17
Nix
As the familiar chatter settled down, I stood up and walked to the podium at the front of the room. I gripped the edges of it as I looked out over the people seated in the rows of folding metal chairs.
We had a full house tonight—all thirty chairs filled, and a few more pulled out from storage to accommodate stragglers—faces of all kinds, old, young, men and women, people from Junee and Elkin Lake and even the smaller communities further out. The meeting was held in the basement of a local church, as it had been for years, and even though the fluorescent lights were grating, the tile was ugly, and the tables holding the cookies and coffee were moments away from crumpling, it still felt a little like home.
I didn’t speak every meeting. I didn’t speak at the majority of meetings. I’d been attending for so long, many of the people who came to AA knew my story. I preferred to be there as a sponsor, or a friend, or just a friendly ear to listen to people who were just starting their journeys. But sometimes, when I saw new faces, or when I felt the itch of the old urges return, I’d get up and reintroduce myself.
This meeting was one of those times. There was a weight in my gut, a pain that’d been there since I’d blown up at Dawson.
Well. Blown up wasn’t really the right word. I’d told him the truth, and it was a truth we’d both been denying for too long. I could only hope it was the wake-up call he needed—but that was all I could do. Hope. I knew what it was like to be trapped under the weight of addiction, making bad choice after bad choice, feeling like the whole world was against you and there was no way out. I remembered it vividly.
And I knew that one chewing-out from me didn’t mean that Dawson would be ready to change his ways. There was nothing more I could do. I had to prioritize my own sobriety. Getting up and speaking was the best way to remind myself of how far I’d come, all the work I’d done, and why I’d done it. Sharing my story meant sharing Sienna’s memory with others—people who never knew her, and never would. And it kept her memory alive.
I swallowed. All the eyes in the room were on me. Usually, I was exceedingly comfortable up at the podium, surrounded by people on the same journey, but today, there was a little twist of unfamiliar nerves there, too.
And then, just as I was about to begin speaking, the door opened.
Dawson slipped inside, quietly enough that the folks in the rows of chairs didn’t even turn around.
The words I was about to say caught in my throat. He looked terrible. Still handsome, somehow, because it was him, but he had dark circles under his eyes, his face was pale, and he was dressed like he’d just rolled out of bed. I wondered if he had. He caught my eye, but then his lips twisted into a grimace, brow furrowed, as he turned his gaze to his feet. His shame was nearly palpable, rolling off him, as he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the back wall of the room.
He wasn’t ready to take a seat with the group. That was fine. I remembered doing the exact same thing way back when—creeping into the room late, coming down from a high, and miserable and feeling more than doomed.
He was here. That was what mattered.
“Hi, everyone,” I said, casting my gaze around the room with a smile. “My name’s Nix, and I’m an addict.”
“Hi, Nix,” the group chorused back.
Then I fixed my gaze on Dawson.
He was watching me, eyes wide. I smiled—a small, private smile, just for him, and then nodded minutely. Some of the shame dissipated from his face as he returned the nod.
“I started using in high school,” I began. I’d told this story what felt like hundreds of times—it hurt every time, but in a familiar way now, a way that ached but didn’t linger. But this time, I wasn’t telling my story to anyone but Dawson. And his gaze was focused on me, just as intently as mine was on him. Like there was no one else in the room.
“My high school sweetheart, Sienna”—in the past I would’ve said ‘she was’ but now, with Dawson watching me, I rephrased— “I thought she was the love of my life. We met in school, when we were just fifteen. She was a real sweetheart, came from money, great grades, head of the cheerleading team—everything that should’ve driven her away from a broke loser like me.”
I laughed a little at the memory. When I’d gotten my first car at seventeen, her dad had chased me out of the driveway in his underwear. “But for some reason, we just clicked. Spent every moment we could together. You know how young love is.”
Murmurs of agreement around the room, and from Dawson, too, nodding as he watched me speak.
I sighed. “But her family put a lot of pressure on her, too. And we fell into the party scene a little too hard. It started out with just drinking, but with her connections and money, it quickly became cocaine, and pills, too.”
I pressed my lips together. At the time, everyone had thought I was the one pulling her into the party scene—and I didn’t blame them. I was the ‘bad boy,’ the one with a bad home life and shit grades, and she was the perfect student and daughter. Who would’ve believed me if I had said that she was the one buying the drugs and trying harder and harder things? I’d been following her lead—and trying to keep her safe at the same time. My failure to do so still weighed on me.
“It happened at a graduation party,” I said. “Booze and painkillers. She took too many, and I was too hammered to notice what was happening. And she just. Drifted away.”
And I was the one who’d woken up next to her, on the floor of some football player’s pool house to the sun slanting in over our faces. I’d nudged her—shaken her—tried sloppy CPR from my half-remembered health class. Screamed until someone woke up and called the cops. But it was far too late for her, pale and lifeless on the carpet with her blonde hair splayed out like a halo.
“After that,” I said, shaking off the memory, “I started using a lot, as a way to suppress my guilt and my grief over losing Sienna. I ruined a lot of relationships during those years—with my friends, and my family. Still don’t talk to my parents, or anyone I knew during high school. It wasn’t until I met the co-president of Hell’s Ankhor, Mal, that I had the strength and the drive to get clean and turn my life around.”
I kept my gaze locked on Dawson. He didn’t look away.
“I’ve been clean for six years now,” I said. “Hard to believe. I’ve been in AA the whole time. And no matter how well I’m doing, I know I’ll always be an addict. Part of me will always want the ease of getting high or drunk and erasing my emotions. But—sobriety has given me so much more than drugs ever did. And my sobriety is the way I honor Sienna’s memory. I can’t change what happened—I can’t get her back—but maybe I can spare someone else a similar loss. And maybe…”
This was new. This was a part of my narrative I’d never spoken aloud, because it’d never been true, until now. Dawson blinked hard, still watching intently, and tapped his knuckles against his lips like he was holding something back.
“And maybe, in sobriety, I can find love again,” I said.
It’d seemed so impossible before I’d met Dawson. I was so sure I’d never experience that bone-deep connection I’d felt with Sienna again. But despite everything that had happened between us, I still felt it, pulling me toward Dawson like a physical force.