“Hopefully.” And I wanted that to be true more than I wanted to admit.
We walked back over to everyone together until we split in different directions. He veered back toward Mason with a clap on the shoulder, and I fell back into orbit with the girls. I didn’t even have time to brace before Simone and Lani were on me like they’d waited as long as they could.
“Okay,” Simone says, hands on my upper arm, eyes wild. “What wasthat?”
“Nothing,” I say, which is the truth. “We just talked.”
Lani’s grin is feral. “He’s cute.”
“He is objectively not ugly,” I give in, deadpanning at them.
“He’s objectively hot,” Lani shoots back. “Even if he has bad taste in friends,” she adds.
Simone side-eyes her. “Erik—”
Lani fake-gags. “Please don’t say his name.”
“I’m going to keep saying his name until you give us the tea on why you hate him. Mason says he’s a really good guy.”
Lani pretends to zip her mouth closed. “Let’s talk about the tall, hot one who is obsessed with Lydia.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not like that. He just asked how I was doing since…everything, and I told him I was doing good…because I am,” I look between them both. “I am.” I let that sink in for a moment. A small reminder to them that I’m okay. I always like to use small moments to relay that message instead of making it a whole thing sometimes. “And then I just told him thank you for being there that night, for helping me get a second chance at all of this. That’s it. That’s all the conversation was.”
“Okay, fine,” Lani sighs. “We can be normal about it, even though he so has a thing for you.”
“No, we can’t,” Simone admits. “But we can be supportive and annoying in equal measure.”
“Deal,” I agree, shaking my head and letting them loop their arms through mine, tugging me back into the stream of people and heading home.
60
Bash
Ms. Ricks hands me the dry-erase marker, making me suddenly feel all the nerves I’ve been trying to ignore. “You’ve got the floor tonight,” she tells me.
By seven, everyone is trickling in little by little. Theo comes in wearing his baseball cap, giving me a nod. JP, with the forearm tattoos, passes me by with a clap on the shoulder. He heads straight for the chair he always claims that sits the furthest away from everyone else. Mariah walks in wearing her oversized hoodie like always, trying to hide herself from the world. She’s very smart and also twice as sassy. Dani walks in not long after with her emotional support pack of gum in her hand, eyes always scanning everyone around her. West is the quiet one of the group, and I’m pretty fond of him. He sits in the same corner every time, super soft demeanor, and never seems to judge anyone else in here. Some other familiar faces show up and take their seats, then I see a couple of new faces hanging out near the entrance. I wave them toward the sign-in sheet and pointedly away from the coffee pot. The first meeting is tough enough without throwing in caffeine jitters.
“Welcome,” I tell the group after everyone has found their seat. I standat the front, flipping the dry-erase marker back and forth to keep my hands occupied. “My name is Sebastian. Everybody normally just calls me Bash. Whatever works for you, though. I’ve gotten to know most of you over the past few weeks, but if you’re new here, welcome. I’m a senior majoring in Psychology and am Ms. Ricks’s co-facilitator for this group. For the next 75-ish minutes, you get to be whoever you want to be, no pretending required, alright? Be brand-new, be messy, be quiet, or be whatever you want.” I pause, pacing the small space. “Just a couple of rules. What is said here stays here, okay? We want everyone to feel safe enough to open up without people leaving and making a show of what they were vulnerable with. Cool?”
Everyone nods.
Taking another deep breath, I continue to try to keep my nerves under control. “Stick mostly to I-statements as much as you can. We try not to offer advice unless it’s asked for. It’s perfectly fine to pass if you don’t wanna speak. Arrive late, leave early, don’t feel bad about it. This isn’t mandatory, and we won’t keep you hostage.” I hear a little bit of laughter and smirk before tucking it away. “If I say or do something clumsy, flag me. I’m learning here too.
We have a pretty simple check-in process. All you have to do is say your name, your color for how you’re feeling—Green/Yellow/Red or create your own, your craving level, 0-10, if you choose to share, this helps others not feel so alone here, and then you can tell us about one tiny win since last week, like I took a walk instead of drinking, or I answered an email I didn’t want to deal with. Remember again, passing is okay.
Tonight we’re talking aboutturning the volume down two notches. Basically, just examples of what’s been loud for you—maybe something triggering to you or something that’s typically hard to deal with that makes you feel overwhelmed and more likely to turn to harmful things, and then small things that help quiet them in healthy ways.
If this is your first visit and you’d like a newcomer token, they’re in the center of the room. Good? Alright. Who’s got the guts to start our check-ins?”
Theo taps his fingers on his jeans absentmindedly. “Um, I’m Theo. Yellow-green-ish. Cravings like…a two? And my roommate stocked beer in our mini-fridge, and I didn’t open it once…so, win.”
A couple of people give quiet claps, and I nod. “Proud of you. You’re setting good boundaries.”
JP straightens up a little and goes next. Then we make our way around everyone else. West whispers a “pass,” and we easily move on. The newcomers all tell us their names in quiet, small voices that haven’t fully warmed up to us yet. One says it’s their first twenty-four hours off pills, and we all praise them for showing up tonight.
“Thank you,” I say when the circle lands back on me. “For being honest.”
I cap the marker, uncap it again, and turn to the board. “Tonight I want to talk about pressure,” I say as I attempt to draw a bottle on the whiteboard. “Not soda, exactly, but the soda is a good metaphor. Most of us in this room have had times where what’s inside us got pretty shaken up—all the emotions, anger, sadness, anxiety, whatever it is you’ve dealt with that feels big. Sometimes by choice,” I say as I shrug, “a lot of times not by choice at all, just by life throwing a lot your way at once. The shaking is trauma, stress, grief, shame, exams, breakups, anything that tends to trigger your nervous system. The habit for a lot of us is to do one of two things, either twist the cap all the way off and let it explode on anyone nearby, or duct-tape it down and pretend the shaking never happened.”
