It’s been 408 days, 9792 hours of me fighting the taste and staying clean and Jayden James’s circus will not derail that.
Taking a seat in the middle row, not wanting to be up front nor wanting to be in the back. In the middle I feel safe engulfed by numbers. The hall fills so quickly that I had no time to think, process or even seek out exits other than the front door.
A rather middle aged yet extremely handsome man dressed as a priest walks in toward the small stage and podium. Great, a priest is running this AA meeting.
I am surely going to set on fire and be sent to the depths of hell. His warm smile reaches his eyes. His teeth are gleaming as white as his cloth collar. He waves a small welcoming wave towards us all. “Hello and welcome.” His voice like silk falls around us as mummers of hellos echo out. I feel my eyes drawn to him and what he has to say next.
“I am Father Blair and I hope you have found peace in knowing that you’re safe here. Addiction can’t touch you in the arms of our Lord nor in his home. You have shown great strength and resilience in coming here today. I can only imagine the struggle you have had to overcome. The voices you battle and how difficult it was to gather the strength to walk in here. You’re not alone.”
My eyes are latched to his as he nods, I feel the blush hit my neck and creep up my cheeks.
“I am also a reformed addict. God found me when I needed him the most, showed me the way. And here I am now before you clean for 4 years and in love with the faith.” He takes the microphone he was holding and places it back into the stand on the small podium. Taking the chair that is set off to the side, he pulls it around and sits down waving his hand out to open up the podium for people to share their stories, their haunts and taunts. How they are coping and how hard they are finding it to stay clean. Tears well in my eyes as I hear just how raw and fresh addiction is for most of them. How some are just weeks clean, going cold turkey with only this meeting as their means of support. Swiping the tears that are falling down my cheeks, wiping the pain away with them for I know just how hard Jayden is finding his come down and withdrawals. I know he’s hurting, but it’s hurting my sobriety fighting his at the moment.
Father Blair’s eyes find mine as I look up and over the heads of my fellow humans who are battling just like me, just like him who want it just as bad as me. A taste, one taste seems easy right to fall back but believe me the fight to stay is so much stronger.
Recovery is the hardest, longest, loneliness road I have ever walked.
Rolling my 1-year token over inside my pocket my heart sinks as his voice floats out over me pulling me from my thoughts to the now before me. “Pardon,” I say looking at him. I am sure I seen his lips move but didn’t hear what he had said to me.
“I said Miss would you like to share your story? I haven’t seen you here before and thought maybe, just maybe, you would feel comfortable letting us all in on why you’re here.” Pointing at the microphone I look around. Some eyes are on me some are wiping their eyes with tissues. The normal dread sinks in. Hot, sweaty panic but I have been here in this situation many times before. I know the drill and I know how important sharing addiction woes are. We are all fighting the same battle. Pulling my hands inside the arms of my sweater Istand and with heavy feet walk toward him and the podium. Taking the microphone from his hands I see mine are shaking. Pulling my fingers back inside the comfort and warmth of my sweater, I give Blair a weak smile. His matches mine filling me with bravery and strength. Without me even knowing, he slips in and pulls me up and a welcoming feeling surrounds me. After the last few weeks of feeling nothing but the bitter taste of a habit I don’t want and a loneliness of watching someone who was so strong high be so weak sober, it was refreshing. Clearing my throat then looking up just before I allow the words to fall from my mouth, I hear a commotion at the entry of the hall. The doors fly open and in falls no other than Jayden James. My heart explodes with all the feelings of anger, hot need, desire, longing, frustration and hurt. He blows into the hall like a damn hurricane. Tears well in my eyes. Trying to blink them away, one escapes and rolls down my cheek. He’s high I smell it; I can taste it in the air around him. Mike and Gage are trying to pull him back. He falls forward. “Leave me. I’m here to hear myTru’s story. Looks like she’s got things to say. Looks like she’s not as perfect as she seems.” He slurs out as people gasp around the room once they realize just who it is. Great. This is all I need. The camera flashes begin on the other side of the window looking in on us. This meeting and all these innocent people are caught inside the chaos that is Jayden James. The rolling stone, the James Dean. Paps are all out there following his life and now clicking away at the mess unfolding inside these walls that are meant to be a haven for addicts to just breathe and not feel alone. They are trying to get that one-shot of Jayden James at an AA meeting. Yet he’s not at an AA meeting. No, he’s gate-crashing it high and out of control. Mike rushes to the windows and pulls the blinds engulfing the room in a gloomy dark that matches the feeling inside my soul right now. A thunder grey with a thick sleet of rain. Father Blair stands, flicking on the fluorescent lights. The zinging sound and breathing of people is all I hear over the rapid beat of my heart. Locking eyes with Jayden as he sits with Gage’s hands on his shoulders.
Taking a soul shaking breath I begin my eyes never leaving Jayden’s.
“Hello, my name is Tru and I am an addict. Cocaine was my drug of choice. Pills were my dessert and weed was my entrée. I was an addict for 2 horrible and numbing years. But I am today 408 days clean that is 9792 very long and tormenting hours.”
I watch as Jayden’s face pales more than it was before he walked in here. His knuckles are white as he clenches his fists.
Then all the thoughts start to accelerate inside my head. I will them to slow so I can breathe, but they won't. My breathing starts to come in gasps as his eyes turn from anger to hate and back to white rage. I feel like I will black out. My heart is hammering inside my chest like it belongs to a rabbit running for its skin and not to me. The rap devil’s eyes are steady and deadly on mine. Gone is the beautiful, replaced by what the hell, Tru.
The room spins before me. All the people sitting on seats welcoming me, saying hello and congratulating me on my sobriety and courage begin to mold and mesh into one colourful vortex. I am struggling, trying to make everything slow to something my brain and body can cope with. I feel so sick. Blackness... creeping blackness... It’s forming around the edges of my eyes. Blinking fast, I try with all I have to dispel the darkness forming.
Then all the reasons not to pass out and stay here present for this come flooding in, as if my body chemistryjust sent a blanket invitation for the calm to quell the cold darkness. I feel the soft panic fading out with the harsh, body numbing anxiety that I just had ripple over me like a wildfire. Panic attacks are nothing new to me but this one was harsh brought on by the bullshit I see in his eyes. Like he’s not been addicted. Like he’s not fucked up and had a weak moment. The shit thing though is I am so addicted to him. It will fade if I back away, but then Ihave todo this all again another time. Because as much as I don’t want to admit it, I need Jayden James, my very own James Dean, like I need these AA meetings. I was a fool to think that I had my addiction under control. That I could sleep with the devil but kiss a demon. It will only grow if I let these thoughts swirl into a vortex of stupidity, thinking that I was sober enough to kiss his coke laced lips. To let him slip into my dreams and form a place inside my thoughts. For his touch to seep into my veins. He has become an addictionall in itself. It’s eating at the obsession and chasing their own tails. I could just try to breathe really slow, let the thoughts and fears leak into the ether and be the real boss of me.
But I couldn’t. I felt the panic begin like a cluster of spark plugs in my abdomen. His body was rigid as it was paining him to see me so vulnerable and so raw. I was ripping the band aid off both of our addictions. It’s not like I was trying to hurt him with this weakness. The tension grew in his face and limbs. My mind was replaying the last verbal attack he hammered me with. Deep down I was overthinking him and this, or was I falling back into old memories and allowing the past to replay inside my future? This is the question. I need to breathe away from him to try and pull it apart, dissect it and put it all back. Expose the similarities and the choices. Locking eyes with him both of our breathing became more rapid, shallower. In these moments as bothof our own personal hurricanes hit, we, them, us, him, me all understood the drug addict, the alcohol... anything to stop the primal surge to flee. The only movement my eyes caught, as I trembled with salty tears streaked down my cheeks, was when he moved from the back toward me. My heart beat a slow low thud with each of his footsteps. The small space all of a sudden seemed so large, it felt like an eternity before he reached me. My eyes fell closed, my wet lashes touching my heated cheeks. His hands found mine, pulling me into his familiar scent so it engulfed me. Opening my eyes, I gazed up at his massive chest, his jaw clicked under the pressure of his bite. The throb of an enlarged vein in his neck caught my attention. His voice boomed out around me causing me to flinch. In the silent hall it echoed back to us ricochetingaround us. I could hear each one of my breaths mixed with the heavy heaves of his own. He was fighting with himself at the same time he was trying to prove to me that he was more than just an addiction. “My name is Jayden James and I am an addict.” With the slightest of smiles and pink puffed eyes, I looked out over the hall and all the shocked and gasping faces of the other humans who were just like us fighting the same monster, just all on different levels.
Chapter Fourteen
Jayden
As we stand, our feet in the sand, I pull my beautiful Tru into me as the sun starts to set over the waves.
I was a A-Grade dickhead for the way that I had treated her, but I thought I was doing what was best before I broke her heart. But her heart wasn’t what I was breaking, it was her sobriety.
“Baby, I’m… well, fuck. I’m sorry, aye.” I push out as a feeling that I haven’t felt for a long time hits me.
“For.” Her tiny arms link around my back her body flush with mine as my eyes scan the horizon as the sun bleeds into the edge of the ocean.
“For just being a right dick.” Pulling my lip ring into my teeth as a lump forms in my throat.
“Baby I just need you to be there if I have a break down to wipe my tears before they hit the ground.” She purrs out into me the warmth from her breath hitting my chest warming my cool skin.
“I just need you to not leave me,” I say, choking on tears that are forming. I hate this feeling; she brings out so much in me it’s disarming.
“I need you to not use me,” She says as her eyes seek mine.
I feel like a right cunt coz I know that I will fucking break her. It’s what I do, and I don’t know how to not fuck shit up.
“I have passports for you and me in my back-pocket, baby. Let’s go.” That will be the fix. Take us both away from it all and then obsession and temptation can’t touch me and break her.
