There was a thickness in Duncan’s voice that made my eyes burn and my throat ache. What Duncan said poked at the entire belief I’d spent years living that the only thing stopping me from using was keeping my life predictable.
I turned to the tons of applications on the desk. So many people looking for a change, people who needed the opportunity to try. Walt wanted to be clean.
“Okay, so he’s not picking up his phone. How many hits does he get before he’s out?”
“We’re not going to terminate him because he’s not answering his phone, I promise.” Duncan patted my arm, and I looked up at him. “But I also can’t keep him on the payroll if he’s not reliable.”
“I know. Just let me know if you find anything out?”
“I will,” Duncan said with heavy promise in his voice as he pointed to the door. “Hey, I know you haven’t been doing the onboarding stuff long, but it can get a bit intense at times. Wanna take a long lunch break together?”
“For real for real?” I asked, my eyebrows flying up. Duncan laughed as he nodded, and I shot up from my chair. “Bro, say less. My eyes were crossing from reading and thinking too much.”
“You’re doing great,” Duncan said with a sincerity that made me feel appreciated. “How do you feel about sandwiches?”
We ended up at a place Duncan loved, a local joint that served locally sourced bread and ingredients. It wasn’t until I was about three bites into my sandwich that he asked, “What did you get into while Chance and I were gone? Aside from hanging out with Tristan and Kurt.”
I froze with my sandwich halfway to my mouth. Oil began to drip down the side of my hand, and I sat it down, grabbing several napkins from the dispenser and wiping up the mess.
“I went to Astral Motion.”
“Alone?”
I shook my head, balling up the napkin and tossing it on the table. “No. With a group of people. You don’t know them. Well, not all of them.”
“So, I know some of them?” Duncan asked, amused.
I pulled my Styrofoam cup of Diet Coke toward me. “You know one. Micah.”
At this, Duncan’s eyebrows flew upward. “I didn’t know y’all knew each other.”
“We didn’t. I mean, not before a month ago. We met at the party Destiny threw for Jonah’s grand opening.”
Of course, my brain took this opportunity to remember that night I’d met Micah, the way he took my breath away the first time I saw him. How he took me back to his apartment and turned me inside out. I sucked down my drink to cool off the heat on my face.
“Ah,” Duncan said, with a tone of understanding, and that only made me want to bury myself alive even more.
“It’s nothing serious,” I said, but it felt all wrong to say that, like I was lying. Maybe it’d started that way, but it didn’t feel like much of a hookup anymore. But I didn’t want to go making assumptions and an ass of myself in the process.
“That’s okay,” Duncan said, and I knew he meant it. “Did you have fun?”
“Yeah, for the most part. There was this chick I used to party with who saw me there and offered me some stuff. I didn’t take it, of course.”
“I figured.”
I began to bat the napkin back and forth between my hands. “Yeah, well, that’s cool you have that much faith in me, but I didn’t until that moment. Like, I’ve been clean for five years, and I still worry that it’s a possibility.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being vigilant. That’s why you have a support network in case it does come up or you’re thinking about it. But it shouldn’t stop you from trying new things or doing things you used to do every once in a while.”
“See, you say that, but how many people have we seen at work that fall off the wagon?” I said, slapping my hand over the balled-up napkin. “I’m not much different than them.”
“But what about the people who come and work at Sunrise and then never touch drugs again? Ever think maybe you’re like them?”
That was a tough one. Duncan had said that to me before, countless times. For a long time, I didn’t think that I had much going for me outside of keeping myself above water. Then Micah came crashing into my life and made me feel alive for the first time in five years.
“No, I hadn’t, but maybe I should,” I whispered, too scared to say it any louder in fear that this moment would shatter.
“I’m really proud of you, Nik,” Duncan said, hazel eyes shiny, his voice holding emotion I’d never heard before.
I pushed his sandwich basket at him and cleared my throat. “Let’s finish this up because someone’s put me in charge of the new hires. Which, still ain’t sure if it’s for me, but that’s a convo for another day.”
“I look forward to it,” Duncan said with a laugh.
We finished our lunch and headed back to Sunrise. Duncan talked about some waterfall that he and Chance found when they went on a hike during their weekend away and about a pretty outlook they’d found together.
It was nice to get away for a bit. But when we got back, Walt had called and left a message saying he wouldn’t be able to make it to work on Wednesday.
I checked my phone to see if he’d texted me back, and he hadn’t. I wasn’t really the praying type, but I took a moment to put out as much energy as I could into the universe, hoping that wherever Walt was, he could remember he wasn’t alone.
MICAH
My Sundays had lost purpose.
Due to a charity event taking place in our usual spot for the support group, we had to squeeze into a smaller, musty room with a faulty window air conditioner that wheezed and sputtered, struggling to provide any relief from the heat. We couldn’t even move without bumping into each other and leaving a lingering stickiness on our skin.
That was paradise compared to listening to the same questions week after week, from people looking for explanations when there weren’t any to give, begging for solutions to problems that would never go away. The few who had already accepted everything sat here to find how to live with it.
