“Wait,” I said and reached out and grabbed her hand. “I’m sorry for being inappropriate. The words just came out before I could stop them.”
“It happens all the time.” She laughed and then looked down at my hand on hers.
“I bet it does,” I said and pulled my hand away.
“I’m joking, Erik. It’s never happened before,” she said as she took another step away from me. “I’m not really the kind of girl who people call beautiful.”
Surely, she was joking. Did Cassidy actually not realize how truly pretty she was? Her clear skin looked like milk; it was perfectly smooth without even the slightest sign of aging. Then there was her red hair. It wasn’t a dull or brownish color; no, instead her hair lit up a room as the lights reflected off of the shiny deep red tones.
“That can’t be true,” I managed to say. “You are beautiful.”
I was one hundred percent sincere. I wasn’t trying to bullshit her and I wasn’t trying to get anything in return, I just really hated the idea that she didn’t think she was beautiful. Cassidy was both beautiful outside and inside; she was the ideal of what men looked for in a woman. It baffled me that such a beauty really couldn’t see what she brought into the world simply by being herself.
“You better get back to your room,” she said as she pulled the door shut.
She didn’t look like she believed me at all, but there was a small smile on her face as she left me on the unit. I was glad to be right where I was. For whatever reason, I was at the treatment center and I finally felt like it was good for me. Even if I just used the time to relax and better myself, that would be at least worth the time and money I was putting into it.
There was a new sense of purpose as I went back to my room and crashed on the bed. Somehow, my embarrassing incident with Cassidy had just motivated me to make a little effort and participate. What was the worst that could happen if I made an effort and participated during my treatment at the facility? I didn’t really see a down side, except maybe lack of sleep from getting up so damn early.
Lunch in the dining room, afternoon group therapy, evening individual therapy – I went to it all. I didn’t always participate, but I made more of an effort than I had since arriving. Even my conversations with Jarrod during my individual therapy were much deeper than they had been before. There was still a wall up around me, but I felt like I was in letting people see a little bit of me.
“Erik, we are doing an AA meeting tonight; why don’t you join us?” Jarrod asked as he gathered up a few of the patients.
“I’m not really into that.”
“You’re not into what?” Jarrod asked.
He wasn’t asking sarcastically; he genuinely seemed to want to hear what I had to say about AA meetings. The truth was, I didn’t know all that much about them. What I thought I knew was that everyone stood up and admitted to being alcoholics and then prayed to God to forgive them. I didn’t have anything against people who went to AA meetings, they obviously had helped a lot of people, but it wasn’t really my thing.
Religion had never been my thing. Well, before my mother passed away, we had gone to church, but very infrequently. When Mom was sick, we went almost every Sunday. I prayed for her to get better; my brother and father prayed for her to get better. But God clearly wasn’t listening to our prayers because she died.
After my mother’s death, religion no longer had a place in my life. I didn’t have time to pray to a God who wouldn’t listen to me. I didn’t have the energy to think that someone was going to make things better for me. Instead, I took on the mentality that only I could make life better for myself. I couldn’t count on God, I couldn’t count on my family; the only person I could count on was myself.
“You know, all that religious stuff,” I replied.
“Hey man, I understand. I’m not all that religious either. Why not give it a try and if you don’t like it, you don’t have to come back next time. We only meet a couple times during the week. It’s not a required meeting, so you won’t lose points or gain points based on attendance.”
Normally, I would have said no. Hell, even if he had asked me earlier that morning I probably would have said no. But I had spent the whole day participating in groups and meetings and I just figured what could one more meeting hurt? I was on a roll and decided to give it a try.
“All right, I’ll come, but I’m just going to chill, if that’s all right.”
“You can participate as much as you want.”
Jarrod seemed pretty proud of himself for luring me into coming to his AA meeting. I wanted to tell him not to get so damn excited; I wouldn’t be going to any others, but I decided to just sit quietly and see what happened. He was a good guy who clearly wanted to help me.
“Hey, everyone, I hope your night is going well,” Stan said as he got up and started the meeting.
It was a bit of a shocker to see Jarrod sitting in the seats and Stan up front leading, but I just went with the flow. I didn’t know what to expect at one of these meetings.
“I’m Stan. I’m and alcoholic, it’s been twenty-eight days since I had a drink,” Stan continued on.
“Hi, Stan,” the group said in unison.
“Tonight, I wanted to talk about a phone call I had with my daughter. It went really poorly. That’s putting it lightly. Actually, she cried and screamed and told me I was a horrible father to her during her entire life.”
Stan looked down for a moment to compose himself. I hadn’t seen much emotion at all from the man since I had been on the unit with him. He normally kept pretty much to himself and didn’t interact much more than the usual pleasantries. I felt bad that his daughter would say such horrible things to her own father.
“You know the part about the call that hurt me the most though?” Stan asked as he looked back up at the group. “She was right. Every single word she said was exactly right. When she was young, I was on tour. I barely stopped back at home. My wife, well my ex-wife, finally got sick of it and left me.