Chapter 7
“Hi, my name is Liam, and I’m addicted to heroin.
” Lifting his shaking hands, Ranger stared down at the old wood podium.
Someone, likely a teenager, had etched Jesus into one corner and it looked like juice or something with color had been spilled on it more than once.
“I hate this fucking podium. I hate that I’m standing up here.
Please don’t misunderstand, I don’t hate this program or what it stands for.
I respect everyone who has come up here before me to share.
What I hate is the helplessness that I feel right now.
I’m free falling without a parachute and this podium is the only thing that’s catching me.
I’m a hundred and twenty-five days sober.
I blame myself that it’s not higher, and I hate that I took my life for granted before I even knew, truly knew, what sobriety was.
“I feel ashamed that this is the first of two meetings I know I am going to have to go to today. I have always been the strong one, the one people relied upon the most in a crisis. Now I’m barely holding it together, clinging to a fucking podium like it’ll fix all my problems. I know many of you believe in a higher power.
I’m not here to debate the presence of one.
My family is mine. My mom and my sister.
My brothers, their wives, and their kids.
That’s what I cling to in the dark, because I never want to disappoint them again.
I want to still be the person they rely on in a crisis.
“But how can I when a simple thing like a curfew sends me over the edge like a child throwing a tantrum? How can they trust me when I don’t trust myself?
” Ranger looked out at his audience. The twelve-thirty meeting tended to have a few extra participants because of traditional work lunch breaks, but today was on the lighter side.
Having come when Ranger had called him, Cross now sat in the back row with another one of his sponsees.
“I was doing really well. Open communication with my sponsor, kept to my schedule, even got a job, and then yesterday morning…” Ranger shook his head.
“I was reminded of how fast it can hit. How little warning you get. It was like a trigger was flipped in my sleep. It wasn’t a craving, per se, but a hollowness.
I knew I was missing something. I did the right thing and called my sponsor.
We went to a meeting yesterday morning, and then I went about my day.
I even went to my regular meeting that night, too.
But then this morning…” Ranger licked his lips, closing his eyes against the shame he felt when he recalled how he felt pulling up to Ghost and Becks’ house.
“My sister is pregnant. In a few months, she’s going to give birth to my niece or nephew.
“I should be ecstatic. I should be out shopping for diapers and onesies that have those cute sayings on them, like ‘I have the best uncle’ or ‘my uncle’s wingman’ or ‘future cereal killer’ where it’s spelled like the breakfast food, not the murdering psychopath.
I should be celebrating a new member of my family.
” Ranger’s knuckles were white on the old wood as he fought to catch his breath.
“Instead, I’m wondering if my sister will ever trust me to be alone with the kid.
Would I trust me if someone like me wanted to babysit my son or daughter?
” Ranger cringed, thoughts of Toni round with his child filling his head.
A year ago, he would have been thrilled by the idea.
But now…? “I want to be better. I need to be better. Not just for myself, but for my family. And I know my impatience is not a good thing. I know that I can’t be so concerned about the future that I forget to think about today.
But I also know that I need to better myself today for that future.
Because if I can’t trust myself then it’s not fair to ask my friends and family to.
” Ranger paused for a moment, pondering if there was anything else he wanted to say, and then nodded to the small crowd. “Thank you.”
* * *
“…grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” While others ended the Serenity Prayer with “amen”, Ranger did not.
He spoke the words, not to a deity, but for himself.
The first time he’d joined hands with the other attendees of a meeting to say the prayer, he felt awkward, like attending a worship service for a god he didn’t believe in.
But after several meetings, he understood that, like choosing his club to be his higher power, he would speak the words without them being a lie.
The church basement they were in held a number of AA meetings per day.
More so than Ranger ever thought a small town like Mount Grove would need.
As he’d said in his share, he’d been very ignorant of what sobriety was truly about for most of his life.
Like him, there were many who were here because they needed the meeting, not because they were alcoholics.
Some were here from NA, narcotics anonymous, or GA, gamblers anonymous.
One person who shared was addicted to porn, to the point where he’d been fired repeatedly from different jobs over the years for masturbating at work.
Ranger would have never thought porn was something one could become addicted to, but he supposed everything was about moderation.
Once they were done cleaning up and prepping the room for the next meeting, Cross approached Ranger. “Let’s get some coffee, yeah?”
Ranger knew it wasn’t a question, but he also had no intention of turning it down.
Both Cross and Ranger said goodbye to various people before they headed up the stairs and out into the parking lot.
Ghost had dropped Ranger off for the meeting, but Cross must have texted him that he had Ranger because Ghost wasn’t waiting for Ranger in the parking lot like he said he would be.
Ranger got into Cross’ familiar cage. He felt like he was in it more than he was on his motorcycle these days. His agitation did not decrease when Cross pulled into a parking spot outside the diner.
Mount Grove had various eating establishments, but any local knew immediately what the diner was.
It was an easy way of identifying tourists.
A number of restaurants had tried and failed to plant roots in Mount Grove, including one well-known franchise, but the locals weren’t having it. There was only one diner in this town.
And it was now owned by Sophia, Pirate’s ol’ lady, managed by Kelly, a staple employee at the diner, and the kitchen was run by Tally, Scar’s ol’ lady. It might as well be a club-owned business, with club eyes everywhere.
When Sophia had been given control of the diner by her parents, she immediately put it under construction.
Besides having a somewhat-famous chef like Tally at the grill, the one thing the diner always lacked was seating space.
More often than not, people had to take their food to-go because there just wasn’t room and the wait time wasn’t worth it—but the food certainly was.
When the lease on the space next to the diner was up, Sophia worked out a contract with the business owner to move to a different location on Main Street so she could knock out the wall that separated the two spaces.
Essentially tripling the size of the diner’s seating area because they didn’t need a second kitchen or the back rooms.
What she did do, though, was keep two booths along the back wall reserved for the VDMC and their families when they weren’t at peak hours.
During high-volume meal times, most of the club pitched in to help out anyway.
But after the lunch rush, those booths once again held red Reserved signs on them.
Ranger slid into the one on the far right, putting his back to the wall and blocking himself from being seen from the display window.
He felt antsy. But something had been different since he woke up after his run.
He still felt that hollowness, that subconscious knowledge that he wasn’t whole, but he wasn’t positive that craving was for heroin.
Was it possible, after one day, that it could be for her?
He wasn’t under some grand delusion that sex with Toni had cured him of his heroin addiction.
But he’d watched his brothers fall for their women for years.
He’d watched their obsession and possession for their women grow, even after a single meeting.
Was it possible that it was the same for him and Toni? Even with his…current situation?
He knew he wanted her for more than just sex.
He also knew that she had a lot going on in her life and he had a lot going on in his.
He also knew that he wanted her. And if there was one thing that Ranger was unequivocally aware of right now, it was how irrational cravings could be.
Was it possible that he was transferring his craving for heroin onto Toni?
He didn’t think so. They felt like two very distinctive things, like two pathways in his head.
So maybe it wasn’t that his feelings, his cravings, for Toni were replacing that of his addiction.
Maybe it was that he was developing a desire to be with her that was equal, or possibly greater than, his desire to get high.
“Wow. For a man who just claimed he’s been keeping open communication with his sponsor, it sure looks like you’re having a two-sided conversation with yourself.”
Ranger looked at Cross, not realizing he’d been studying the silver napkin holder so intently. “Sorry. Just…processing.”
“Anything in particular?” Cross asked as Kelly approached the table with menus. Normally, Kelly would seat patrons, but Ranger had bolted to the back booth like it was a restroom and he had the runs.