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Jude
My first stopon home soil was an NA meeting. I didn’t need it, but I’d learned not to wait until I needed it. I went to check in, to reaffirm my commitment to my sobriety, and catch up with my sponsor, Charles.
Charles had been my sponsor for seven years. On the surface, we didn’t have anything beyond our addiction in common—but the surface never told much of the story.
He’d once been a rising star in the early nineties D.C. Go-Go scene before he’d destroyed his life with crack. It took him years to crawl back, and many failures to kick the habit. Crack was no fucking joke, but neither was Charles. At fifty-three, he’d been clean and sober for fifteen years and now worked as a studio producer.
After the meeting, I poured him a cup of coffee and grabbed a water for myself.
“So…?” He lifted his dark eyebrows as he took a sip.
“I’m good, man.”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “Give me more than that, Jude. You asked me to meet you here. I assumed you needed to talk.”
“Maybe I just missed your pretty face.”
Charles waved me off with a scoff. “We don’t play games with staying sober. Talk to me.”
“Tali was on the tour. We’re...I don’t know. Maybe together.”
He hissed, setting his coffee down on the table next to us. “Okay. That’s a lot. How’s this ‘maybe together’ going to affect your sobriety?”
I shoved my hand through my hair, giving it a tug. “I’m not going to say I’m not worried. We both know where not worrying can get us. I’m active in maintaining, but I’m okay. It’s not a temptation. I keep having to remind myself this is new for Tali, while I’ve been in this life for eight years, you know?”
He nodded. “And she has every reason to be wary.”
“She does.”
“You’re looking for her to trust you?”
“I’m showing her I can be trusted,” I said.
“Have you asked yourself if you trust her?”
My mouth opened and closed.
Charles held a finger up. “Now, hold on. Reason I ask is because I know from experience it’s gotta come on both sides. When Bernice took me back, I kept waiting for her to leave me. I turned myself inside out, killing myself to keep her. And you know what? I slipped. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. She kept expecting me to slip up, and I couldn’t take the pressure of it, so I fuckin’ did.”
I expelled a shaky breath. “That’s something to think about, for fucking sure.”
He reached out, squeezing my shoulder. “I’m not trying to drag you down. I’m giving you questions you might want to ask yourself. Now, I know your situation is different. But you can’t love a woman with one foot out the door. It just don’t work, brother.”
We talked for a few more minutes about life before we went our separate ways. I left the meeting thrown off balance, but thoughtful. Charles had never failed to give it to me straight, which was why I’d asked him to sponsor me. He’d accepted on the caveat that my feelings weren’t delicate. They sure as hell couldn’t be around him.
He never forced his advice on me, only shared his experience, which was invaluable. I’d grown up around addiction, but it was hidden and not spoken about. I wasn’t about that life anymore. Secrets and resentment festered in dark corners. All my corners were dusted and well-lit.
After parking, I walked up to my condo building, carrying my bags from the tour. I’d been looking forward to getting here, putting my shit away, and kicking back on my own furniture, but now that I was here, I’d rather be on the tour with Tali.
“Hey, Jude.”
I stopped walking, the hair on the back of my neck standing. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but that sounded a hell of a lot like my girl’s voice coming from behind me.
A basketball bounced off the cement path leading from the parking lot to where I stood on the bottom step of my building. “I’m ready for that game you keep promising me.”
My bags fell from my hands, and I turned, grinning wide. In Chucks, leggings, a Fall Out Boy T-shirt with the arms cut off, and a ponytail on top of her head, Tali Stripes DiPietro stood ten feet from me, a basketball under her arm and a challenging look on her exquisite face.
Prowling toward her, I said, “I see. You catch me when I’m exhausted to my bones, hoping I’ll let you win.”
