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As soon as she steps into the drafty church basement, Laurel becomes very aware that she doesn’t look like she belongs.
There’s a circle of chairs in the middle of the room, half-filled with people of all ages, with sunken eyes and lines on their faces. Most are wearing ratty clothes, their hair tangled. Nearly every one has a scowl on their face.
This isn’t quite as welcoming as the ad had made it out to be. But then again, Laurel supposes that there’s probably no such thing as a welcoming support group for heroin addicts.
It had started a year ago. A boyfriend, the rich son of one of her father’s business associates. They’d met at a fundraising gala, and he had seemed so perfect on the surface.
She hadn’t known about the drugs. Cocaine. Meth. Ecstasy. Heroin. Anything he could get his hands on – which was everything. He’d had money, lots of it, and friends in all the wrong places.
She’d fallen in with them. A sheltered, good little Catholic girl, she hadn’t known better. It had seemed fun at first, just experimenting. It’d only been a bad habit.
Then he’d introduced her to the harder stuff, gotten her hooked, and dumped her – in that order.
“You lost?” a voice breaks into her reverie. “Bible study’s upstairs.”
Laurel turns, and finds a man standing next to her, browsing the selection of cookies laid out on a table. He looks a little out of place too: nice clothes, slick hair, neatly-trimmed beard. Late thirties, at most.
“Uh, no,” she says. “This is the support group, right? For…”
“Junkies?” the man supplies. “What, one of these pieces of work your long-lost pops or something?”
Laurel sighs. “No. I’m here for myself.”
“You,” he echoes incredulously. “You’re a junkie.”
“Not anymore,” she mutters. “And I wasn’t a… junkie.”
He looks pissed off. Apparently, that was precisely the wrong thing to say.
“You did smack? Got hooked? Newsflash: you were a junkie. Still are. You don’t ever really stop being one.” She opens her mouth to protest, but he keeps going. “We don’t get a ton of you around here. Prissy little rich girls who shot daddy’s money into their veins. This’ll be interesting.”
Laurel blinks, stunned. Her eyes start to water. Then:
“Screw you,” she spits, and storms off in the direction of the chairs.
The rest of the meeting is unremarkable. They go around, sharing names – first name only.
The man’s name is Frank. From the way he carries himself and talks to everyone around him, she can tell he’s no stranger to the group.
She doesn’t talk much, beyond introducing herself. Even so, across the circle, she can feel Frank’s eyes on her. She makes a point not to look at him.
–
She considers not going the next week, but finds herself in that musty basement again anyway, eating stale store-bought cookies and sitting in the creaky wooden chairs.
The newcomers get matched up with sponsors, longtime members who’ve been clean for years. For some reason, Laurel isn’t all that surprised when Frank comes striding over to her, holding out a chocolate-chip cookie as a peace offering.
“You’re my sponsor?” she asks, not at all trying to keep the malice from creeping into her voice. “Can’t I request someone else?”
He shakes his head. “’Fraid you’re stuck with me.”
“Why would you even want to help me?” Laurel demands. “If I’m just a prissy rich girl who shot up my daddy’s money?”
“I shouldn’t have said that. I was being a dick.”
“Yeah, well,” she murmurs, taking the cookie from him reluctantly. “The first step to realizing you’re a dick is admitting it.”
He chuckles. “And the first step to realizing you’re an addict is admitting it. Which you still haven’t done, by the way.”
Laurel doesn’t answer. Thankfully, Frank doesn’t press, and instead only takes a seat.
“How long have you been clean?” Laurel asks, after sitting in the chair across from him.
“Eight years. You?”
“Four months,” she says, suddenly feeling inadequate.
“Four months longer than some. Look at it that way. Your folks send you to one of those cushy rehab centers on the beach, with staffers to wait on you hand and foot?”
She looks away. “It was on the beach.”
“I’m not making fun of you,” Frank assures her. “Yeah, you had help, but at least you got clean. Some people never make it that far.”
A moment passes in silence.
“How did you start?” Laurel pipes up, timidly.
“Grew up here in Philly. West side. Drugs were everywhere on the street. I did it for the hell of it at first. Then, I did it because I wanted to. Then I started needing it. Then I did it because I couldn’t stop.” He pauses. “It’s a vicious fucking cycle.”
“W-why’d you quit?”
“My brother OD’d. Then I got arrested. And that was the end of my love affair with good ole’ lady H.”
Laurel frowns. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It saved my life, at least. I started working for the lawyer who got me off. And now I’m here to impart my wisdom to you.”
“And what wisdom is that?”
“Don’t use again. Ever. That stuff’ll kill you, and you’re not dying on my watch.”
The words are grim. Somehow, they make Laurel feel better than she has in months.
–
“Let me guess. It was a boyfriend who got you into it.”
“How’d you know?”
“A smart, good-looking rich girl like you? You had nothing to escape from. Unless you wanted to rebel.”
“I didn’t do it to rebel. I did it because… I don’t know. He didn’t make it seem like it was a big deal. And it felt good, and I didn’t really even realize I’d started needing it until-”
“It was the first thing you thought about in the morning? Not eating breakfast or taking a shower, but getting a hit?”
“You’re good at that, you know. You should be a psychologist.”
A chuckle. “I got enough problems of my own already. Trust me.”
“Like what? You said you’re clean.”
A pause.
“Clean doesn’t mean I’m not still fucked up, princess.”
–
She starts spending more time with Frank.
Being with him helps, because sometimes she feels like a ticking time bomb, always on the brink of reverting back to her old ways. She feels weak, and he always seems so strong. That helps. Maybe if she’s around that strength long enough, some of it will start to rub off on her.
And yeah, he’s her sponsor, but it feels like more than that. There’s an attraction. Too many lingering gazes and heated looks to ignore.
He invites her over to his place one night, and as soon as she steps inside, his lips are upon hers. She kisses back like it’s an instinct, her hands roaming across his chest, pulling him closer. She hasn’t been with anyone but ‘Mr. Rich-Guy-Junkie-Asshole,’ as Frank affectionately calls him, in almost a year.
But she wants Frank. It scares her how badly she wants him. It scares her how she can’t stop herself, because that’s what needing a hit had felt like. It had felt like this.
“We shouldn’t,” Laurel makes herself say. “Sponsors aren’t supposed to-”
“You think I give a fuck what sponsors are supposed to do?”
Their shirts disappear, falling onto the floor. He kisses at the pulse point on her neck, wet and hot and needy.
“I told you I’m clean. That was a lie,” Frank rasps. “I’m still an addict. I just have a different vice.”
“W-what?” she pants, though she thinks she knows the answer already.
“This,” he growls, and all but tears the clothes off her.
–
The sex is almost as good a high.
“Is this what you do to all the people you sponsor?” she jokes one night in bed. “Turn them into sex addicts instead to keep them from using?”
He laughs. “If only it were that simple.”
–
She starts school at Middleton U in August.
She’d only gotten addicted after graduating from Brown. She still has her degree, has a chance to salvage her future. Go to law school. Make something of herself.
She makes it about three weeks. Then, the pressure finally gets to her, and she breaks, and the ticking time bomb explodes.
It feels good to shoot up. Amazing. That euphoric, blissful, incredible high nothing else in the world – not even sex with Frank – can match. In the heat of the moment, she can’t remember why she ever stopped.
The regret only sinks in when she starts coming down. When the achiness and cold sweat and shivers begin. When she realizes that she can’t – and won’t – get another hit to make them stop.
She goes to Frank. She has nowhere else to go.
She’s shivering when he opens the door. Immediately, Frank narrows his eyes.
“Hi,” she greets, forcing a smile through her chattering teeth.
“You’re shivering,” he observes with a scowl. “What the hell’d you do?”
She plays dumb. “N-nothing. It’s just… kinda cold outside.”
“Bullshit, Laurel, it’s seventy degrees.” He clenches his jaw, then steps aside. “Get in.”
With a gulp, she obeys. He orders her to sit down on his couch, and feels her clammy forehead with one hand.
“You used,” Frank bites out when he pulls away, a mix of disappointment and anger in his eyes. “Why?”
“It was… stress. And school, and everything. I-I never stopped missing it.” She lowers her eyes. “I wish I’d never done it in the f-first place.”
He relaxes somewhat, but doesn’t speak. After a moment, Frank disappears into the kitchen, then returns with a glass of water and takes a seat in the armchair across from her.
“Yeah, well,” he finally says, holding it out to her. “You and me both.”
“I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “I’m not as strong as you.”
He furrows his brow. “You think I’m strong?”
Without a word, he rolls up the sleeves of his sweater, exposing his arms. And she’s seen his arms before, of course, but she’s never really looked at them, at the field of scars from collapsed veins and abscesses – faded, but very clearly there.
Shivering, she meets his eyes, and reaches over, tracing her fingers delicately across his skin.
“This is how long it took me to get strong,” he says. “A whole lot of relapses and fuck-ups.”
A moment passes in silence, as his words sink in.
“I was doing so well,” Laurel laments. “I-I ruined it. I’m back to square one. Y-you should be yelling at me or-”
“Probably, but I won’t.” He pauses, looking her up and down. “It’s gonna get worse than this. Way worse.”
Laurel’s shoulders slump in defeat. “I know. I should go, before-”
“You really think I’m gonna let you do this alone?”
She freezes. “What?”
“No way am I letting you leave and go get another hit to make it stop, Laurel.”
“I wasn’t…” she drifts off. “I wasn’t gonna do that. That’s why I came here.”
“Good. And that’s why you’re staying.”
–
It does get worse. Way worse.
Before, she’d detoxed in a posh, thousand-dollar a day rehab center with medication that’d probably cost her parents an arm and a leg. And it had been bad, but not this bad.
She’s achy, restless. Throwing up constantly. Exhausted, but she can’t sleep. Her whole body hurts, all the way down to her bones.
It’s hell. She’s sure even death would be better than this.
But Frank never leaves her side for more than half an hour. He holds her hair when she throws up, and shushes her when she cries, or when she’s shivering so much that she can hardly speak. As the days drag on, she becomes more and more certain there’s no way in hell she would be able to get through this without him.
On the fifth morning, Laurel wakes up in his bed to the smell of breakfast cooking in the next room, feeling markedly less shitty – but still pretty shitty in the grand scheme of things.
She manages to haul herself to her feet and follow the scent of food into Frank’s little kitchenette, where he stands at the stove, spatula in hand.
“Pancakes?” she asks, her voice small and croaky.
He turns.
His eyes soften, and Laurel doesn’t know why. She hasn’t showered or brushed her hair or done anything even remotely related to personal hygiene in days. She probably looks like something straight out of a horror film. She feels filthy, worthless.
He isn’t looking at her like she’s filthy or worthless, though. He never has, not even once these past few days.
“Blueberry,” he answers. “My specialty.”
Wearily, she makes her way over to Frank and comes to stand before him.
“How can you still want to be my sponsor after this? How can you still want… me after this?”
"It’s gonna take a lot more than a few days of the super flu to make me stop wanting you.”
She sighs. “If I was you, I would’ve kicked me out days ago.”
Frank doesn’t answer. He just reaches out and takes ahold of her wrist, looking at the faint scar there with an expression she can’t read.
“It’ll heal,” Frank finally remarks. “You will, too.”
“Frank…”
“Look, I know it doesn’t seem like it now, when you’re coming off a bout of withdrawal and you feel like shit. But believe me. You will.”
Laurel manages a smile, shaky and unsure. “Yeah. I know.”
All the math she’s ever had in school taught her that two halves make a whole. And maybe, Laurel thinks as she lets him draw her into his chest and wrap his arms around her, just maybe, someday their two broken, fucked-up halves can do the same.