Friend Is a Four Letter Word (15 page)

“Yes, ma’am,” I say. I’ll never lose the Southern manners, no matter how long I live on the West Coast. Plus, ladies like Jane love that shit.

“Everything going okay? You were quiet this morning,” she says.

“Everything is great,” I tell her.

“Alright now, handsome, don’t get cocky—don’t get complacent,” she says with a wide grin. I’m lucky to have wound up with Jane in my corner. She used to own a bar with her husband, till he drank all of the product and left her bankrupt and alone with two small kids. She had no choice but to get sober. She makes me realize I have no excuses. Jane had every reason in the world to want to curl up into a ball and cry about the unfairness of life into a bottle of Makers Mark. But those kids, they meant enough to her to make her get out of bed every day and swear it’d be a better day than the last. She tells her story almost every meeting, but I never tire of it. And when she gave the abbreviated version this morning, I was hearing it again for the first time because for once, I came even slightly close to understanding that drive—that motivation to pull yourself out of bed and come to these awkward as hell meetings, to really try to get better because there’s not only you that you want to be better for anymore.

Shayna
.

I want to be able to tell Shayna everything. I want to tell her about growing up in my house. I want to tell her about the forty-eight-hour bender I went on and how I fucked up my test last year. How I don’t know how I got home afterward, but my car was out front so I must have driven and how that makes me sick to my stomach every time I look at my Jeep knowing I could have hurt someone else that day. How I never want to be that person again. How I never want to hurt her.

“Not complacent, Miss Jane. Just happy. Confident things are going to be okay,” I say.

“You remember what we talked about though in the meeting? You understood it?”

“Yes ma’am,” I say. I love talking to Jane, but right now, I want to grab coffee and croissants and slip back into my apartment and have breakfast in bed with the delectable woman I left snoring softly. “Character defects, I’ve got plenty,” I say with a laugh.

“Don’t we all, Carter.” Her smile is warm, but cautious. “I just want you to be careful. Just because the drive to drink is gone, doesn’t mean that all of those vices and triggers have lifted away as well.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Miss Jane. I appreciate it.”

“Okay, dear.” She pats my hand with hers. “You call me anytime, you know.”

“I know,” I say. I pause because I know she can’t leave without giving me an inspirational AA slogan as a goodbye. She does it every time. She says goodbye then calls after me,
“Expect miracles!”
or some other nugget of wisdom that she wants me to ponder or carry with me.

“Oh and Carter?” she calls.

I grin, knowing it was coming. I look over my shoulder and say, “Yes, ma’am?”

“We are only as sick as our secrets. Keep that in mind.”

It wasn’t one of her usual goodbyes, that’s for sure. No,
“Live in the NOW!”
or
“There’s nothing so bad a drink won’t make it worse.”

I feel like I’ve been hit by a semi as I walk to my car. We’re only as sick as our secrets. What the hell was that? The more secrets I hold, the sicker I am? Sicker than when I was drowning myself in case after case of beer every night? The truth shall set me free and all of that bullshit?

I push past the group of smokers that are huddled around the cigarette receptacles, trying to get their last drags in before they leave.

I say goodbye to a few more people from the meetings as I nervously flip my keys around my index finger. I almost drop them spinning them too fast. But that’s not what stops me dead in my tracks.

It’s the petite blonde making a mad dash for her car.

The car I drove last Christmas Eve.

No way.

I’m sitting in Carter’s apartment, literally twiddling my thumbs. It’s been almost two hours since I tore out of the parking lot, hoping he didn’t see me.

When I woke up this morning just as Carter was getting dressed, my first thought was that he was maybe going to get breakfast, but then I had another thought:

What if he was going somewhere that would explain his erratic behavior?

And I had to know. And maybe it was overstepping the boundaries that Carter talked about last night, but I don’t care. He dug deep into me, exposed scraps that had never seen daylight. He listened, he understood, he accepted me—but for some reason, whatever he’s hiding—he won’t give me the chance to do the same.

I didn’t find anything out. I watched as a crowd of people filtered out of a Community Center. Maybe he’s doing some sort of outreach? Taking a class? Why wouldn’t he say that, though? When I finally saw him leave, he was talking to a little blonde. I have no idea what they were talking about, but it suddenly hit me what a huge intrusion it was for me to be there. So I bolted.

He’s been gone for so long that I start to wonder if he’s actually coming back at all. I had this feeling that if he saw me, he’d be so angry at me for spying on him that he’d hate me. Why didn’t I think about that before I left? He should be back by now.

The door clicks open and Carter walks in holding two cups and a white paper bag.

“Here’s some coffee and bagels. I got a little of everything, wasn’t sure what you liked,” he says. His tone is curt.

“Thank you. Coffee sounds great.”

I start to get up off of the sofa, but Carter rounds the back and sits down across from me in the armchair.

He clasps his hands together and points his fingers up like a steeple, like we used to do as kids with the rhyme about the church and the steeple and leans forward, resting his mouth on the tips of his fingers.

“Please tell me you didn’t follow me,” he says. He shakes his head and lets out a chuckle—not a happy one, one that is dripping with disappointment and maybe even anger.

“Tell me that you had a killer craving for convenience store nachos for breakfast, and that every store that you stopped out in the entire county was out of cheese sauce except for the place across the street from the center I was at.” Carter says. His eyes are fixed on the coffee table, and I can’t help but feel a wash of cowardly relief because they are so intense that I don’t know what I’d do if he looked at me right now. “Tell me that you were scoping out the pottery class down the hall. Tell me that you ran out of gas on your way to an early bird sale and you couldn’t make it across the road, so you pulled in and coincidentally saw my car. Tell me whatever the hell you want, just please,
please
don’t tell me that you followed me, Shay.”

I pull my suddenly quivering bottom lip in. Carter finally looks up and he doesn’t look angry like I thought he would. He looks hurt. Devastated. I want to tell him those things; I want to lie if it’ll make him feel better.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“So you followed me,” he says, stating the obvious.

“Clearly I’ve stepped over another line that I shouldn’t have,” I say. “I should go.”

I reach into my purse and fumble for my keys, but Carter reaches over and closes his hand over mine.

“No, Shayna. You wanted to know what was going on so badly that you got in your car and drove across town to spy on me? Fine, then let’s talk.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. I interlock my fingers and stare down at them, unable to meet Carter’s eyes. “Is that what you’re doing? Taking some sort of class?”

“No.”

“That woman…” I don’t even know what I want to say. What’s my business and what isn’t. I’m sleeping with him. I’m sort of living with him, but I don’t have any idea what’s actually going on in his life.

I want to go back to lying in my bed. A little buzzed, a little high on the endorphins of talking to Carter. Him on the other end of the line listening to my inane stories and laughing along with me. I don’t want this moment. I grip the sides of the chair to keep from standing up and pacing. That won’t help me right now.

“Is my sponsor,” Carter finishes for me.

“Your sponsor?” I try the words out, hoping they’ll make more sense if I say them out loud. “Is this? Are you… are you in AA or something?”

“Surprise,” Carter says, his voice devoid of any flourish or glee that usually comes with that statement.

“But I don’t understand,” I say, thinking back over moments with Carter. “You brought beer camping, You have beer in the fridge and liquor—”

“Stupid? Yes. Necessary? To me, yes. No one knows, Shayna. No one until today.”

“Until I followed you.”

Carter doesn’t respond. “I know I owed you an explanation after all my sneaking out, Shay. That morning on the beach—I wanted to stay there so damn bad, but something in me just told me I needed to go to a meeting. I know that we’re getting closer. But AA—this wasn’t something I wanted to be backed into a corner in order to confess.”

“Of course not. I understand. I screwed up.” I say. This is a real problem. A grown-up problem. Not a problem created by a selfish girl who feels a little sad. I feel like I just proved everything my parents said about me correct. “So those boundaries…?”

“It’s sort of frowned upon to get involved with anyone when you’re still early on in the program.”

Everything clicks into place. How pained Carter looked when he declared we could only be friends. How conflicted he was when I pressed for more.

“I was going to tell you,” he says. “I just—”

“You don’t have to explain, Carter. I’m an asshole. You don’t owe me any explanation.”

Tears prick at the corners of my eyes. Things with Carter were just beginning and I’ve already managed to screw them up. I don’t know that there’s a way to fix what I’ve just torn apart.

Shit.

“Listen,” Carter says, running his hand through his hair. “I’ve got a ton of work to do. I think I’m going to head into the office for a couple of hours.”

“Okay,” I say. “I guess… I think I’ll head over to Quinn’s.”

I stand up quickly and Carter catches me by the arm. “Shayna, that’s not necessary. You can stay.”

“I… I think it’s better if I go. I really am sorry,” I say. “I know how hard it is to trust sometimes and what I did… I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You’re right, “ he says. “It’s probably better that way.”

He shoves his hands into his pockets. There’s nothing left to say right now, I fucked up royally.

No wonder Carter was asking for boundaries. He should have asked for triple reinforced steel when it came to me.

“Hey,” Quinn says as she pulls the door to her apartment open. “Was wondering when you’d be coming over.”

“It’s not even noon, Quinn,” I say. Quinn is already dressed in a pair of drawstring cotton pants and a white tank top. Her long brown hair is pulled back into a ponytail. She looks effortlessly beautiful, just like she always has, even on her bad days.

“I know,” she says, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hand. “I’ve been up since before sunrise, though.”

I laugh. “Not waiting on me, I hope.”

“Hardly,” Quinn says. “Do you want coffee? I can brew another pot.”

“I already had some, thanks.”

“I drank an entire pot myself this morning. Ben woke me up before he left and I couldn’t get back to sleep.”