My head was throbbing; my mouth tasted as though I’d licked a sewer grate. As I woke up for the third morning of my detox, I realized I was actually sweating because the air conditioning in the building had frozen up—instead of the reasons I’d awakened sweating the two mornings before, which had been due to withdrawals and the hulking, slinking presence of nightmares dancing through my head.
“Fuck,” I muttered into my pillow, throwing the sheets away from my body. I scrubbed at my face, closing my eyes to the fact that it was daylight; that one of the counselors would almost certainly show up in the next two minutes to tell me and my roommate that we’d better go ahead and eat breakfast because we had a "busy, busy day" ahead of us.
“Fuck, man,” the guy in the other bed said to me. “Ever think this was a huge mistake?” I laughed.
“Every damn morning I’ve been here,” I replied, flopping over onto my back.
“Clean and healthy, right?”
I looked over at Gerard, my roommate, and held up a fist in solidarity.
A few minutes later, as I had expected, one of the counselors knocked at the door and then opened it. “Up and at ‘em, guys,” she said, smiling brightly. “Breakfast is served and if you hang around in bed you won’t get any before group.” I sat up and fought down the wave of nausea that rose with my body.
“Yeah, we’re coming,” Gerard said. I raised a hand silently to acknowledge the counselor’s message and heard the door close as I stared at the floor, trying to get up the energy to move.
I shuffled into the cafeteria behind Gerard and a few other people in the program, barely keeping my eyes open. “At least the food is fucking decent, even if I can’t keep it down,” one of the women in front of me said. I snorted to myself, as quietly as possible; in a group of addicts and head cases, there was no telling what might set someone off.
I scooped eggs onto my plate with some sausage and bacon, and a couple of slices of toast. I grabbed coffee and a carton of juice and found a table.
“How was your night, Alex?” I looked up blearily from my breakfast and found another one of the counselors standing a few feet away. I bit back the urge to glare at her; of all the counselors at Recovery Now, Mary K. was the only one I could stand.
“Shitty,” I said, bringing a forkful of eggs to my mouth and reaching out for my coffee. “The air conditioning’s out again on my hall.”
Mary cringed. “Sorry, I know maintenance is on it, but that’s probably not much help to you right now.” She sat down, glancing around the room at the other inmates. “How are you otherwise?” I smiled slightly.
“Same as before,” I said, looking down at my hands.
“Ready for another thrilling discussion of ‘how we all got here’?” I looked up at Mary again and saw she was grinning.
“I can’t even tell you how ready I am,” I told her. “So thrilling. So fascinating. Gerard’s losing custody of his kids, Mabel lost her entire retirement paying for pills, Jessie’s parents won’t contribute to her trust fund unless she gets clean…” I pointed out the different inmates scattered around the room.
“And you? I don’t think we’ve ever actually gotten you to speak up about it,” Mary said, raising an eyebrow. The coffee was starting to work its magic in my system and I took a moment to actually take her in. Unlike the other counselors, who tried to look official by wearing scrubs, Mary had—for the three days I’d been in detox so far, at least—made the decision to blend in as much as possible. Her dark hair was pulled back in a bun, and she’d had time to put on a little makeup, but she was wearing jeans that fit her like a glove and a plain tee shirt. Her thick-framed glasses framed big, dark, sharp-looking eyes. I tried not to let my eyes wander but they went on their way against my will, taking in the swell of her tits just barely pushing at the fabric of her shirt, the neat waist that I thought I could wrap one arm around easily. The table obscured the rest of her, but I knew that below that waist was a flare of hip and long, toned legs that you wouldn’t expect from her short stature.
“My band mates sent me. And the label.” I held her gaze for a long moment.
“That’s not really an answer, you know,” Mary countered, and I broke away from looking at her; I couldn’t quite meet that level, knowing gaze. If she ever took her glasses off, I’d fry inside my skin.
“It’s the only answer I feel like giving right now,” I said, peering down at my hands once more. I smirked at myself at the sight of the ink staining my fingers, my arms; memories of better days, that this place couldn’t take away from me even if they did manage to wash everything else out of my system.
“You know, you always look at your art when someone challenges you,” Mary observed. I glanced up quickly; she was still watching me with that attentive, all-absorbing stare. I picked up my fork; we only had about thirty minutes to eat before the schedule of daily activities started. “If I was a shrink, I’d think that you look at the tats as a shield to keep from looking at your actual self.” I glanced up again as I took a bite of toast, to see the slight curve to Mary’s lips, the twitch of one corner.
“You are a shrink,” I pointed out, gesturing to her with my fork. “So why not just say it outright?” Mary’s smile grew broader.
“Counselor, not shrink,” she corrected me. “There’s years of education between me and a shrink. I can’t tell you what’s going on in your head; I can only tell you what it looks like to me.” She rose and I breathed a sigh of relief, turning my attention back to my food. “If you’re not ready to talk, I don’t know what you expect to get out of this,” she told me, walking away from the table to continue her rounds. I was glad she was gone—and I glanced in Mary’s direction to watch her go. Definitely glad to watch you leave. I wondered if she had any tattoos of her own and smirked down at my bacon and sausage. Probably would only get them to be able to empathize with lowlifes like me. I drank some juice and turned my thoughts to the upcoming and deeply thrilling group session that was always the first order of the day.