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He was irresistible, and suddenly she worried something was going on. Glancing at the clock on the wall, there was no time to sit and talk. The meeting would be starting soon, and she was going to talk a bit longer about her experiences with drugs and alcohol. It wasn’t anything new – she did it every few weeks so the new members could hear her story.
Standing at the podium, she made eye contact with Michael for a few seconds. Something was wrong. He was sober, so she didn’t figure it was a relapse. She wanted to cancel her talk and pull him outside and see what was going on, but that would be a red flag, and they had done so well keeping their affair a secret.
“Good evening.”
The members said it back, and they proceeded to recite the serenity prayer and AA pledge. “My name is Haize, and I’m an alcoholic and drug addict.” Even after all this time, sometimes it hurt to say it out loud. It was something she’d never get used to.
“Hello, Haize.”
“A lot of the members here know my story.” Well, most of it. She hadn’t divulged the abortion or being raped by her stepdad. Some things needed to stay private, and they didn’t need to know everything about her. The only person who knew those details was Michael, and he had proven to her he could be trusted.
“I tell it from time to time for those who have recently joined. If you don’t already know, I sort of organize these meetings. There’s no formal leader in AA, but I’m here for every one of these and am here to help anyone who needs it. I’m a licensed chemical dependency counselor by day. Some of you even see me for that.” She gripped the sides of the podium, one eye on the crowd, one eye on Michael, her mind on what was troubling him as well as her story. She knew it by heart but was distracted by the man she was growing very attached to.
“My story didn’t start out like this. I had a bad childhood. Ran away when I was a teenager. Started using on the street.” She took a deep breath. “I needed money for my habits, so I sold my body. In and out of jail, never even considering rehab. Some things happened. I hit the rock bottom we always talk about. When you’re lying in a hospital close to death, it tends to be a wake-up call. My aunt was my solid person, the one I could trust to pull me in and help me. I’ve been sober for over five years.”
A few people clapped, followed by a steady progression of everyone, and she nodded her head and said thank you. “If anyone would like to tell their story, the floor is yours. You can come up to the podium or stand where you are, just speak up so we can all hear.”
Instead of sitting in her normal spot on the front row, she sat beside Michael, gently patting the side of his leg. “Are you okay?” she whispered. Sitting with him wouldn’t send off any alarms. She talked to all the members, and many knew she was his sponsor.
“Fine,” he whispered, though his tone didn’t match his words.
“Okay, Mikey. I’m right here if you need anything.”
He glanced at her from the corner of his eye and back to the person speaking. He wanted to say something. She could tell. But he trained his eyes toward the front of the room, his body language tense. The meeting seemed to take forever, and when it was over, he hurried out the front without saying a word to her.
She followed him without thinking, toward Mitch’s truck. Michael tried to get in, but she put her hand on the door, stopping him from opening it wide enough.
“I deserve an explanation, Mikey. I… I at least need to know what I did.”
“I can’t come to your house tonight. I can’t stay there.” His green eyes were sharp, his jaw clenched as he slid a package of cigarettes from his pocket.
The words hurt and she closed her eyes. “Tell me what I did, Mikey.” She watched as everyone came out of the church, no one even looking their way. They were just two people having a conversation. An emotionally charged one, but they were both good at keeping their emotions in check. At least, she felt that way. It might not appear that way from the outside looking in.
“Haize… you didn’t do anything. My brother.” He lifted his cap and ran his hands through his disheveled hair. “I can’t talk about it here. But I have to go home.”
“Is Mitch okay?”
“No. He’s not.” He shook his head and clenched his jaw again. He poised the cigarette between two fingers but didn’t light it. “This is all so fucked up, Haize.”
“I won’t push you to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to.” He slid the cigarette behind his ear and reached for the door handle. “Get in. I’ll tell you, but we can’t be seen talking like this. People are looking.”
“Won’t it look weird for me to get in your truck?”
“Good point. Meet me at the park where we first talked. I’ll leave first. I’ll see you there in about ten minutes.”
She pulled up in the parking lot and parked next to the truck. Michael was sitting at a covered picnic table, and even though it was dark, she could see he had lit the cigarette. The tiny ember on the tip lit up as he sucked in the smoke. Smoke lingered around him as she approached, sitting across from him, the cement bench chilled with the night air.
He pulled her in, his hand strong on the back of her head, kissing her fully from across the table. Breaking the embrace first, he took another inhale from the cigarette and extinguished it.
“Mitch is after me.”
“After you?”
Michael nodded and stared off to the side, out into the forest. “He’s been like this since we were kids. Envious of me. Wanting to do everything I do. And when he can’t, he gets jealous. He gets mean. And when he drinks, it’s amplified. He knows we’ve been messing around. He knows I stayed at your house.”
“That’s not against the law.” Haize felt her blood start to boil.
