a job. Can’t keep a home. I’m nothing, just nothing. Sometimes I wish my heart never—
My brain flatlines when Serenity grabs my arm. “Sit, Lake.”
She nudges me into a plastic gray chair. I glance around us. We’re in a circle. I’ve been in these types of circles before. It’s always a strange feeling, knowing everybody in this room has poked their skin with needles or snorted something up their noses.
Half of them have been homeless, some of them still are. It’s weird to realize the world isn’t as small as I make it. There are thousands of others barely getting by and relying on substances to keep them numb. That notion is also terrifying though. Not being alone.
The guy across from me has a lengthy, scruffy beard. He’s wearing a long sleeve shirt with holes etching the fabric.
Most of the people, including this guy, seated in the circle are aged, mid-forties to fifties. I wonder how they got here. If they’re actually attempting to change, or if they’re forced here by a court order. Maybe someone else is doing this for a damn inheritance.
Then there’s the room. Big enough to fit double the people in here, but it feels tightening. There’s huge windows, killing the need for overhead lights. Trees outside. They’re drooping from the snow melting off their branches.
Angel scoots her chair closer. “You okay?”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “Yeah.”
Whenever I go to rehab, this same shit happens. I hear my mother’s words pound in my head, and feel my father’s fist punching into my flesh. Remembering why is the afterthought. Over a cupcake. Or a dropped bottle. Just because I came home. It’s why I’ve never finished a fucking program, because my life flashes before my eyes and my life is what I crave to get away from.
“Alright, good afternoon everyone!” A woman says, clapping her hands, standing in the circle’s center. She spins to acknowledge everyone present.
Everyone’s wearing name tags. Mine is blue, Angel’s is orange. The few people with orange tags look like they’ve never seen a joint, let alone smoked one.
“I see we have newcomers today. Welcome!” Her eyes shrink when she grins. She motions in my direction and a few other spots. “I’m Rebecca. I’m the director of the group-meetings, here, at Boston Hope Rehab Facility. Also known as BHRF.”
Shoot me. Someone shoot me.
I slouch deeper into my chair, my knee hits Serenity’s. I keep it there, and Angel doesn’t make the effort to move.
“To start us off, we travel around the circle and introduce ourselves, and any super-cool information you’d like to share.” Rebecca gives two aggressive thumbs up, then pushes her brunette hair behind her ears.
She gestures to the scruffy man. “Boris, would you like to start?”
“Sure.” He slaps his knees and brings himself to a stand. “Hi. My name is Boris.”
“Hi Boris.” Everyone chants.
My head already hurts.
“I’m an addict. Today I’m thirty days sober.”
Clapping fills the air, but instead of following the crowd, I focus on the thud of my heart because of what Boris just said. My eyes float around the room, and they land on a big red sign with blinding white text.
The first step to recovery is acknowledging you have a problem.
My stomach drops. Don’t want to acknowledge anything. I use drugs. Sure. To get away from the bullshit. Do I have a problem? Think the problem is my parents. Plus, acknowledging means picking at my brain, unfolding my truths like fortune cookies, and trying to make meaning.
The next person stands. “Hi. My name is Darrell.”
“Hi Darrell.”
He smiles. One of his front teeth is missing. “I’m an addict. Yesterday I got to see my little girl’s baseball game. I haven’t been able to see her for months.”
More clapping. I don’t mimic it. I’m paralyzed everywhere but my flickering eyes, and I’m barely taking in anything around me. All I hear is that crushing word repeating in my mind, and every time it sounds, another bitter memory flashes by.
“That’s great, Darrell!” Rebecca cheers.
I look at Angel. She’s smiling and clapping. When the next person says their name, Serenity echoes it back, along with everyone else. Crap. No way I’m getting out of here.
There’s no meaning in my life. I grew up in shit and nothing came out of it. There’s no sob story to look back on while I roll my chair in my skyscraper office. There’s no money to my name. I got no achievements. For fuck's sake, I don’t even got a plan.
My drug use is not a problem. It’s my life. Plain and simple.
I won’t say nothing.
I scratch my head. That’s not gonna work. I gotta say something or it’ll threaten my chances at River’s inheritance. Maybe I have no money and no plan, but I have one goal, and that’s getting her letters.
Screw it then. I’ll say my name and move on.
Brooks always tells me I can’t admit that I have a problem, and that’s why nothing gets fixed, but why bother? As everyone chants and claps like we’re in preschool. I’ve been through hell. Only my fun habits stopped me from staying there.
I dig my nails into my legs as more people stand from their seats, state their name, say that word, spew random crap, and sit back down.
Angel is on the edge of her chair, beaming that precious smile and smacking her hands together. She’s so invested in these strangers. She’s beautiful. Damn, is she beautiful.
She couldn’t care less about their backgrounds. She doesn’t wonder if they’ll be alive in a year. Serenity only hopes. She prays to God that people like me find ways on a better path. That we’ll wake up, hear the birds, and smile.
She turns to face the boy next to us.
“Hey. My name is Marco.” He’s standing beside a woman with an orange tag. She looks older than him, maybe his mother. They got the same hooked nose.
His ma holds onto his hand, and everything from her clinging hand to her focused eyes breathes support.
“I’m an addict.” He weakly smiles at his mother. “Next week is my nineteenth birthday.”
Nineteen. He’s a baby. I’m only a few years older, but it’s a damn big difference.
“I am two days sober.”
For whatever reason, that statement hits me like a ton of bricks. Two days clean. He has a lifetime ahead of him, but those two days must’ve felt like a century.
And I want this kid, this random stranger, to make it.
Marco sits, and when the clapping dies, everyone’s attention is on me. My chest is hollow as I rise to my feet. Sweat creeps out of my palms.
I don’t want to be here. The amount of agony I’ve faced since walking into this room is more than enough reason to book it out of here and wait by a familiar street corner.
Say my name, and move on. It’s that easy. Say it and sit my ass back down.
I bite on the inside of my cheek, and I question making a run for it. Not turning back. Cutting off all these weighing strings, forgetting the countless memories that are blaring in my head and piling over one another as I search for my own voice. But then my brain mellows out, because the memory of her laughter calls me back to myself.
“My name is Lake.”
Every mouth moves, but I only hear Serenity’s voice. I peer back at her, and the forest green is glistening on me.
She caught sunlight in a jar and ate it. She looks so damn bright it hurts. It hurts, but I can’t stop looking at her. She’s chewing on her bottom lip. A little smile sneaking onto her face. Her eyes full of hope. For me.
Why do you believe in me, Serenity?
I glance over to that Marco kid, questioning why I believe in him. I don’t know his life. Clearly it’s been rough.
Like mine.
It’s crashing against me. The memories, the pain, but what doesn’t hit me is that itching at my skin. My blood isn’t curdling for a fix. No. None of that.
Because there’s Serenity.
The twinkle in her eyes. The smile she can’t contain. Her compassion. She believes in me, for whatever reason.
I am so lost, but maybe that’s okay. Serenity thinks it’s okay. So right now, all I see is Serenity. I breathe her in and that’s enough, more than enough. I can do this for her.
It hits me then, a strike harder than my father’s ever was. I face the circle, heart pounding, reality shattering—“And I’m an addict.”