I can’t believe I’m going back to school. Just the thought of studying again feels a little overwhelming.
I have no idea what I’m going to do when the time comes to find a job. I’m still not sure my life is worth living.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Have you made any friends yet?” Justine asks me during one of my home visits. She comes to visit me once a month now as my progress is very good in her books. I have to show her everything I’m doing, and I have to pee in a cup for a drug test to prove that I’m still clean. But other than that, my life is becoming pretty normal.
“No,” I reply.
“Paige, you need friends.”
“No I don’t. I’m fine on my own. Trusting people is what got me into this mess. I won’t be making that mistake again.”
She sighs and moves on to her next question. “How are your NA meetings going?”
“I haven’t been to one,” I admit, looking down at the toe of my shoe. I know I’m supposed to go, but I just don’t want to spend my nights sitting in a room with people telling me their sob stories – I had enough of that in rehab. There is no way I’m touching a drug again. I just don’t feel like I need to go.
“It’s a part of your program Paige. You have to go.”
“Fine I’ll go,” I lie. I won’t go. I don’t want to go at all. The meetings are anonymous, how are they going to know if I’m there or not?
“That’s excellent,” she grins. “It just so happens, there is one on tonight at the Community Centre. I’ll take you.”
Rolling my eyes, I nod my head. I don’t see a way of getting out of this.
Justine drives us in her car. Out the front I see a sign on the door that says ‘NA meeting inside’. Advertising it seems to take away the anonymity in my books, but whatever, I guess people have to find it somehow.
As expected the meeting is filled with people droning on about their hard lives, essentially making excuses for their drug use. I don’t want to hear it. Each time one of them breaks down and cries over stealing their mother’s jewellery, I want to stand up and scream at them – At least you have a mother to steal from! But I don’t. Of course I don’t. Everyone’s pain is their own. I do understand that. I also understand that talking about it is making them feel better. I understand that they need that.
But I can’t talk. I can’t feel better. No amount of words, no amount of talking, no amount of admitting what I did, is ever going to change anything.
Talking. Talking. Talking. It’s forever torturing me. I hate being here.
Justine sits quietly beside me, as I lean back in my chair and look up at the ceiling. Avoiding all eye contact, I only half listen as they introduce themselves and share their stories. I’m more focused on the ticking of the clock so I can get out of here, than I am on the people around me.
But a voice and a name I’ve heard before brings my focus to the group.
“Hi, my name’s Braden, and I’m a drug addict.”
My head snaps forward so fast, that I almost pull a muscle. Braden! Fucking Braden is here?!
My eyes grow wide, as they land upon the face of the person, I had thought of as my friend. The person who I had grown to care for. The person who betrayed me.
“I need to go,” I say to Justine.
“Paige. You need to stay for this whole meeting, or I’m going to put in my report that you aren’t properly completing your program.”
I fold my arms and sink back down in my seat, then focus all of my anger and hatred into my eyes, so I can shoot it like daggers into Braden. Just looking at him is making my blood boil.
“Hi Braden,” the room choruses, in that deadpan way a group does.
“I started taking drugs when I was about 13,” he starts. “It’s the usual story - I started with pot and worked my way up to more illicit things. At first it was purely recreational, but using made me feel like the rules of the world didn’t apply to me.