11. Cole
Cole
“ I was young when I started drinking,” I spoke carefully, monitoring the faces of those in the circle around me for any sign of recognition. I’d worn a surgical mask under the guise of worry about illnesses, but in honesty, it was more in the hope that no one would recognize me.
It was my first AA meeting since getting back, and although I had Bobby beside me, it was more intimidating than the circular meetings we had back in rehab. I knew everyone in those, had heard their stories countless times and they’d heard mine. Here, I was starting from scratch.
“Probably fourteen, maybe fifteen,” I continued. I took a deep breath, trying to steady my trembling hands. “My parents never noticed any of their liquor missing from the cabinet and probably wouldn’t have cared if they did. I was an afterthought for them, really. An inconvenience at best.”
“Is that what drove you to the bottle?” Emily, the leader of the group, asked gently.
I shook my head. “Maybe eventually. But it was my friends’ influence, at first. I realized how much I liked how it made me feel, how easily I was able to forget about everything else, and so when things started to get really bad at home, it was the first thing I turned to.”
“Your parents never realized you were drunk?” Emily asked.
“No. They barely paid any attention, and by the time it started to become a real problem for me, they dropped me off at my aunt’s with a single suitcase and a bank account.
They told me I was old enough to leave them alone.
” I shoved my hands under my thighs, needing to calm them.
Bobby scrolled through social media beside me.
“How old were you, Cole?”
“Sixteen,” I said simply, watching as the most minuscule flicker of surprise rippled across her aging features. “My family is my biggest trigger.”
————
Bobby didn’t share his story. I didn’t mind—we all take things as slowly or quickly as we need to—and Bobby being himself with a new group wasn’t completely within the norm for him anyway.
He chatted idly about some game he’d been playing lately as he sipped at his mug of coffee in the back of the meeting room.
I stood by him instead of mingling and getting to know the others. Although I’d grown comfortable enough to remove the mask, I wanted to stick by Bobby. I didn’t want to veer him off course by ostracizing him.
“Cole?”
Emily stood behind me, clipboard in hand, a soft smile on her face. Her gray hair flowed around her features in ringlets, bouncing as her head tilted to one side at Bobby, probably curious about his lack of participation.
“I’m really glad you guys came today. It’s always nice to have new faces around here,” she said, offering out a hand. “How long have you been sober now? I missed that part.”
“Seven months yesterday for both of us,” I said, shaking her hand. I pulled my coin out of my pocket and held it up. “Still carry my six-month chip, though.”
“Ah!” She reached into her purse, fumbling around for something before pulling out fresh coins with red paint on them. “Lucky for you, I’ve got a couple of seven-month ones you can have.”
She grinned as she held them out to me. I took them hesitantly and passed one to Bobby. “Thank you.”
“Look, I know this is a little forward,” she said carefully, “but I know you said your original sponsor is out in California. If you’re looking for a local one, I’m happy to sponsor you. I’ve been at this for over ten years now, and I sponsor some of the others, as well.”
Sponsor. My sponsor from rehab had been assigned to me. To have someone offering it with such ease seemed almost foreign. “Really?” I asked, glancing at Bobby who was far too distracted with his phone and his cup of coffee. “I’d love that.”
“Of course. The first year is the hardest, you know. You need someone reliable that you can meet on a whim if needed,” she explained. “Doing this kind of thing is honestly what keeps me away from the bottle the best.”
I huffed a chuckle and turned the seven-month coin in my hand. “Thank you. That’s… that’s exactly what I need. My life is really hectic at the moment and having someone I can see in person when things go south would really help.”
“Why’s it so hectic?” she asked, her head tilting again and sending her curls bouncing. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
I shook my head. “It’s fine.” I stuffed the coin in my pocket and picked up my cup of coffee out of instinct. “I’ve just gotten into a romantic situation, I guess you could say. It’s a bit confusing.”
“A new relationship?”
“Not exactly,” I laughed. “But I guess something along those lines. It’s… complicated.”
Her lips pursed into a thin line. “Be careful with that,” she said, her voice dropping in volume.
“Experiencing the highs of a new relationship—or whatever it is—when you’re new to sobriety is generally not ideal.
It’s exciting, of course, to want to pursue something with your newfound freedom and outlook on life, but it can keep you searching for the next good high, if you know what I mean.
The honeymoon period can only keep you distracted from temptation for so long. ”
“Don’t worry about that, miss,” Bobby piped up, his eyes still zoomed in on his phone. “I’m keeping him on the straight and narrow.”
Emily gave me a sympathetic smile as she reached for my arm, pulling me off to the side far enough so that she could speak without Bobby hearing. “How did you two meet? At the facility?”
I nodded. “We came in at the same time. He’s kept me in check and I’ve done the same for him,” I explained, glancing at him briefly.
“He’s a bit of a character, I know. But he’s a good guy.
Kept me sane while I was in there and we have a lot of similarities in our stories, but that’s not for me to share. ”
She nodded, her gaze continuing to snag on him.
“Just… keep yourself in check. And keep an eye on him. I know it’s his first meeting here, too, but he seems a little less focused on staying sober than you do.
I don’t want to seem pessimistic, but if you’re serious, you need to watch your temptations. ”
————
Towel drying my hair as I stepped down the stairs, the music playing from the kitchen was a song I’d never heard before.
It was pop, a female singer, and for once it didn’t bother me.
I was feeling on top of the fucking world after the AA meeting; it had been far too long since I’d had a group setting like that.
I was used to having two a week back in rehab, so going a month without felt like a missing limb.
“I think I burned the eggs,” Bobby grunted as I came around the corner. Smoke and the scent of charcoal filled the massive space.
“You think?” I coughed. I whipped the towel around, actively trying to keep the smoke away from the alarm.
The pan on the stove was practically black.
If there were ever eggs in it to begin with, it was impossible to tell.
Instead it looked like he’d tried to cook some kind of sticky, black goop.
The plastic spatula was stuck to the center of the pan, half melted.
“I don’t get how that happened,” he said, his gaze cemented to the black goop. He wrapped his fingers around the handle of the pan and lifted it, the flame underneath at the highest level, and turned it upside down. Nothing moved, not even the spatula. “Shit.”
I turned the knob of the stove off to extinguish the flame and took the cooking utensils from him, throwing them directly into the sink and turning on the cold water to cool them down.
I had every intention of tossing them into the trash once they were cool enough.
“Did no one ever teach you how to cook?”
Bobby’s head shook, his shoulder-length hair flying. “Nah. Never needed to. Angie did all the cooking.” Angie. He’d mentioned her before. If I remember correctly, she was one of his family’s maids.
“I’m shocked you managed to get the flame going,” I said, giving him a side-eye as I pulled a fresh pan from the cabinet.
“I googled it.”
“Ah.” Fetching the box of eggs and a container of sausages from the fridge, I got started on breakfast for us both.
His copious amounts of ready-made meals in the fridge made a lot more sense now, and although I wasn’t a cook by any means, I could handle the basics.
My aunt had always said I made a mean spaghetti.
“For future reference, you don’t need the flame all the way up to cook eggs.
And you definitely don’t leave them unattended once they start cooking. ”
Bobby grunted some kind of thanks before hopping up onto the counter beside me. “We should just hire someone to do this shit. At least they cooked for us back in rehab.”
I shrugged. “You can if you want, but honestly, I feel like it’s part of the recovery. Taking the time to learn things you wouldn’t have before because you were too drunk to handle it or your family never taught you.” I caught the little wince he made as I mentioned family. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
Bobby’s triggers were shockingly similar to mine, and our stories aligned so closely that it was like looking in a mirror.
Except he’d never had an aunt he was shipped off to that actually seemed to give a shit.
He just had an absent family altogether who simply ensured he was fed, dressed, and taught right from wrong.
Outside of his teachers, all he had was Angie.
He was a trust fund baby with excessively rich parents who were never around.
At eighteen, they loaded up a bank account and sent him out into the world.
Three years later, they died in a plane crash over the Himalayas, and Bobby inherited every cent they ever made.
I was almost positive he had more money than me and considering my own trust fund and the wild success of Pearson Beers, that was really saying something.