Take it All (Blinded by Love) (43 page)

“Jesus, Caleb,” she exclaimed, her hand over her heart that was racing, “you scared the crap outta me.”

“Sorry, baby,” he said as he walked towards her and wrapped her in his arms, “God, I missed you. How are you feeling?”

“I missed you too,” her arms slid around his neck. “I’m feeling okay, still queasy here and there but other than that, better than I was.”

“Good,” he dipped his head down and lightly kissed her mouth then pulled back and looked at her carefully, “You look pale, you sure you’re okay?”

“Fine, traumatized and can never eat pizza again– or at least for a couple months– but other than that, I’m fine,” her arms squeezed around his neck, “promise.”

He pecked her lips,”Okay, we have to go.”

“Where?” she asked surprise, unaware they had any plans.

“Mom found an NA meeting tonight.”

“Oh,” she said louder than she meant to, “okay, let’s go.” She pulled away from him and grabbed her purse off the bed and followed him out.

“Need to take your Jeep, Em’s got my car,” Caleb said turning to her, with his hand held out, smirking.

“Okay no problem,” she looked down at his open hand. “What?”

“Keys please.”

“Oh, you think you’re driving?” she said with raised eyebrows.

He moved into her, his mouth beside her ear, his warm breath caressing her neck and sending shivers over her body, “I know I am,” he said hushed, then took the keys from her hand, “see?”

She glared at him as he walked away with a cocky grin on his face, and held the door open for her. They walked to her jeep hand in hand then climbed in and took off to a church a couple blocks away. Caleb pulled into the parking lot that was full of vehicles. Lennox looked around, biting her lip nervously, not knowing what to expect. She watched as people walked in the side door, one by one, greeted by a man with a beard who smiled at each person as they walked in and then said something that made them smile.

“You ready?” Caleb asked as he turned the jeep off and unbuckled his seatbelt.

She nodded then unbuckled her seatbelt. “Yeah,” she said then folded out; grabbing her purse before she closed her door.

They took one another’s hand and walked up to the side door and followed everyone in, passing the man with the beard as he had stepped away to talk to an older woman. Caleb led Lennox to the back of the room where two seats were open and took a seat.

“Want a coffee or anything?” Caleb asked as he stood back up and looked around the room for the coffee table.

“No, I’m okay.”

“‘Kay, be right back.” He bent forward and kissed the side of her head and walked along the back to the other side of the room where a table had coffee urns along with paper cups, creamer and sugar.

She took her eyes off him and looked around the room. Everyone there looked so normal, that if you passed them on a street you would never know they had a drug problem. The age group varied from a few being young like her and Caleb, some in their mid to late thirties, with the majority being older. Looking at everyone she couldn’t help but wonder what they were hooked on and how drastic each of their addiction was and how long they had been coming to these meeting’s and if they helped.

The guy with the beard stood in front of the room, and waited for everyone to take a seat before he began. Caleb sat next to her with a coffee in one hand as he rested his foot on the top of his knee then slid his hand with hers as the man at the front began.

“Hello, my name is Michael, and I am an addict. Welcome to the Stone Side Group of Narcotics Anonymous. I’d like to open this meeting with a moment of silence for the addict who still suffers, followed by the Serenity Prayer.” Everyone in the room bowed their heads and the room went silent for a few moments. As the moment of silence went on Lennox stole a glance at Caleb in wonder of just how much he was suffering then and every moment of the day.

Her thoughts faded as everyone in the room, Caleb included, said together, “
God grant me the serenity
 
to accept the things I cannot change;
 
courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”

Michael smiled around the room. “We like to extend a special welcome to newcomers. If anyone here is attending their first NA meeting, would you care to introduce yourself? We ask this not to embarrass you, but to get to know you. Is there anyone here in their first thirty days of recovery?”

Lennox looked over at Caleb and squeezed his hand, and motioned with her head when he looked her way. His face was hard and he shook his head once then turned back to the front. She watched him for a second, wondering what was going through his head before she turned her attention back to Michael.

“This is an open Narcotics Anonymous meeting,” he began, “We’d like to welcome any non addict visitors and thank you for your interest in NA. We ask that you respect the primary purpose of this meeting, which is to provide a place where addicts can share their recovery with one another. Also, for the protection of our group as well as the meeting facility, we ask that you have no drugs or paraphernalia on you at the meeting. If you have any now, please leave, dispose of them, and return as quickly as possible.”

Lennox looked around the room in curiosity, to see if anyone got up to leave but everyone stayed seated with their eyes up front on Michael as he went through recognizing people in the room who had been clean for various amounts of time.

“Diane is going to start us off tonight with the reading of a piece from the White Booklet,” Michael said. “Diane?” he gestured to a women sitting to his right then he took an empty seat on the side. Lennox watched as the middle aged women Michael had been talking to when they arrived took the center of the room.

“Who is an addict?” she asked her voice loud and firm, as she stood confidently at the front looking around the room as she held a white book in her hands. “Most of us do not have to think twice about this question.
We Know.
Our whole life and thinking was centered in drugs in one form or another– the getting and using and finding ways and the means to get more. We lived to use and used to live. Very simply, an addict is a man or woman whose life is controlled by drugs. We are people in the grip of a continuing and progressive illness whose ends are always the same: jails, institutions, and death.”

The woman passed the book off to another woman who read from the booklet explaining what the NA program was. When she was done she passed it off to a young guy, who only looked to be a few years older than Caleb, as she took her seat and he took the center of the room.

“Before coming to the Fellowship of NA,” Lennox noticed a small shake in his hands as he continued to read, “we could not manage our own lives. We could not live and enjoy life as other people do. We had to have something different and we thought we had found it in drugs. We placed their use ahead of the welfare of our families, our wives, husbands, and our children. We had to have drugs at all costs. We did many people great harm, but most of all we harmed ourselves. Through our inability to accept personal responsibilities we were actually creating our own problems. We seemed to be incapable of facing life on its own terms. Most of us realized that in our addiction we were slowly committing suicide, but addiction is such a cunning enemy of life that we had lost the power to do anything about it. Many of us ended up in jail, or sought help through medicine, religion, and psychiatry. None of these methods was sufficient for us. Our disease always resurfaced or continued to progress until, in desperation, we sought help from each other in Narcotics Anonymous.” He paused and looked around the room, his eyes falling on the girl who was sitting next to his empty spot, then continued, “After coming to NA we realized we were sick people. We suffered from a disease for which there is no known cure. It can, however, be arrested at some point, and recovery is then possible.”

Lennox didn’t have to be there to know it was a disease Caleb had, she knew it and believed it unlike his parents, who in her mind, should be here learning something as well. It was clear they had never been to a meeting with him or taken the time to actually try and understand what he was going through but instead they just blew it off and thought rehab was the only thing he needed and that it would be a quick and easy fix. It frustrated her and made her angry to hear their remarks replay over in her head, but mostly it saddened her and made her feel like they didn’t see Caleb as important enough to stand by him and help him through it; instead they turned their backs on him.

“Just for today, tell yourself,” Michaels voice sounded, pulling Lennox back to the meeting, “just for today, my thoughts will be on my recovery, living and enjoying life without the use of drugs. Just for today, I will have faith in someone in NA who believes in me and wants to help me in my recovery. Just for today, I will have a program. I will try to follow it to the best of my ability. Just for today, through NA, I will try to get a better perspective on my life. Just for today, I will be unafraid. My thoughts will be on my new associations, people who are not using and who have found a new way of life. So long as I follow that way, I have nothing to fear.”

Lennox’s hand tightened around Caleb’s but she didn’t look at him, only straight ahead to the front. She sat there for the remainder of the meeting listening to everyone who got up and spoke about their personal stories of loss, heartache, devastation and hope. Never in a million years would she have thought she’d spend her Friday night sitting in a room in a church at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, supporting her boyfriend and listening to stranger’s personal battle through hell with their demons. There were stories told she couldn’t wrap her mind around on how they made it out, what they grabbed onto that brought them out of the fire into the light for a second chance. Listening to the last speaker talk she couldn’t help but wonder if one day Caleb ended up at the front telling his story to a room full of addicts in recovery and if his story would help someone, touch them by giving them a sense of hope that everything would work out and that they could fight and win in the end; it’s what she hoped he was feeling at that moment next to her, that someone’s story affected him in some way, shape or form.

She sat with his hand held in hers until the end, when Michael closed the meeting. Once everyone started to stand up Caleb stood and stretched, “Gonna toss this then we can head,” he told her then walked back over to the coffee station and tossed his cup in the trash. Lennox stood and met him half way then the two continued to the door, Caleb pulling her like he wanted to get out of there as soon as possible.

“What’d you think?” he asked her as they walked to her jeep.

“It was interesting. I’m glad I came with you,” she said, sliding her arm around his waist and his slid over her shoulders. “What about you?”

“It was okay,” he said casually.

“Just okay?”

“Lennox, it wasn’t my first meeting and it wasn’t anything I haven’t heard before,” he snapped

“Sorry.”

Caleb didn’t say anything as they got to the jeep. His arm fell from around her and he walked right around to his side and climbed in, leaving Lennox at the back wondering what had gotten into him before her mom’s words came back to her, telling her he was going to be going through changes and withdrawals that likely wouldn’t be a pretty sight. She took a breath then climbed in and no sooner did she close her door did Caleb rip out of the parking lot.

It was later when they had got back to his place. They were sprawled out on his bed, kissing, when Lennox’s hand smoothed down Caleb’s chest to the buckle of his belt and started to undo it when Caleb’s hand grabbed hers abruptly, stopping her and ripping his lips away from hers before he rolled out of bed and stood up redoing his belt buckle.

“Caleb, what’s the matter?”

“Not in the mood, Lennox,” he ran his hand through his hair. “I’m hungry; gonna go grab something to eat, want anything?”

Lennox looked at him surprised. He wasn’t one for turning her down for sex, not in their whole time of being together. “No– are you sure you’re okay?”

He pulled a hoodie over his head and said, “Fine.”

“You sure because you don’t–”

“Jesus, Lennox, I’m fine,” he retorted, “gonna head to the corner store for some chips and pop. I’ll be back.”

Lennox nodded but he didn’t even look at her. He grabbed his wallet and keys off his nightstand then left the room, closing the door behind him. Even though she knew why he was snapping and having mood swings it still hurt to hear the way he talked to her. She knew it would eventually get better and a day would come when his jerkiness would pay off and she knew it would be worth it. But she couldn’t imagine how he was feeling then, wanting something he was used to having whenever he wanted to and it taking a toll not just on his body but on his emotions as well. She knew from the meeting, during one of the speakers life stories, that detox could take anywhere from two weeks to a month for it to be out of his system and she knew it would be a long process not just for her but especially for Caleb. But it was one she would be there every step of the way.