“Davis?”
Mr. Williams was one of the four guidance counselors at his school, and by a stroke of luck (or the crappy karma he deserved), he was also Davis’s sponsor through the NA program.
“Mr. Williams.” A perpetual hippie in a modern society. When Davis had first started meeting with him, he’d thought that he was a complete poser, but the more he met with him, the more he realized he was just forgetful about the minute details of day-to-day life. Mr. Williams also frequently forgot to wear socks.
“What’s up?”
“Alexis hit me up for money and dope.” There was no way to ease into this conversation. No starting with small talk or a general check-in. “And it pisses me off so much that it almost makes me want to use again.”
“Funny how that happens.” Mr. Williams didn’t have wizened eyes or brows that arched with question. He looked sort of tired, eyes dropping at the sides, and he constantly pinched the bridge of his nose.
“It’s such trash.” Davis pushed at his temples with his fingers, trying to burrow into his brain, maybe scrape out the part of his mind that demanded a release only found in a high. “I don’t want to use. I don’t want to be that guy again, but it feels like it would just be so much easier.”
“Probably not, though.” Mr. Williams gulped at his coffee. Davis knew from the time he spent with him that it was either black or loaded with so much cream and sugar that you couldn’t taste the coffee. Nothing in between. “How many days sober are you, Davis?”
“229. I’m still going to at least one meeting a week.”
“How is it going?” Mr. Williams’s lips thinned, pressed into a line.
This was a tricky question. He didn’t miss the high nor the drugs. He missed the ease of his life back then, when his only struggle was getting his next high, not constantly convincing himself that he enjoyed being sober. “There are good days and bad. I miss the drugs like I miss having cancer. So, in other words, not at all.”
“Remember that your journey is not over. Addiction is a disease, and like your cancer, it’s something you have to keep a check on and keep working at.”
“Yeah. I don’t plan on using again.” And he didn’t, but that didn’t mean the sharp desire didn’t often fill him in painful ways.
“I wouldn’t be truthful if I didn’t remind you that relapse and struggles are symptoms of your disease. Not failures, just part of it. I’m not saying you will relapse or that you will always want to use, but it’s just part of it.”
“I hate to think of it.” Trying to digest the reminder made Davis feel like he had swallowed a brick whole. The sharp edges and rough sides were sitting in his throat and he was painfully working them down into his stomach, where the brick would sit until his insides finally gave up.
Mr. Williams pushed his readers down and peered at Davis over them. “Your teachers are pretty impressed with what you’ve been turning in lately.”
“I do want to go to college.” Davis pulled at the thread in his jeans.
“Your probation is about up.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a couple weeks left on my community service.” Davis looked up at him and then back down at the floor. “Do you think the hospital would let me continue to stay on after my hours are filled?”
“You mean as a volunteer?”
“Yeah.”
“Dr. Henderson has said that you’ve been really great around the oncology clinic lately.”
“I talked to him about it last week.” Davis studied his knee intently, looking for words that never seemed right. “I think it’d look good on my college transcripts.” Davis glanced up, almost afraid to see Mr. Williams’s reaction. “My grades from last year aren’t as good as they could have been, and volunteer hours might help a little.”
“The community service we set up wasn’t the epic fail you first said it would be, huh?”
“It turned out okay. Dr. Henderson isn’t quite the tool I said he was.”
“If I remember, you had another, not quite as tactful name for your oncologist.”
“I didn’t want him to give me grief about how he worked really hard to save my life and then I was ruining all his work.”
“Did you come up with that all on your own?” Mr. Williams laughed.
“Are you kidding? He still reminds me how I almost destroyed myself, and I’ve been clean for seven months.”
“Remember why you got sober.” Mr. Williams spoke softly, his thin, lined face growing serious. “Remember what sobriety means to you.”
“Life.” Davis laughed a little desperately. “Staying sober means I get to live my life.”
“What’s something else?” Mr. Williams prodded. “Something tangible.”
“Seeing my parents start to trust me again.”
“That’s true. But, what’s something that’s just for you?”
Davis sat in the fake leather chair and thought about his counselor’s question. What was something that Davis got back for being sober? Yeah, being healthy and living were great things. He liked the fact that his mom no longer had that constant worry line between her eyes. Without thought, his fingers found a small, round coin in his hoodies pocket. It had the words “Be Brave” etched into it, a reminder.
“Camp,” he finally said. “I can go back to Camp Chemo if I’m clean.”
“I’ve heard you talk about camp.” Mr. Williams leaned back, his loafer flipping off the bottom of his foot. “It’s just for kids who have cancer.”
“Or had it.” Davis loved Camp Chemo. “I want to go back to camp.”
“Then remember that when it gets hard.” Mr. Williams scratched the back of his head. “It’s not something that just goes away.”
“Right.” Davis nodded, not saying more because he could still taste it. Like a phantom pain for a limb that was gone, the high pulled at him.
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