Little by Slowly: a Story of Love and Recovery

by Paul Hina

get some coffee."

  "That's all you said."

  "That's all I said, yes. And it's the truth."

  "The truth is more complicated than that."

  "It always is," she says.

  "If I were just some guy from AA, you wouldn't be calling me at three in the morning."

  "Really? Three? I didn't know."

  "It's alright. I'm happy you called."

  "I wanted to hear your voice," she says, and she immediately sounds sorry she's said it. "I mean… Wow, that sounded a lot less corny in my head. Now, I'm confusing both of us."

  "It doesn't sound corny to me. I wanted to talk to you, too," Sam says. "Is he still there?"

  "Yeah. He's sleeping."

  "Where are you?"

  "I'm in the kitchen, staring out into the dark," she says, and they let a silent space grow between them, a good silence, just listening to each other breathe.

  "What are we going to do, Jessi?"

  "I don't know. Earlier I was determined to end this—to just stop talking to you—but after tonight… After feeling… I just had to talk to you. I've never felt that way before, like I had to talk to someone. I don't feel like not seeing you is an option I can afford to take."

  "I don't think I would've been able to handle you're not talking to me very well."

  "I wouldn't have lasted—clearly."

  "Well, we're not the only ones struggling with this."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Ellyn called me earlier."

  "Really? About me?"

  "Who else?"

  "What'd she say?"

  "Just about what you'd expect her to say, that I shouldn't be spending so much time with you, that we're perilously close to thirteenth stepping."

  "She said that."

  "In her own words, but yeah."

  "We've got to figure this out, Sam."

  He closes his eyes, tries to let the sound of her voice make a mark on him.

  "I mean, I have to figure this out."

  "What part?" he asks.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Do you mean we need to figure out what we're going to do about AA? Or do you mean that we need to figure out what we're going to do about us."

  "One pretty much feeds the other."

  "I suppose," he says. "Well, you could always go to another meeting, one of the many on campus. Then we could still see each other and there wouldn't be the problem of the gossip or judgments."

  "Yeah, that may solve the problem with the group, but we'd still be left with the problem of us. We'd still be seeing each other."

  "But I want to see you."

  "Yes, but it's not as easy as what we want to do."

  "I think it is that easy."

  "Maybe for you it is. But my whole life is tied up with Michael. I can't just walk away from him."

  "Sure you can."

  "…"

  "Do you want to?"

  "What? Walk away?"

  "Yeah."

  "A part of me wishes I could just wash away my past and start all over, but I'm afraid of what that means, what that says about me."

  "Yeah, well, you'd certainly have to deal with it. It wouldn't be easy."

  "See, something you don't know about me is how much I like things to be easy, how I always take the path of least resistance."

  "Maybe that's why you drink. Maybe you like to take shortcuts. I mean, we're all chasing something, right? Maybe you've been chasing away life's complications, the paperwork of day-to-day life."

  "And what am I chasing now?"

  "The same thing everyone chases when they're trying to start a sober life."

  "What? Stability?"

  "Yeah, but the kind of stability that comes from learning why it is you were drinking in the first place."

  "But how can I find all this out if I've started chasing something else besides myself, besides that stability?"

  "This is why what we've started here is so complicated, so dangerous. This is why Russell and Ellyn are so concerned. It's not just that they're busybodies—though they are—it's that these kinds of emotional attachments get in the way of the tough, personal work everyone needs to do before they can find their way to sobriety."

  "So, if you didn't have an emotional attachment to me, if you were being completely objective about what's been happening these past few days with me, what would you say I should do?"

  "I would say that I don't know what to say."

  "Is there a chance, Sam, that all of this—what's happening with us—is just me desperately looking for something to hold onto? Could I be latching onto you to avoid the—? What'd you say? The paperwork? Am I just… Is this—you and I—is it for real?"

  "It's real for me. Very much. But I can't answer that for you."

  "It feels real. But everything is just too close right now. There's a major part of me that just wants to tell everyone to back off. You most of all. But you're also the one I most don't want to back off."

  "I don't want to back off, either. Even though it feels like everything, and everyone, is against us. Even though you're in your house with another man, a man you're supposed to be marrying soon. Even though everything is stacked against us, you still called me at three in the morning, and I haven't been able to think of anything but you since we've been apart."

  "What are you saying?"

  "Just because everything else is pointing us toward no, doesn't mean we can't still say yes."

  "God, Sam. What are we even talking about here?"

  "I can't ignore this thing, this need I have for you. I don't want to ignore it. I can't sleep tonight because I'm thinking of you, and I don't want to sleep because I'm thinking of you. I'm enjoying every second of this—as painfully uncertain as it is."

  "Well, we can't decide anything tonight. It's late. We're both tired. Lord knows how I'll feel about all of this in the light of day."

  "You've been okay, though?"

  "No, I'm not okay."

  "I'm talking about the drinking."

  "Well, my hands won't stop shaking, and my stomach has felt like its doing somersaults. All in all, I've felt on the verge of throwing up all day, and I can't tell if it's the lack of alcohol or worrying about what I'm going to do about you—how I've been feeling about you. I can't tell if it's a bad sick or a good sick."

  "Well, if you can't tell, then it's probably good."

  "Could be. It feels good now."

  "…"

  "Good night, Sam."

  "Good night, Jessi."

  He sits his phone on his bedside table, turns toward the outside window, and stares out at the moon—just visible, a sliver of white—and he smiles. He tries, but can't stifle a laugh, which, even being alone, embarrasses him as it breaks the hard silence of the night.

  And, truthfully, he feels drunk.

  Sam wakes up at his normal time, reaches over and turns off the alarm on his phone. He sits up, rubs his hands over his tired face, and remembers that he has no job to go to anymore. He has no real reason to get out of bed. And since he only slept a few hours last night, he might as well lie back down and just let himself loaf for the rest of the morning.

  But as he turns toward the morning light, he thinks of Jessi. He thinks of the importance of the day. How they react today, the choices they make today, could affect the rest of their lives. And he realizes pretty quickly, particularly as all the possible scenarios and outcomes of the day play out in his imagination, that he's not going back to sleep.

  Besides, he's convinced himself that one of the most important factors of his sobriety has been keeping a routine, and not deviating too much from his life's daily activities. So, though his job may not be there anymore, he can still take his laptop and go work somewhere else.

  He stands up from bed, and begins to move through his normal morning routine. And with all the day's myriad of potentials chasing him through these traditionally mundane motions, he can't help but feel like he's riding some beautiful hum—hovering on
a buzz—that will carry him out the door and into the world, singing.

  He is staring at the screen of his laptop in a coffee shop around the block from his apartment. There is a wall of code staring at him, a wall that he can not climb. Normally, combing through lines of code is enough to pull him from his own head for awhile. Usually, he can focus on a specific design problem, conceive of a way to fix it, and go about manipulating the code until the fix fits his conception. This kind of work has always come easy to him in the past, and, even on his most hungover days, it has never been difficult for him to push everything else in his life away and focus on a single task. But no matter how long he looks at the screen, he can't convince himself to work. Other than starting his laptop and opening a project, he hasn't gotten a lick of work done. There are too many other codes in his life to decipher. All his design problems seem silly and superficial when compared to his real-life issues.

  His phone vibrates and he immediately answers it without looking at the screen, assuming that it's Jessi.

  "Hello?"

  "Sam."

  "Yeah?" he doesn't immediately recognize the voice.

  "It's Tracy."

  "Oh, hey," he says, and he can feel the awkwardness descend.

  "You didn't recognize me?"

  "I didn't. I don't think you've ever called me before. Chris has always been the one to call."

  "Yeah, well, things will be different from now on."

  "How do you mean?"

  "For one, I'll be the one dealing with you. Chris is going to be taking more of a backseat at the office."

  "But I thought… I guess, after yesterday, I just assumed I didn't have a job anymore."

  "I figured. When I noticed you hadn't come in this morning, I thought I should give you a call."

  "But I hit him. We fought."

  "And you had every right to hit him. I wish you hadn't done it here, but… What's done is done."

  "So, I still have a job?"

  "Are you kidding,