I pull back to look at her. She wipes away the tears that stick to my eyelashes.
“I came back for you.” I need her to know, even if all knowing does is bring her peace. “I went to that place, the one with your favorite flowers. I thought ‘she’s probably going to use these to slap you.’” Avery smiles after I say it, but smiles when a person has been crying don’t look anything but sad. “I was standing in line, and I looked out the window. There you were, across the street. A hostess was leading you and some guy to an outdoor table. He had his hand on your lower back. He pulled out your chair. Held your hand across the table. Ordered your drink. I remember thinking ‘They’re comfortable with each other.’” The knife in my heart twists. “You were smiling at him. You looked happy. And I’d already done enough to you. I didn’t want to cause more damage.”
Avery presses her fingers to her lips as she listens.
I’m replaying the scene in my mind, but it’s morphing into an alternate reality, where I cross the street and interrupt the date. Where would we be now, if I’d done that? I don’t have a good answer. Maybe we’d be nowhere. Maybe we’d be somewhere.
“Fuck,” I murmur regretfully. I tip my head closer, and we’re forehead to forehead, nose to nose. Her warm breath streams against me, and she smells of sugar. I wish the sweet smell of her were my only thought, but it’s not. I hate myself for what I’ve done to her, and it’s keeping me from being fully in the moment. “Why are you here with me? Why are you letting me be in your presence? Why don’t you hate me, Avery?”
“I could never hate you.”
“I hate me.”
“That’s why I can’t.”
I shake my head. The tip of my nose moves across hers. “You should.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she whispers.
She doesn’t move. Her lips are an inch from mine, and it would take almost nothing to close that gap. She’s waiting for me, and I don’t need to be asked twice.
Without warning, the ride moves. Avery tumbles back in her seat. She grimaces and rubs at the back of her head as she looks down. “Guess they fixed it.”
I bite my lip and nod.
We’re quiet all the way to the bottom. The operator opens the cage door and makes a sideways comment about us behaving ourselves up there. He looks away quickly when neither of us respond.
We walk a few feet from the ride, and Avery stops. She looks up at me. “I need to get back to writing.”
I tuck my hands in the pockets of my jeans. “Understood. I guess the game of pretend is over? You don’t want to see me again?”
Avery stares at me, and I can’t tell what she’s thinking. The seconds stretch on, then she nods curtly. She takes a step away, but stops, turning back to me. “You think I should hate you, but let me tell you something I’ve learned. Once you separate the action from the person, clinging to hate becomes a more arduous task.”
She turns, and I watch her walk away. I watch until she disappears, swallowed up by the crowd of children with dancing balloons, tired adults, teenagers high on life.
I give her a lengthy head start, then I leave too. Being a party of one doesn’t sound so great anymore.
Most weeks,the faces are the same. Especially in a town that doesn’t have a lot to choose from in the way of meetings.
We’re seated in a semblance of a circle in a church library. The air smells stale, but also of bitter black coffee and books. Twelve pairs of kind eyes and expectant expressions are on me.
I nod at the room. “I’m Gabriel, and I’m an alcoholic.”
“Hello, Gabriel,” the group recites.
Alcoholics Anonymous is a condition of my early release. Even if it weren’t, I’d attend anyway. For myself. And everyone else in the world.
Two days a week, I can be found in this musty library. Some of the people here I only see when I step foot in this room. Others, I see throughout the week as we carry on with normal life. None of them look like a reformed drunk, whatever that means. Add that lesson to the list of what I’ve learned overthe past few years. Alcoholics can present as functioning adults. Contributing members of society. Some alcoholics may teeter around public sidewalks in the middle of the day gripping a paper bag, but so far I haven’t met one.
I’ve learned the kinder term for alcoholic is ‘alcohol use disorder.’ Like Avery said yesterday, it’s separating the action from the person. ‘He’s an alcoholic’ versus ‘He has alcohol use disorder.’ I’ve also learned the symptoms of the disorder vary from person to person, and have varying levels of rapidity and severity. This was all courtesy of group therapy and recently published books I read.
AA is old-school.
Here, in this meeting of people with alcohol use disorder, there is an accountant. A grandfather. A young mother. A veteran of the Vietnam War. A landscaper, librarian, two dentists, a teacher, and a newspaper editor. And me, the former firefighter.
The twelfth person here tonight is a baker.
“Good to see you again, Gabriel,” Jane says, approaching me after the meeting has wrapped up.
