CHAPTER 23
A fter running her errands for Candace, she felt like she had maybe made up for her lateness the day before. Candace had even told her that she would take away her first strike, which meant that Logan was back to zero strikes, and she planned to keep it that way. She didn’t want to give Candace any reason to fire her. When she’d told Rory about everything that morning, she’d mentioned that if Rory wanted her to tell Candace, she would. Logan had meant it, but either Rory hadn’t heard it or didn’t comment on it, which made Logan happy. She didn’t want Candace to know just yet. Rory and Candace were best friends, though, which made things complicated. Logan needed friends to talk to about what she was going through, and so did Rory. She didn’t want Rory to not be able to talk to Candace about this should she need to, but Logan was secretly hoping Rory would give her a little more time to prove herself entirely in Candace’s eyes before she did.
She left the bar and went straight to a meeting where she unexpectedly bumped into the same woman she had met the night before. This was Logan’s third meeting of the day, and she had already made the decision to go to at least one a day for the foreseeable future and to find a sponsor, which she’d never bothered to do before. After sitting down next to the woman, the meeting began. Logan didn’t share this time. She had shared a little that morning before meeting up with Rory and a little after in the second meeting, so she felt okay and was there mainly to kill time on her day off. She had planned on running errands and then driving people around for a few hours before she would go home, take a long nap, wake up, and then drive the late-night crowd around before she would crash around four or five in the morning.
Bumping into Rory and inviting her to her place hadn’t been part of that plan. Rory’s place was so much nicer than hers, but it wasn’t like Logan could just invite herself over to Rory’s apartment, so she’d blurted out that Rory should come over to her place, where the AC sometimes worked and the water turned yellow occasionally. The sofa was a thrift-store buy a year ago, and Logan had only just upgraded to an actual bedframe for her mattress about six months ago, choosing to sleep on the mattress on the floor before that in order to save more money to give to her parents.
As a result of that encounter, though, the other reason she went to another meeting was that she was nervous. Logan was anxious about the idea of Rory coming over, about this thing that might be happening between them, and that feeling only made her think about finding a way to get rid of it. She didn’t think she’d gamble, but she couldn’t be sure, so there was no safer place for her than a meeting.
“So, how did it go?” the woman asked.
“I told her,” Logan replied as she poured herself a terrible cup of coffee. “I think it’s okay.”
“Yeah? She took it well?”
“She let me talk. She didn’t judge.”
“That’s a good sign,” the woman replied as she took her turn pouring the coffee. “What’s next?”
“I invited her to hang out tonight.”
“Yeah?”
“She technically hasn’t texted me back to accept yet, but she said she would, and she keeps her word. I’m pretty nervous, which is why I came here.”
“What are you nervous about?”
“She’s… Well, she’s the kind of woman who wears sundresses to piano recitals. I’m the kind of woman who has no food in the fridge and hasn’t cleaned the bathroom in months.”
Her conversational partner laughed and said, “Opposites attract, though, don’t they?”
“We’re just hanging out as friends. I was too scared to even broach the subject of us dating today. I know she likes me. She knows I like her.”
“Maybe it’s one of those things that takes time. You get to know her more. She gets to know you. Now that you’ve told her everything, she can really get to know you. That’s important.”
“I don’t know. I’m trying not to get my hopes up on this one.” Logan took a drink. “You know what I was thinking when that guy was talking about how his wife divorced him last year?”
“What?”
“I kept thinking about how he’ll have to see his ex-wife with a new man someday. He said she was the love of his life, and he had ruined that. I kept picturing him having to watch the woman he still loves find love with someone else who isn’t an addict, and that made me think about her .” Logan looked around the small room at the people who were mostly standing and talking in groups. “I kept picturing her sitting at the table in the bar, studying, and a woman walks in and just goes to her and kisses her. I can see her smiling up at this woman and being happy that she’s there while my dumb ass is standing behind the bar, overpouring a beer because I’m too focused on watching her be happy with someone else.”
“But her happiness is important, right?”
“Yes. That’s what I want,” Logan answered quickly. “I want her to be happy. If it’s not with me, it’s not with me, but it’s going to hurt for a while.”
“You haven’t known her all that long, have you?”
She shook her head and said, “No, but it feels different. I’ve had two girlfriends in my adult life. One was when I was twenty-two, and it lasted three months. I was constantly gambling, and she dumped me because I never wanted to just stay in with her. The other one was a friend first, and it took me a long time to realize that I wanted more. She dumped me, too, but that was the right call. We’re much better off as friends. This one, though… She’s the first woman I saw that something just immediately clicked. It wasn’t like a lightning bolt or anything. I didn’t feel butterflies in my stomach. There was like a clicking in my brain that told me to pay attention. Ever since I stopped gambling, I’ve tried to pay attention when my brain tells me to, and she’s just…” Logan sighed. “She deserves the best, and I know that’s not me, but I can’t help feeling how I do. I can’t help but wish she’d give me a chance because I know I can be better for her.”
“That’s all well and good, but you have to want to be better for yourself, too, Logan. I think that’s where it starts. If you try to build your recovery around another person, it rarely lasts.”
“But I’m not. That’s the thing. I’ve been clean for almost two years. I told her that this morning. Not one relapse. Not once have I re-downloaded the apps I used to use. I drive by the casinos all the time in this city, and I’ve not stepped foot into one of them. I even drop off customers there when I’m driving Lyft, and yes, I’ve been tempted, but I haven’t gone in. I go to bars, and I hardly even drink. I didn’t want to turn one addiction into another. Yes, I’d had a lot of sex, and that was me supplementing, but I’m not jonesing for that at all. I’ve had more messages this week than I’ve gotten in the past month, and I’ve not replied to any of them. I’ve deleted the phone numbers that were women I hooked up with and the app I used for that, too. I just don’t need it how I thought I did.”
“That’s great,” the woman replied. “Are you worried that you’re changing too much too soon?”
“Maybe I am. I don’t know. I know it feels good to have a job I actually like and to have her in my life, even if it’s just as friends. I want more, but I want her happiness most of all, so if it’s just friends, that’s fine with me. I want to find a purpose again. I had one when I was working for my dad. There was a plan. I liked my career path then and what I was doing with my family. I don’t know what that means for later, but for now, I think I want to try to find a new purpose.”
“That helps,” the woman replied and took a drink of her coffee.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Have you ever been a sponsor?” Logan asked.
“I have, yes. I’ve had two sponsees. One of them still is. The other moved to England a few years ago, and she found a new sponsor there.”
“Would you consider taking on another one?” Logan asked. “I know you don’t know me that well, so we can maybe start there, but I want to find a sponsor. I’m ready to work the steps.”
The woman nodded before she set her coffee cup down and held out her hand for Logan to shake.
“My name is Vera, and I’m an addict.”
Logan shook her hand and said, “Same.”
“Let’s start with coffee that doesn’t suck, and we’ll see about that sponsorship,” Vera suggested. “If it doesn’t work out for me, I’ve got some good people I can introduce you to.”
“That would be great. Thank you,” she replied, sighing internally.
This was an important step in Logan’s recovery process, having someone to talk to whenever she needed to, who was going through the same thing she was. It was also an important step to one day becoming a sponsor for someone else, which added a layer of responsibility that she wasn’t ready for yet, but she hoped she would be someday.
After wrapping up her third meeting of the day, Logan rushed to the grocery store because she really had no food in her fridge, and she didn’t want Rory to starve. While she still hadn’t texted her, Logan was confident that she would. Rory was working, and Logan wanted to respect that she probably couldn’t just pull out her phone and text her while giving a tour.
“Hey.”
Logan turned around, not expecting that to be aimed at her, and was surprised when she saw two women she recognized standing there.
“Hi,” she said.
“Logan, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Bridgette.” The woman pointed to herself. “Monica.” She pointed at the one next to her. “We saw you at Candace’s bar.”
“Oh, okay. Yeah, hi. You were with Rory, right?”
“Technically,” Bridgette said.
“We’re kind of all one big group now,” Monica added.
“Cool,” Logan replied. “I just work there.”
“ And you’re friends with Rory, too, aren’t you? That’s what Jill said.”
“Yes. We met through Candace.”
“Here doing some shopping?” Monica asked.
“Uh, yes.” Logan chuckled. “I’ve got zero items in my fridge because I hate grocery shopping, and I don’t trust the delivery people with picking out my food, which is weird because I only really eat frozen and canned things, so it’s not like they would be picking out a bunch of fresh fruit or anything. You too?”
“No, we’re working,” Bridgette said. “Mon and I own a greeting card company.” She pointed to the right side of the aisle, where there were rows and rows of cards. “Every so often, we do the replenishment work ourselves to check in with the stores and see if we can get more space for our stuff.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who works in greeting cards,” Logan said.
“It was a family business,” Bridgette explained. “And now, Monica is part of that family. Well, officially, she will be on our wedding day, but she’s already stuck with me.”
Monica rolled her eyes and said, “We’ll probably see you around at the bar. We really liked it there. I bet we’ll be around a lot now.”
“It’s the free drinks,” Bridgette said. “Candace gave us a free round.”
“It’s not the–” Monica stopped and said, “We like it.”
“Me too. I really like working there. It’s weird. Today is my first day off since I started, and I kind of didn’t know what to do with myself, so I invited Rory over to hang out. I’m shopping to make sure she has actual food to eat.”
“Yeah? You two are hanging out?”
“Maybe. She said she’d let me know.”
Bridgette squinted her eyes, and Logan knew that look.
“As friends,” she added. “Hanging out as friends.”
“That’s great,” Monica replied.
“Rory’s cool,” Bridgette added. “Seems like a sweet person. I don’t know her that well, but she seems very nice and trusting. I definitely wouldn’t want someone to take advantage of that.”
“Why would you say that?” Monica asked.
“No reason,” Bridgette replied and then said to Logan, “Have fun with your shopping. We’re going to get back to work and get out of here.”
“Yeah, I’ll see you around,” Logan replied.
“Nice to see you,” Monica said.
Logan turned back around, walked quickly down the remainder of the aisle, and turned into another one. She took a deep breath and tried to push Bridgette’s overt warning out of her mind as she finished her shopping, guessing at what Rory might like. Then, she checked out and hit the road. Getting home, she quickly put everything away where it went, wiped down her kitchen, found the vacuum she’d forgotten that she even had, swept the carpet, dusted a little in her small living room, put the dirty cups in the dishwasher she’d been surprised this apartment had when she’d first rented it, and then, she stared at her AC unit.
Her tools hadn’t been used in years, but she’d never get rid of them. They had been a gift from her father when she’d first gotten to trade school, and they meant more to her than just about anything else in her life. She’d trained mostly on plumbing and electrical, but she knew enough about HVAC units to get by. She had installed this thing herself months ago after buying it from someone on Craigslist because it was what she could afford. Logan unplugged it and moved it out of the window to the floor. She hadn’t fixed anything in years with the exception of Rory’s garbage disposal, and she had missed that. She had noticed it when she’d first opened Rory’s adorable toolbox and had gotten down under the sink.
Logan sat on her floor as she carefully took the thing apart and tried to discover what was wrong with it. The process was simple enough. As the temperature in a room grew higher, it triggered the thermostat in the unit to turn on the blower. The hot air from the room was then pulled into the unit, moving over the refrigerant coils, which cooled it, and the air got pushed back into the room.
After about an hour of exploration, Logan found the problem. It wasn’t with the coils but with the thermostat itself. It wasn’t triggering consistently how it should have been. She didn’t have a new one of those just lying around the apartment, so she checked her phone. There still wasn’t a text from Rory, but she decided she had enough time to make the trip to the hardware store and left the unit on the floor to come back to.
She hadn’t been in a hardware store in a long time, and it felt like old times. In one way, that was a good thing. In another, Logan remembered how she used to stop in these aisles and pull out her phone to check her accounts on various apps. She had even played a few hands of poker while standing in the paint aisle once. Finding the part she needed, she was ready to leave, but then, she saw the endcap with window units and paused. One of them was on sale and twenty-five percent off. She could either fix the one she had or buy a new one. Logan made a decision, checked out, and drove home with her purchases.
She carried her new unit into the living room, unboxed it, lifted the window, and slid it into position before she turned it on and waited. The air pulled in and was pushed out. Then, she went to her bedroom, replaced the thermostat inside her old unit, and tested it before she moved it back in place. It worked, and she now had cool air flowing in both rooms, which might make her apartment more livable for a change.
Logan sat on her sofa as the room cooled and thought that even if Rory didn’t come over tonight, that would be okay. She’d cleaned most of her apartment and had a new AC and food in her refrigerator. If Rory didn’t stop by, Logan would try to cook herself something that wasn’t previously frozen and hope for the best. She got up to take a shower but ended up cleaning her bathroom enough that it didn’t look like a gas station bathroom. Then, she took her shower, and when she got out and dried off, she checked her phone again, feeling both nervous and excited to find a message.
Rory Winter : What time?