Page 37 of Honeysuckle
“—threw me off a little and it’s been a long time since I craved that smell, vodka…but I woke up this morning and I swear I could smell it in the air. So, I’m here.” I nodded.
“That matters,” Neil said. “You made a choice this morning.”
“I could have just as easily made the wrong choice. I almost did,” I said, and I could feel Cael tighten beside me, holding his breath at my admission.
“There’s no wrong choice, Josh,” Neil said, chuckling when my eyebrows scrunched together in confusion.
“There’s always awrongchoice.”
“There can’t be, not without the presence of a conscious decision. Which is most cases when we wake upneedinga fix, it’s not a conscious decision. It’s exactly that, a need.” Neil stared at me and waited for the words to process.
“Maybe for you,” I replied. “For me it's a decision to ruin everything. Iwantto make a mess, Iwantto destroy everything. Completely conscious.”
Neil nodded gently, sitting quietly in the response without a way to argue back.
That was the problem with these meetings, they did their job to remind me how far I could fall but at what cost. The other members in the room all looked on the brink of relapse except Cael. He stared at me like I was a shiny beacon of hope, and that alone would be the reason I fell from grace.
I pushed from the chair and left the circle without another word. Cael didn’t follow, no one did, as I wandered out into the open air. I jogged down the steps looking up and down the familiar street before I started walking to my right. There was a diner two blocks over but I circled the crumbling concrete sidewalks for nearly an hour before stepping inside and letting the smell of week old grease and onions hit my nose.
Swallowing past the cotton lodged in my throat, I found a booth at the back along the only wall without windows and slid in against the cracked leather.
“Can I get you anything?” A waitress asked from over the counter at me, her dark hair was grayed and pulled up tightly off her old face.
“Just water,” I said, turning away from her to stare at my hands. I pressed them flat against the rickety diner table top and counted the scars one at a time until my breathing slowed down. I slipped my phone from my jeans and set it on the table; it was still vibrating on and off. Mom had called three times since we had been in the city.
“Fuck.”
A plate of fries slid across the table and with it Cael’s dumb fucking face.
“Go away, Cody.” I waved him off and rested my head against the booth, hoping that closing my eyes would get him to disappear.
“Eat,” he urged, “and then tell me what the hell is going on with you.”
“Not hungry,” I said. “Just leave me alone for an hour and then we can go back to the torture camp.”
“You’re always hungry,” he insisted. “So eat—then talk.”
“How the hell did you even find me anyways?” I asked, opening one eye to look at him. His hat was turned backwards over his buzz cut and he had a serious look on his face that was rare from him.
“You’realwayshungry,” he repeated gently. “We never met anywhere but a diner when it was time to talk, and this was the closest one. I’ve been sitting here for nearly an hour waiting for you, for a second there I thought maybe I was wrong, but then I remembered something,” he paused.
“What?” I asked.
“I’m never fucking wrong.” Cael chuckled, a smile forming on his face as he pushed the plate toward me again. “Eat—”
“Talk, yeah, yeah, I heard you.” I shoved a fry in my mouth, hoping maybe just the eating would be enough to get him to leave me alone, but I could tell by the look on his face I wasn’t getting off the hook that easily.
“You aren’t the only one with a shitty parent,” I said to him. “In fact, your dad isn’t even shitty, he's just really bad at communicating…”
“What’s your point?” Cael asked in a soft tone before stealing a fry.
“I grew up down the street, in the run down apartment building behind the church. I could see the iron peaks from the small window in the bathroom.” I stared at the front door, my mind trying to convince my heart to bolt before I told him too much.
“You grew up in Lorette? I thought you were a transfer…” Cael sounded confused and rightfully so. That was what had been told to everyone, but I’d forged the address on my admissions to Lorette.
“My high school teacher, Mr. Campbell, he always said that if I wanted to be someone else I just had to try, so I reinvented myself. I worked hard and got that scholarship. Mr. C let me use his address so that my mail didn’t get stolen by my mom,” I explained.
“She’s clearly your catalyst,” Cael hummed, nudging my vibrating phone and I sighed, flipping it over.
