I told myself I wouldn’t bring it up…but I bring it up anyway. “Hey,” I say as casually as I could pretend to be, “you heard anything about Lydia since everyone started coming back? Seen her around at all?”
Mason lifted his eyebrows. “Nah,” he says. “I’ve seen Simone. I’ve seen pink-haired girl once or twice—”
“Lani,” Erik says dryly, and we both look at him, smirking.
Mason continues. “I haven’t seen your girl, though,” he laughs out. “If she’s here, she’s invisible.” He pushes around a ketchup packet with his thumb. “You been…thinking about her?” he asks, wiggling his brows.
“No,” I say defensively. Then shrug. “Some, I guess…Sandro said she went back to Charlotte for the summer. Didn’t know if she’d be back or not.”
Erik glances at me but doesn’t say anything. He knows my tells. He also knows when not to poke them in public.
“Maybe she’s taking the semester off,” Mason says. “I mean…if she needs it.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Maybe.”
I had to get to another class, so I told them bye and cut across the quad where the student ministry had set up a table with free donuts. The guy manning it was yelling, “Jesus loves you!” to someone who didn’t ask, and I winced because I love Jesus and I hate marketing. I hate the ‘throw it in your face’ method. I know I’m still pretty new at all this, but I think I’d rather people be more inspired by how I live and not by how loud I shout in their face. I grab a donut anyway and text Erik to remind him we were doing Blue Light’s first night of the year on Friday. He sends back a thumbs-up.
Back in the practicum building, I find the office for our site coordinator. The door was open, and the receptionist waved me in. There was a stack of binders on a table labeled with our assignments. I picked up mine. Inside was a schedule, a copy of the newcomer curriculum. We had to call our site supervisor and introduce ourselves before Friday, set expectations, and get the building access sorted.
On my way out, I passed a bulletin board with a flyer for the campus suicide loss support group.Wednesdays 3:00 pm–4:30 pm, Room 214.I stood there longer than I needed to. I memorized the room number like I might be interested, but I don’t take the tab. It isn’t mine to take quite yet.
Erik and I met back up for coffee. We sat on the steps of the library where the stone stays cool even when everything else gets hot.
“You good?” he eventually asks, not looking at me, still staring at a group of students nearby.
“Yeah,” I say. Then, because lying to Erik is a waste of oxygen, I switch it up, “Mostly.”
He nods. “You know, you’re allowed to want to know if she’s breathing without making it your job to breatheforher.”
I sigh, “You always got a line, huh?”
“I’m a walking youth pastor tee shirt,” he says. “It’s my cross to bear.”
When we got back to our dorm, I spread my syllabus across my bed. I wrote the site schedule on my whiteboard, put “therapy intake” on my calendar with a time. I texted my mom a picture of the flyer for the group I’ll be over, and she sent back a long essay about how proud she was of me. My dad sent a thumbs-up and a “proud of you, mijo” text, which in my family is always a stamp of approval.
The first couple of weeks are always a scrambled mess and a packed calendar. It all makes me feel like too much of an adult, and I don’t know how ready I am for that.
* * *
Wednesday came fast. I put on nicer clothes than normal because I wanted to look like I had some kind of authority without trying too hard. I stuck my site badge in my pocket and went over to the recovery center thirty minutes early because that’s what I do when I’m nervous and doing anything new that I don’t wanna screw up.
Inside the building were soft couches, bad art, the faint smell of coffee, and a corkboard with the 24-hour hotline pinned to it. The student worker at the desk introduced herself as Zoe and pointed me toward the group room I’d be in.
My site supervisor, Ms. Ricks, was there already, stacking handouts into piles.
“Bash,” she said without looking up. “Good. I was hoping they’d send me somebody who could help me get all this stuff organized before we started.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say, settled by her tone. She smirked. We made coffee together, and she told me how the newcomer group goes on the first night.
“Our job is to build a room people feel safe in and want to come back to,” she tells me.
At 6:55, people start wandering in little by little. Nobody looked like how movies portray addiction. Everybody looked like somebody normal, some a little odd or off, but…normal. That’s how it goes, I guess. It’s something people can hide well most of the time.
I clear my throat and try to pretend I have more confidence than I feel in here.
“You don’t have to say your name if you don’t want to,” I tell the group. “And you don’t have to tell the worst thing that’s happened to earn your seat here, either.”
We all went around introducing ourselves. I listened and tried not to get in anyone’s way.
