Page 175 of Toxic Kiss

Joan nods, and I push to my feet.

The room suddenly feels too big as I move through it. Thirty pairs of eyes track me, and each step is a little heavier than the last. By the time I reach the lectern, my hands are shaking worse than before. I grip the wood like it’s the only thing keeping me upright.

“Hello, my name is Bob…and I’m an addict.”

“Hello, Bob.” The words echo back at me in that perfectly practiced way.

My mouth is dry, and my tongue feels heavy. I stare at the wood grain, at the grooves worn into it by the many people who stood here before me and told their truths. It feels like standing on the edge of something I can’t come back from. I don’t normally share, but today…today, I have to.

“A friend of mine…” My voice catches. I clear my throat, but it doesn’t fix the break. “Someone I care about deeply asked me if I was clean.”

It wasn’t the same question that I get from everyone. It was her. Haven sat there, looking at me like she needed the truth more than anything else.

I lift my head and really look at those gathered here this time, at the people sitting in front of me. I’ve never really seen them before. And definitely not at those first meetings years ago. Back then, I thought I was different. Better. That I didn’t belong in rooms like this, and everyone else was the problem.

Not me.

Arrogance is a funny thing. It sounds a whole lot like confidence until it breaks your life apart.

“There I was. Sitting in a jail cell…not for the first time.” A few people smile. I don’t. “I told her I was clean.” My grip tightens on the lectern. “And I am. From the drug that put me here.”

I let that sit because it sounds good, like I’ve got it handled. But there’s more.

“But I’m not sober.”

The room stills, and every breath thrums in my ears.

“I haven’t been sober for a long time.” Saying it out loud feels like something ripping open in my chest. “I um…I lost someone five years ago.” My words are slower now. “My best friend. And after that…everything got loud. Work. Life. My own head. I needed something to shut it up. I needed to stop the pain from attacking…every part of me. There was no end, and I wanted it to stop. Just for a little while.”

A few people nod. They get that part, each in their own way. Their own experience, their own struggles, losses, pain, and abuse. Every single person sitting here has a story.

I huff out a quiet breath.

“I told myself I had it under control, that I was different. That I wasn’t like…” I gesture vaguely to the room, then drop my hand. Shame crawls up my spine. “I was wrong.”

My throat tightens, and I gasp in a lungful of air and force the words out.

“It took me a long time to admit I had a problem. Longer to admit I am the problem.”

A few people smile as if they’ve stood in that exact moment of reality. I feel it in the room.

“And then I found a way to lie to myself that felt…acceptable.”

My jaw ticks, every joint throbs, and not for the first time do I wonder if this pain is punishment for my sins.

“I thought that as long as I stayed away from the thing that landed me in rehab, I was fine.” I shake my head slowly. “I wasn’t fine. I haven’t been honest with myself…or anyone else.” My voice cracks.

“I sat there staring into her eyes and felt her disappointment. Not in anything she said or did, but it was there. And what hurt most was that under that was worry and compassion,” I say, my gaze dropping back to the wood, because I can’t look at them right now.

“The thing is…I feel like I’ve been given a second chance to fix something I broke. I can show up for someone who still…cares enough to ask without judgment and quietly demands me to be the better version of myself .”

I can see Haven in front of me as if she’s in the room. Arms crossed, hip cocked to one side as she gives me the look that orders me to get my shit together.

“And I don’t deserve that second chance,” I admit. The words scrape my throat on the way out. “Not the way I’ve been living. And certainly not with her.”

Meet all their eyes. No more hiding.

“So here it is, the truth that I don’t want to admit.”