Now
Sophia
"It's as if when he left, he opened the door to hell straight into my heart."
The beat of the broken heart flutters in my chest, a pathetic thrumming of fragile, tattered wings as it attempts to take to flight before realising it can't and falls to the ground, its wings broken beyond repair.
I drag a nervous swallow of air and dash shaking fingers through my fair hair. The ends are frazzled and normally doing these sessions I'd twist the thin strands and pick off the split ends. Today I'm not, though. Today, I'm speaking out loud and shaking.
The shakes aren't caused by nerves.
You see, the problem with sober is everything is so real. And when I say real, I mean blinding, piercing, painfully fucking real. Everything laid out to see and all the time to stop and gawk at your mistakes. It frickin sucks.
Fifteen people gaze at me as I fluster and jabber, my hands fidgeting like an old grandma missing her knitting needles. I'm sweating more than I had the night I picked up the Academy Award for Best Actress—which changed my career—and garbled my way through a terrible speech under the spotlight.
Some of the people sitting in the circle with me nod sympathetically, others are lost in their thoughts, exercising their own demons. Everyone gets it though. Together we are the winners of the losers if there is such a thing.
I made a promise to myself (and to my counsellor, although the least said about that coercion the better). They said something along the lines of 'look at all the good you could do, blah blah blah', so I agreed if I made it to the ninety days sober, I would speak. I would open my mouth and let the iniquitous truths I keep locked inside me tumble out for the world to hear. Well, the small world of the rehab facility. My world for the last three months.
And, well, hell if I'm not giving them everything. I mean, even I want to shove a sock in my mouth to shut me up, yet here it is still gushing out, like a torrent of pathetic despair. What is supposed to be a sharing insight into my substance abuse issues has turned into a lifelong public therapy session.
To my own ears, I sound like a bad-tempered, sulky teenager as I try to explain how it all started. I've messed up, not just my life, but that of many other people, yet I don't know how to fix it. I don't know how to be everything for everyone.
We've been over this a lot during personal therapy. I'm a grown woman, I can make my own decisions. Do I? Can I?
I repulse myself on a fundamental level. It's not a good place to be. It's no wonder he left and never came back. If I'm repulsed then what must he have thought? I've had a lot of time to think about Blake Henderson in the last three months. Too long. Sober, I haven't been able to block the bastard from worming his memories up from the deep dark depths of my never-open-for-the-sake-of-my-sanity memory box, and for the first few weeks he's lived in all my waking thoughts.
Blake.
A derelict emptiness pulses around that one name and it doesn't matter how many times I tell myself to ignore it. I can't. It hurts.
The counsellor leans forward, and I drag myself back from my latest Blake runaway thought train. An empathising smile spreads across her face as she nods with deliberate compassion. I can read her next suggestion in her eyes. It's in the way she tilts her head, the way she inclines her body forward a little, as if she wants to sooth an injured puppy. Don't say it... please don't say it... she's going to say it... here it comes...
"Do you think maybe you were placing a father label on this man? You must have known it could never amount to anything." She flourishes her hands almost in apology as my cheeks flame an astounding puce pink. "That it was wrong. What you were asking him was wrong, Sophia. Weren't you perhaps just searching for someone to fill the role your father left?"
I blow air through my mouth and sigh, settling back in my seat, riding out the embarrassing sting on my cheeks. "Listen, lady," I jab my finger with ferocity at the woman in the white polo shirt with a clipboard balancing on her knee. "I know I'm pretty fucked up, but I did not want to do that to my daddy."
Never mind the fact I have no idea where my daddy is.
There's a snort beside me and Sarah's shoulders begin to shake. Jacked-Up Jimmy is also biting down on a smile, his cheeks bunching into rounded domes as he keeps a strained grip on his laughter. I cast my eyes around the small gathering, a ballooning bubble of mirth rocking my own shoulders. At least I can still entertain. My career may be on tenterhooks, but hey, I still possess the skills.
My career.
Put my head in the oven and get it over and done with.
I'm signed for one more movie—one more blasted instalment in the saga still making me act like a teenager despite the fact I'm twenty-two.
I can't even think about it. It's a never-ending script of hell.
The counsellor, Teresa, gives me an 'I've got your number, missy' stare and my ribs ache with repressed laughter. It's Sarah's fault, once she starts I'm always the one who can't stop.
Teresa knows she’s lost me, and the session itself, so wraps things up pretty quick. “I think that will do for today.” She narrows her gaze in my direction and I take the time to flash her a sickly smile. I told her not to let me speak out loud, it’s not like I didn’t give her fair warning.
"Let's sneak off." I lean over and whisper into Sarah's ear. I can't believe it's the last time I'll be able to do it. A flare of panic quivers my stomach at how this day is going to progress. Sarah rolls her eyes in a well, duh manner. She never turns down the chance to cast her face to the sunshine and feed her lungs with poison.
"That was epic." Sarah clutches her sides and doubles over, clinging onto the red brick wall as we make our way outside. "Listen, lady." She hoots another spout of laughter. "I can't believe you told her to listen, lady." Sarah wipes streaks of teary laughter across her face. Honestly, if she can laugh so much when sober, I hate to think what she's like when high. She must rupture stomach muscles.
Breathing over-the-top deep breaths like she's having some form of a fit, Sarah watches me through her dark lashes. She's all dark angles and fine jet hair. Finding her on the first day of my treatment was like stumbling on an unmined mountain of gold in the most unexpected place. She gets me, in ways not many others do. She sees through everything until she's staring at the very simplest, most basic version of me. "So, Superstar, you all ready to hit the road?"
I shake my head, my words fizzling before I can open my mouth to force them out, and the pinch of nerves in the pit of my stomach transforms until it's rumbling and grumbling like a demon of fear.
She smiles for a second, cocking her head to one side, her fringe dropping over her right eye. "You'll be fine. You never belonged here anyway, you are too good for this shit." She flings a track lined arm around my shoulders and gives me a tight squeeze. Along my chest the jar of her ribs bash against mine.
Inhaling a bottomless drag on my smoke, I delve deep for suitable words, and stretch my lips into a smile. "Thank you, Sarah, for being my friend."
She cracks me one of her twisted grins, her gaunt cheek lifting. "Superstar, we are always going to be friends. Haven't you heard the phrase, get clean together, die together?"
Smiling, I roll my eyes. "You should be the famous actress, not me."
Sarah laughs, and its infectious sound makes my ears ring, but her eyes blaze ominously with dark thoughts. "I still would have ended up here, anyway. They always had a door with my name on it."
Frowning, I reach for her arm, fastening it tightly in my grip, my fingers slipping effortlessly around the circumference of her limb. "That's not true."
"Sure thing, Superstar."
She does this. Lurches off into dark thoughts where no one can reach her. Her addiction is different to mine. My dark thoughts only strike when I'm high, edging me on, making me do things the sober me would baulk at. Sarah? Well her dark thoughts seem to exist inside of her every waking moment.
Last week they'd had to sedate her because she went loco during a session. It's pushed back her dry time and delayed her stay in rehab no matter how much she tells them she's fine.
"Anyway, you're the Hollywood darling." Her eyes twinkle with a spark of amusement. "You can't do any wrong, even when you overdose."
I burn a pale pink and worry my lips between my teeth. "Well, I don't think I'm their darling anymore." I jab my elbow towards her although she dodges it with ease. "And anyway, I was just lucky, in the right place at the right time." I'm not convinced starring in the transatlantic TV show which went giant stateside was lucky, but I know others would disagree. Countless others would sell their grandmother, or even their soul for the chance I'd been given.
Her gaze locks onto my face. "Do you think you will stay dry?" she asks, and I groan. It's the question all the 'inmates' at the facility ask. The closer it gets to your ninety days, the more the world outside looks like it's created of vodka jello shots and towering mounds of cut cocaine. Right now, I can visualise the highway as a slick of champagne—like a tanker of the good stuff has turned over and is leaking the finest French bubbles all over the tarmac. My mouth waters but I shut it down. No.
I flick my cigarette stub onto the immaculately trimmed grass, watching it land right next to the No Smoking sign, and nudge my hands into the pockets of my skinnies. "I don't think I will touch the hard stuff again, but then I don't really think I am an addict, not really."
She knows this. We've talked about it all night on numerous occasions. The first time I explained my feelings she'd howled with laughter for a clear fifteen minutes. Apparently, all addicts think they aren't one.
I know my life is better with drugs. The parties are more fun, the conversations more sparkling and reality just a little easier to bear, but do I need to be smacked out of my head all the time? No. Do I manage to not get high when I'm at work? Yes.
Did I mean for what happened that night to take place? No. Nobody would.
I flip the subject, submerging my thoughts into the dark recess where I conceal everything. "Are you gonna come to see me?" I don't want to walk away from this girl with the coal coloured hair and eyes and the mischievous laugh. She's a live-wire who makes life achingly real. I'm going to miss her erratic and crazy ways. She's beautiful, caring, and rich with vitality; sharing her own time and empathy, despite what life has thrown at her. It makes my life look like a bed of fucking roses.
But then isn't my life a bed of roses? Aren't I just a sulking impetuous child for begrudging the deal I've been given?
I've received everything. More luck bestowed on me than most people would ever covet. So why… why, have I ended up here? What price have I paid for the good fortune so many would dream of?
My hands seal into tight fists at my side. I know these facts. I can see them for what they are. But then I also know I'll be walking out into the same thing. It will be the same all over again. Because it has to be. I'm Sophia Jennings and I don't know how to become anything else.
I've never known anything else.
"Are you going all psychotic on me?" Sarah nods at my fisted hands.
My chest squeezes with air and I focus on my breath as I release it on a leisurely count of ten, just like I've been taught. Stretching my fingers, I wince as they cramp where I've squeezed them so tight. "No. I'm just wondering what I'm going to do when this final movie is made."
"Make another one, duh," she laughs, "isn't that what you do?"
Isn't this the paradoxical question of my life? 'What did I want to do'. "I might just become a beach bum." I sigh whimsically and try to conjure an image of myself with dreadlocks. At least I might not get noticed so much if my hair is a tangled mess with insects living in it.
Sarah tosses her head and tuts dramatically. "Well they definitely smoke weed, so that's not a good career choice for you. You know Jacked-Up Jimmy," a conspiratorial wink darts across her face, "that's how he started and look at him now." She nods, deliberately wiggling her eyebrows, and I grin, dropping my gaze to the silver sobriety coin I've received in my final session. It's all shiny and new, glinting in the sun, weighing heavy in my hand. I thought it would mean more.
Ninety days is a huge achievement. Many people don't get this far.
"I'll think of something." A brief smile flickers the corners of my mouth as I try to raise some enthusiasm for life outside of the rehabilitation facility—or the Drunk Zoo as Sarah calls it.
Sarah squeezes my hand and startling tears fill my eyes. "Listen, you can be whatever you want. It's simple." She toys with her necklace, running the chain through her fingers like an endless circle as she drags it around her neck. She's never still, always fidgeting and moving, a ball of perpetual motion. "Do you think you will see Johnny when you get home?" Her dark gaze rests on my face, reading my reactions.
I shrug but inside my chest my heart thrums like a caged bird. Johnny Fairweather and I, Hollywood's golden couple—but beneath the shine is a tarnish I'm not sure we can erase.
"I'll call him." I breathe a shuddering breath, stretching my already aching ribs. "I guess filming will start straight away, anyway." At the thought of being on set, my stomach contorts and the demon of nerves rears his ugly head, making himself known in a truly unpleasant way. I've already delayed filming by three months. There are going to be a lot of people extremely pissed at me. "He might be feeling bad if he can't remember anything." I add, but there's a dark question swirling in the recesses of my mind, wondering if he can recall what happened between us, and if he can, just how bad he feels about it. It's a nasty way to feel about someone you've spent most of your adult life with and it plants a bitter acrid taste on the tip of my tongue whenever I think of the situation we've found ourselves in.
Her eyes flicker towards the dinner hall where the residents are gathering for lunch and she shrugs. "I've gotta dash, there won't be any delicious lasagne left." A smile lifts her lips. We both know the lasagne is disgusting, but she won't meet my gaze. "So, stay in touch, right?" She jams her hands into the jeans hanging off her hips. I knew she wouldn't do a proper goodbye. She's all about the hello's.
My throat tightens as she turns to move away. Sarah has kept me sane through my dark ninety days. I'm sure I wouldn't have survived without her, with only demons to talk to me and keep me company. Where would that have led?
She strolls away, her slender arms swinging at her side and I watch with an alien hollow sensation expanding across my chest. "Hey, Superstar," she hollers when I'm finally turning away—my heart thudding—for where my two cases are stood ready for my release. "Remember. Stay clean and be mean."
I snicker as her high-pitched cackle fades into the dinner hall where it's drowned by the clang of cutlery against china.
Stay clean and be mean.
I can do that. I've got to. Because I don't have anything else.
I don't know if my friends still want to know me. My staff...? I left them without a backwards glance as I ran for rehab behind sunglasses and dark tinted windows. In truth, I have no idea what my mother has been up to during my three months absence.
I haven't seen a paper, looked at the internet or anything.
Nothing for three months.
In Hollywood, three months is a lifetime.