This time, it’s for my own survival.
A salty wind brushes my hair off my face. I’m standing in the dirt driveway of my dad’s old mobile home, staring with a soft smile at the plants collected on the porch banisters, the decorative Christmas clings still on the windows despite it being months past the holiday.
Shame swells inside me like a parasite eating through my insides. I should have been here. He should never have had to go through this alone.
Darcy, my new sponsor, comes to stand beside me.
We met at my first meeting back after my relapse, and god, I’m so fucking grateful for them. Having Darcy there, someone who gets it, who’s been there themselves, was invaluable this time around.
I don’t know that I’d be thirty days sober without their help.
“Is he home?” Darcy asks.
I nod toward the light in the kitchen window. “Yeah, he’s home. Board’s here, too,” I say, pointing to his surfboard.
The door opens, and my dad walks out in board shorts and a t-shirt, his long, grey-blond hair shaggy around his face. A smile grows on his lips beneath his scruffy beard, and he beams when he looks my way.
“Hey, kiddo,” he says as if it’s any normal day.
“Hey, Dad.”
He’s still smiling when he comes down the steps in bare feet, yet, he hesitates as he opens his arms wide.
And I hug him harder than I’ve hugged him in what feels like years.
“Who’s this?” he asks when we part.
“Ah, this is my sponsor, Darcy,” I say.
His brows raise. “Sponsor?” he asks.
“AA,” I say. “They’re keeping my head on straight this time.”
He smiles Darcy’s way. “Well, that makes you family,” he says to them. “Come on.” He nods to the door, “Let’s see if I have anything for you to eat.”
The trailer still smells like apple cinnamon, even now that Mom’s gone. Her blankets are still draped over the old couch that looks like no one has sat on it since she went into the hospital the last time. Photos and trinkets line the wood-paneled walls, along with a few plants—most half dead. My gaze moves to the hole in the kitchen ceiling exposing the wood slats, and I frown at Dad.
“Are you remodeling?” I ask about the hole.
“Oh, that? I have a guy coming to fix it next month.”
I drag my finger over the string on the fridge that seems to be keeping it from swinging open. “And… this?” I ask.
“Oh yeah, you have to—” He unwinds the tie to show me how he keeps it rigged shut, and I smile. “See, easy,” he says.
“If you say so,” I reply.
“So, tell me how you are, Bon. You look good,” he says.
“You mean I don’t look like death?” I ask, brow lifting.
His eyes soften. “I don’t see as many demons running around behind your eyes,” he says.
“They’re still there. Believe me,” I mutter.
“I do,” he says. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s changed.”
I sit down at the kitchen table as he passes me a lemonade, and I talk.
