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“What?” My mouth fell open as awareness dawned on me. As I took in everything he wasn’t saying. “How would someone know to tip them off?”
“Maybe someone has friends in the right places,” he offered, reaching across the table to cover my hand with his. “Maybe before they moved on, someone wanted to make sure his first love had a fighting chance with her first love.”
127
Hello, Brother
JOEY
One of the earliest steps in my treatment plan was to make amends, which was how I knew I would never get off the ladder of recovery, for three reasons.
First, I wasn’t going to apologize to anyone for surviving.
Second, fuck that.
Third, I didn’t know if I had it in me to fight the battle that I was told would last a lifetime.
Because I was an addict.
I would always be an addict.
I would never stop wanting to use.
The prospect of fighting my urges for the rest of my life was depressing.
Still, I woke up this morning and dragged my ass out of bed, completed all of my chores, and sat my ass in the visitors’ room, with only one goal in my head. Sit through a meeting with Darren and get that coveted phone call privilege.
Dr. B had convinced the whole treatment team that a reconciliation between me and Darren would be hugely beneficial to my recovery. In my humble opinion, I considered it to be the worst form of emotional blackmail, to dangle a call with my girlfriend in front of me like a carrot. But hey, the fuck did I know?
I wasn’t the one with the fancy degree.
I was the washed-up addict, depending on these people to patch me up and send me back into the world.
Dammit, though, I hated that it had to be Darren. I would have preferred anyone else to walk through that visitors’ room door and that was not an exaggeration. Hell, I would have even preferred Gussie. At least he would have smuggled me some cigarettes.
Pushing the sleeves of my gray jumper down to my wrists, I concealed the scars and marks on my veins. Jesus, it felt like a lifetime ago, but I knew I was only one slip away from returning to that world.
It couldn’t happen.
Now that I had a clear head, I knew that I could never go back.
Not even weed.
It was too fucking risky.
The urge was still there, though, bubbling away just beneath the surface, and I was beginning to come to terms with the fact that it would never entirely leave me. I would always crave opioids. I would always crave heroin.
In a fucked-up way, I was starting to make peace with it.
When Dr. B finally walked into the room with my brother in tow, I felt the walls I’d been trying to lower shoot back up at a rapid rate.
“Joey,” Darren acknowledged, eyes filling with tears, as he stood in the middle of the room with a bunch of flowers in his hands. “It’s good to see you, Brother.”
“Darren.” I stood up and offered him a curt nod. “Please tell me those aren’t for me.”
He glanced down at the flowers in his hand and choked out a laugh as tears trickled down his cheeks. “I didn’t want to show up empty-handed.”
“I wish you had,” I drawled sarcastically. “You’re going to ruin my street cred in here.”
