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Feeling me.
Knowing me.
That’s the thing about meeting your soulmate. They know what you need to hear sometimes beforeyoudo. I’d never used the word alone.Or lonelyand it’s like she could feel it just by looking in my eyes.
“I love you,” I tell her as my heart pounds so hard I wonder if it’ll fly out of my chest. A part of me wishes it would so she could see my heart only beat for her.
Even if I was keeping a secret from her.
“I love you too. I wish you’d open up to me. Stop hiding from me. Whatever it is you’re holding onto, let it go. You don’t have to carry it all on your own.”
I’d said that so many times, I wonder if she’s just merely telling me to practice what I preach.Share things with your partner. You’re in this together and you need to share the weight of the baggage you bring into your relationship. One person can’t do it alone.
But what happens when the baggage is too much? So heavy it overpowers the relationship and forces it to break creating irreparable damage?
This is why people have secrets.
This is why people feel they have to carry things alone.
It’s why marriages end.
It’s why I have a job.
THE SMELL OF BAD COFFEEoverwhelms my senses as I step foot into the diner across town. ThePeachgrove Dineris known for two things—pancakes and sponsor meetings. Alcoholics flocked from all over to the seedy establishment with their sponsors in hopes that a stack of the sweet cakes could make them forget their troubles for just a second.
For a second, they traded one vice for another because, make no mistake, the pancakes were addictive.
A man with an unlit cigarette tucked between his lips stares at me with a snide grin.
“You can’t cover it up with a fancy suit, rich boy.”
My eyes narrow into slits. “Excuse me?”
“You think your fancy threads make you better than anyone? You think it hides your problem? I can spot an addict a mile away.” His eyes sweep me from top to bottom and I do the same making note of his Falcons hat that seems to cover up quite a bit of white hair. A worn brown leather jacket covers his torso followed by dark jeans with more than a few holes.
“Then you know better than to call them out on it,” I snap, wondering who the hell allowed this man loose on any alcoholic. Putting an addict down in any way rarely worked. Especially a recovering one like myself, who’d used alcohol as a way of escaping all the people in life whodidput me down.
“I only call out the ones that are so obviously in denial.”
“You’re a seriously shitty sponsor, you know that?” I growl as I scan the restaurant looking for Tuck. I frown, not seeing him in our usual booth, but knowing that in the ten years I’d known him, he was never late.
“I ain’t a sponsor, which means I can say that you wear your addiction all over your face. You’re not hiding it from anyone.” He pulls his cigarette from his mouth and points it at me, waving it in a circle.
Rage blooms in my chest hearing this man speak so casually about the demons threatening to break out of me.
I knew I shouldn’t have had that drink this morning.
“Joe, don’t you have someone else to harass?” I feel a familiar hand on my shoulder and relief floods me as I sense Tuck has come to my rescue—for the millionth time.They share a look and I watch as the smile tugs at Tuck’s lips; I wonder if it’s at my expense. My nostrils flare, feeling as if I’m left out of some inside joke.
“He one of yours? You always did have a soft spot for the uppity drunks,” Joe chuckles as if this is all one big joke.
I shoot a look at Tuck daring him to laugh. “I am not uppity…” It’s not lost on me thatuppitywas the word that stuck out to me first. “I’m not a drunk,” I add for good measure. “So, you can fuck off.”
I feel a hand on my chest keeping me from taking a step forward. “Send Cass our way, will ya?” Tuck says as he leads me towards a different table in the opposite corner.
“Who the fuck is that guy?”
“He’s harmless, Will. Calm down,” he says as we take our seats in the booth.
