“Yeah, yeah.” I hold the door as she walks through it, turning to wait for me until I lock the door behind me. “Mind telling me how you are welcome in the group? Considering the level of anonymity to it?”
“You’ll learn soon enough.” She says and winks at me. I hold her door as she climbs in and yes, fuck, kill me but yeah I checked out her ass.
I climb in behind the driver seat of my newest toy, my 73 GTO, and I stare off into space. I am out of my element and way the fuck out of my comfort zone. ‘Believe’ by Mumford and Sons is playing lightly in the background and I look over to the woman who is saving my life and she has no clue.
It makes it all the more beautiful to me.
“Tell me I can do this.” I say and I wait on baited breath for her answer. She is allowed to see me weak and broken. I don’t know why and I don’t question it because she gives me a peace that nothing has ever been able to, not Carrie and not Candey, though god knows they tried.
She links her hand in mine and looks me in the eye. “I know that you can do this Noah. Remember that in this there is no failure. It could work for you and it may not but it doesn’t mean there isn’t hope for something else. Whatever it is you need to get through all of this safely, I swear to God we will find it.”
I have no words to that, but I am trying to believe her. I have given her every piece of me. My past, my fears and my soul. I spent two weeks in detox and some intense therapy. I want to fight the black back, but let’s be realistic here. Two weeks pushed me almost too far. It was nice though that I had something positive and beautiful to come home to tonight and seeing Cal and Tay tonight embarking on forever... well it was promising. Just three weeks ago it would have sent me into a tailspin of anguish to see them happy. Now I can find peace in knowing it won’t be dark forever, if I let the light in.
We pull into a normal plain strip mall on the outskirts of Gig. A floral shop a nail salon and a weight watchers were a few of the stores in the L shaped lot. We walk through the door. There are three doors with handwritten signs on them lining the small hallway.
NA/AA meeting. Please enter quietly.
That’s what one door said.
Grieving. Please enter quietly.
Said another.
Over eaters Anonymous
Said the third.
Now way was she going in that one...
I watch her pale hand turn the handle to the first door and I guess it really did make some sense that she really did know where I was coming from.
Because I followed in after her.
“My name is Noah Beckett. I am a man of many addictions and tendencies, but heroin is the fragile hand choking the life from me. I am two weeks sober today. I left a detox facility this morning and it was my first time and I hope like fuck it will be my last.”
I watch as recognition of who I am registers on more than half the people in this group and I am so fucking uncomfortable that my skin is crawling off my bones. I seek her out in the crowd before me and I keep my eyes on hers, knowing that I need to get it off my chest so that the people in this room can help keeping me strong.
“I really hope that this meeting is private because the things I need to share here don’t belong outside of these doors.”
A group leader, I am assuming anyway, stands. “We are all in this specific meeting for the anonymity Mr. Beckett. We aren’t rock stars, well not all of us, but we are all in desperate need of secrecy.”
He doesn’t say more, he just nods and gives me a look that says he means it. Problem is, trust isn’t my thing, like at all so as leaps of faith go, this one is huge.
“Well, sadly my life over the last few years has been a media field day. It’s no secret to most, but in case a few of you don’t know, my father was a Lieutenant for the Seattle PD and he was a sadistic pervert that got off on torturing me and my sister. What you don’t know is that I invented this game called Trust Me when we were just little kids. I don’t know how I knew that my world would forever be ruined as early as three when I recall him punching me in the face the first time, but I did. I didn’t want that for my little sister. I used trust me for the word trust and I built worlds where we could lie about anything we wanted, accept the shit in our house. Pink cars, rivers of gold, it didn’t matter the world we created, it only mattered that in that world we trusted each other enough to filter the truth out. Because of that game we never spent a second of our lives feeling alone and scared.”
I clear my throat and keep watching her face and the way she shines with approval for my speaking out. Tears threaten to bring me down the way they always do when I think of Candey. “I lost the love of my life five months, three days, nine-teen hours and six minutes ago when a drunk driver hopped the medium and T-boned my car. I had asked her to marry me that night and she had said yes. I was pulled to the side of the road because I couldn’t keep my hands off of her knowing she would be my wife.”
I bow my head in defeated shame. It is a feeling that no matter how many times I tell this story, or rethink every move I made, I failed her that night. “When I came home from the hospital it had been about two weeks after she had passed away. I have always had an affair with drugs since I was about twelve smoking weed on the few chances I had to go see my friend Sam. He was the only friend my sister and I were allowed to be around and it was because his dad was our dad’s partner. The minute Sam heard about the death of my fiancée and love of my life, he packed his bags and moved to Gig Harbor because he knew the relief I would go looking for came in the form of a needle in my arm.
“I fell deeper this last time than I ever have before. Heroin had been my crutch, the one thing I went to when life was killing me and when she died and I knew it was my fault... I had no intention of ever coming back from it again.”
This was the first time I have ever admitted to anyone, her included, that I was out looking for my death with the full intention of following Candey.
It was her that had me seeing reason. “I wished for death many times over the course of my life and recently I actually sought it out with a single minded intent. When a few words from one amazing woman the night I checked into detox changed everything. ‘Noah’ she said, ‘don’t you think that in all the highs and all the darkness and drugs and evil you’ve survived, haven’t you once ever thought there was a greater purpose?’ I just so happened to have had another friend almost beat me after a bunch of bikers already had that I knew what he said was true. The only option he gave me was that I get help or I get gone because he refused to watch me die any longer.”
I am no longer watching the crowd, too shamed by my own words. “So yeah, that’s why I am here I guess.”
I make my way to my chair and sit beside her. Her hand finds mine immediately and she squeezes it so I know she is proud of me. She accepts that I am who I am and that some aspects won’t ever change. Being the emotional pussy at any given time isn’t my thing so when I don’t look at her or acknowledge her support, she accepts it. It is literally something I have never had from anyone, she lets me be.
She sits beside me as we listen as others like me tell their stories and it is uncanny how alike we all are. I could look any of these people in the eye with a thousand yard stare that would scare most, but these people would look me back with the same.
Just as the meeting is about to wrap up early she stands and lets go of my hand. I watch as she tucks strands of her copper madness hair behind her ears. I watch the delicate line of where her jaw curves in the most feminine way. She is the reason that pin ups were created and why every man on earth wants them inked in their skin for life. She is that woman personified. My heart may be buried with Candey but my dick isn’t and it wants her.
Her heart shaped lips curve into a welcoming smile as she looks over the crowd before her green eyes fall on mine. I see an innocence there I don’t think anyone sees in her. She is judged for a path that was indeed fucked up but paved in good intentions. I think that had we met under any
other situation, and I mean any, I think it would be possible that my life had been different. I say this to myself with guilt and discomfort because though I would kill to have this woman beneath me naked and panting... I would walk away and never look back if Candey was here.
It’s my fucked up reality these last few months since this little vixen exploded into my life for the second time and with a much greater purpose. I think of meeting her just after joining TAT, I think of the multiple times she kept my bed warm and I think of how I dismissed her every single time. If given the chance I wouldn’t do it again.
I sigh to myself and try to give my full attention to her as she begins to speak, her eyes on mine but with a greater respect because as much as I hate it she has friend zoned me like a mother fucker.
She needs to keep me in the friend zone too, because no one will ever replace my girl and after loving like I did with Candey, no woman deserves less than that love.
“Hello everyone. My name is Jenny Pope and I am a recovering Alcoholic. I have been sober almost three years now. I am not famous, I never will be but I respect the anonymity of this group because my son is the child of a famous musician and my best friend is Noah Beckett who spoke earlier. I guess I’ll start at the beginning since this is a new group for me...”
I listen as she speaks talking about hopping onto tour busses, she talks of Axe and how she tried but always failed. She talks about finding me in that filthy strip club and how we formed a kindred friendship, but she gives up nothing personal. If there is anything on this earth that I know better than anyone, it is that the ones who give you everything except what matters most are the ones with the deepest wounds.
We may never love or be more than this beautiful bond between us but whatever we will ever be it is going to be integral to my life.
I told her once in Skin, high as a kite and wasted, I told her that my soul recognized her before I did because broken knows broken. Watching her up there tonight I admit to myself the truth of it and promise myself then and there to be her friend, hold her hand and let her open up to me without judgement or fear because it is what she gives me.
I am also a big fucking idiot if I think for one second that it is gonna be that easy. I may feel good and great and free, but my issues lie dark and buried in the pit of hell and I don’t know if I can bring myself to enter. I am tainted as is, but should I go searching for all my years that are left better buried then I will never understand the true meaning of trust.
I don’t trust myself to go that far and still come out unscathed.
Release Me Page 18