Watch Over Me

by Tara Sivec

  I learned a very valuable lesson at that point in time and it is this: how can you tell if an addict is lying? He opens his mouth.

  "So, I was wondering if you were planning on coming up to Family Day this weekend. I need to let my counselor know so she can get you a visitor's pass."

  I walk away as far as the cord will allow so Meg and the customers can't hear me.

  "I wasn't planning on it. I've got a lot going on here right now," I tell him, turning my back to the customers and resting my forehead against the wall.

  "Well, I really want to see you," he replies earnestly.

  "Yeah, I get that. But I just don't have the time. I'm sorry."

  He sighs into the phone again, and I know I've made him angry.

  "Seriously, Addison. You haven't been to one single Family Day since I've been here. I'm the only one in my group who never gets any visitors," he complains.

  I feel the anger bubbling up inside me, and it takes everything in me not to scream into the phone.

  "Dad, it's an hour and a half drive one way. Weekends are the busiest times at the shop. I can't be away that long. You know that."

  "You know what? Forget it. Forget I even asked. I'll talk to you later."

  The dial tone sounds in my ear before I can even reply. I roll my eyes and walk back to hang up the phone.

  My dad is like Jekyll and Hyde. For the most part, when he's clean and sober he reminds me of the man he used to be when my mother was alive—easy going, funny, always helping people out, and hard working. When he's drinking, he turns into a cruel person who lashes out with hateful words and spiteful accusations. Even with all of the therapy he's received, it still hasn't sunk in that all of those words have left their mark on me. Each one sliced into me and took a chunk out of my heart. It's easy to forgive someone for the hurt they've caused you. Forgetting is impossible.

  "What the hell do you want from me?" my dad yelled.

  The smell of whiskey leaking from his pores nauseated me. It was the Fourth of July and I made an appearance at a family cookout even though my heart wasn't in it. He'd been out of rehab for two weeks. Fourteen days was as long as he lasted this time. It was a new record. Last time it was nine.

  As far as I knew, he wasn't coming today. One of the biggest drinking and partying days of the year, next to New Year's Eve, probably wasn't the best idea for a recovering alcoholic, but he showed up anyway. He pulled into the driveway, and as soon as he got out of the car I knew. I could tell by the way he walked, the way he held himself, and the way he spoke loudly to everyone around him. I tried to avoid him. I knew if I got within two feet of him, we'd exchange words and they wouldn't be pleasant ones. When he was drunk, I didn't have any patience for him and he hated everything about me.

  Even though I knew I would regret it, he asked to speak with me privately. I relented, walking over to the side of the house where he waited for me. It only took five minutes of him pleading with me about what he could do to make things better between us before the talk turned ugly.

  "How about staying sober for once. That would be a good start. I'm sick and tired of taking care of everything."

  He scoffed and rolled his eyes at me. "Oh poor you. For once in your pampered life you actually have to lift a finger and get off of your lazy ass."

  His words cut into me like a knife and choked the breath from my lungs. I should be used to the sting of them by now, but I wasn't. I should have learned that there was no use in arguing with a drunk, but I hadn't. I turned and walked away from him, knowing that separating myself from him was the only option at this point. Nothing I said to him would break through the haze of alcohol that had taken hold of his brain and his ability to think clearly.

  "Oh that's right. Walk away. It's what you do best. You are such a bitch!"

  Meg bumps her shoulder into mine and pulls my thoughts away from the past.

  "Hey, that guy that was checking you out left you a note," Meg tells me with a huge smile on her face as I turn around and shut off my switch. She hands me a folded up napkin as I glance to the back corner table that is now empty. I open it and in neat, block letters are the words:

  I laugh uncomfortably and push the note back at her. "I doubt that's for me. I'm sure he meant you."

  Meg glances at the words and then rolls her eyes. She thrusts the note back at me. "Oh please! He didn't even give me a second glance. He only had eyes for you. That guy is the sweetest ever. And you really are beautiful when you smile."

  She bats her eyelashes at me, and I lightly smack her in the arm before she makes a big deal about something that clearly isn't. Meg walks away laughing, and I shake my head at her back. I crumple up the napkin, shove it into my pocket, and get back to work, trying to forget about the cute guy in the corner and why in the world he would ever leave me a note.

  I finally get home from work at ten o'clock that evening, take a quick shower to wash the cake batter off of my skin, and sit down at the desk in my room. I power up my computer and open Facebook, automatically going to her page. I start a new private message to her, just like I do every single night before I go to bed. I know I should have deleted her profile ages ago, but I could never bring myself to do it. Obviously nothing about what I do is healthy, but I don't care. Every time I would hover my mouse over the settings of her page to delete it, my chest would tighten and I would struggle to breathe. Deleting it seems wrong. It would be like deleting her from my life. As much as I hate to think about her, I'm not ready to do that yet. Taking a deep breath and pushing past the pain, I type my post.

  Dear Mom,

  I miss you. I wish you were here.

  I miss you more today than yesterday,

  but not half as much as tomorrow.

  Love,

  Addison

  "Why do you hate going to the meetings so much, Addison?" Dr. Thompson asks as I settle in on the couch and notice a cup of coffee from Panera sitting on her side table. I close my eyes for a moment and pretend like I'm speaking to my mother while she sips her favorite coffee.

  "I just think they're pointless. It's not like I'm getting anything out of them."

  She cocks her head and smiles at me.

  "And yet you keep going back. You keep going back to the same place, week after week, with the same people. I know it's hard for you to go back to that hospital, the place you spent so much time while your mother was sick, but you still do it. Why do you think that is?"

  She sits there patiently, waiting for me to answer her, but I don't have an answer. I honestly don't know why I continue to go back.

  "Even though you won't admit it, I think going to these meetings gives you comfort. It makes you feel a little more normal because you know you aren't the only one struggling with someone who has an addiction. You aren't as alone as you think you are, Addison. Around every corner is a possibility: a possibility of hope, of friendship, of support. This week, try and put yourself out there. Tell them your name, open up to them, give them something. Show them who you are and don't be afraid. No one can help you, no one WILL help you, if you won't let them. For God's sakes, let them help you so I can stop giving you these boring lectures."

  She punctuates her statement with a short, loud laugh exactly like my mother's. For a moment, it's easy to imagine her sitting across from me instead of Dr. Thompson. I would have immediately taken her advice without a second though had it been my mother doling out words of wisdom.

  I pull into the parking lot of the hospital at quarter past eight in the evening and have to wait another ten minutes for an elevator. Regardless of the fact that I absolutely hate these meetings, I hate the fact that they have to be here—the same place where I spent the better part of my last two years of high school. I hate the smells, I hate the sights, and I hate that I continue to come here week after week and subject myself to this torture.

  At 7:50 I was adamant that I wasn't going to another meeting since it was pointless to keep going to something that clearly wasn't helping me
at all.

  At 8:00 I was starting up my car and cursing loudly as I backed out of the driveway of my apartment.

  The elevator takes its sweet time going up and stops on almost every floor. I let out a growl of frustration as it stops on the seventh floor and my eyes pop out of my head when I see who gets on.

  What the hell is HE doing here?

  It's the guy from the coffee shop. The one I pretend to never notice but think about constantly. The one who always smiles at me and who wrote me a note on a napkin. A napkin I swore I would throw away, but now it sits next to my laptop at home, smoothed out from the irritated crumple I gave it.

  His footsteps falter as our eyes meet, but he quickly recovers and smiles broadly at me as he gets on and stands right next to me.

  "Ten, please," he happily tells the woman standing directly in front of the elevator buttons as he shifts his backpack up a little higher on the shoulder he has it slung over. I stare straight ahead at the closing doors, wishing I could make my feet move to run out of there. I refuse to look at "Napkin Guy" even though I can see him staring down at me out of the corner of my eye.

  The elevator crawls up to the next floor and dings its arrival before the doors open again. I silently curse the person who gets on and stands right in front of me, blocking my escape.

  "Fancy meeting you here, Bakery Girl," he finally whispers to me in the crowded elevator.

  Bakery Girl? Did he just call me Bakery Girl?

  I grind my teeth and finally turn to face him, my breath catching in my throat when I see how close his face is to mine. He's about a head taller than me, and he bends down so he can speak without being overheard. I've always noticed how cute he was from a few feet away at the bakery, but being this close to him is distracting.

  "Are you stalking me?" I whisper angrily, saying the first thing that comes to my jumbled mind.

  His smile immediately broadens and he chuckles to himself as he moves in even closer and speaks right next to my ear, his chest brushing up against my arm.

  "If I was, this would be the most boring and depressing place for me to show off my mad stalking skills. This place is sick. Literally."

  The clean, manly smell of his cologne is disrupting my concentration, and his nearness and joking manner make me feel nervous. Aside from Meg, people don't joke around with me anymore. Lately, I don't really have the type of personality that begs to be played with or teased in any way.

  I take a step away from him, forcing me to bump up against the nurse in purple hospital scrubs on the other side of me.

  I hear him chuckle under his breath again as I turn my body away from him and pretend like I am completely engrossed in watching the numbers above the door light up for each floor they pass.

  "Are you visiting someone?" he whispers, close to me again.

  Jesus, he's like a ninja.

  I keep my face straight-ahead and don't acknowledge his question.

  "You're not sick, are you? Maybe I shouldn't stand so close. You might be contagious."

  His jovial demeanor makes me want to look him straight in the eye and tell him that I am indeed sick, but luckily for him, it's nothing he can catch. He's obviously not going to stop until I give him something. Maybe if I'm mean enough, he'll go away.

  "The Stalkers Anonymous meeting is on the second floor. I think you made a wrong turn, Napkin Guy," I mutter angrily without looking at him.

  "Did you just call me Napkin Guy?" he asks with a laugh. "My name's actually Zander. And Stalkers Anonymous is on the fourth floor, and they only meet on days when the person they're stalking is busy or when Creepers Consortium is cancelled."

  As more people get on and off the slowest elevator known to man, I continue to ignore him, even though it's growing increasingly painful to keep biting my lip to stop myself from smiling at his quick comebacks. When the doors take too long to close after the last person exits, he reaches in front of me and hits the "close doors" button, his arm brushing up against me, and I have to force myself not to shiver.

  I glance at him out of the corner of my eye while he stares straight-ahead and hums along to the muzak version of Stairway to Heaven that's being piped through the speakers in the elevator. He looks to be in his early twenties. He's got short, black hair that appears to have been freshly cut by how clean the lines are at the edge of his neck and around his sideburns. He wets his lips with his tongue, and when I manage to tear my gaze away from those lips, I realize he's staring at me again and has caught me practically drooling while watching him. I quickly turn my eyes away and feel a blush form on my cheeks.

  I don't know what he's doing here, and I wasn't really joking when I called him a stalker. While I should probably be nervous that he seems to be following me around, there's something about him that puts me at ease. I've kept myself closed off from people for so long that the feeling of my heart rate quickening in excitement instead of dread is a strange sensation. It should make me happy that something has the ability to do that to me, but all it does is irritate me. I don't need some weird guy trying to get in my pants, which I'm sure that's what this is about. Or he's just a friendly person who will talk to anyone no matter where he is, just like my mother.

  "I've been lucky. I haven't had any nausea at all with the chemo. My sister had breast cancer about ten years ago and it was horrible for her. She would throw up for days afterward. My doctor still gave me a prescription for Zofran just in case."

  I walked up behind my mom who was in a deep discussion with the cashier at Macy's. I pulled my cell phone out of my purse and started scrolling through texts to distract myself from the topic of my mom's cancer. She was having a good day, and I didn't want anything to ruin it, especially my worries.

  "Make sure you tell Dr. Fuller I said hello. She was wonderful. I still get a Christmas card from her every year," the cashier told my mother as she slid the receipt into her bag and lifted it over the counter to her.

  "I will, Debbie. I'll also tell her about your new granddaughter."

  "That would be wonderful. Take care and I will make sure to keep you in my prayers," Debbie, the cashier, said with a kind smile on her face.

  My mom said good-bye and we made our way out of Macy's and head towards the food court for lunch.

  "Where do you know that Debbie person from?"

  My mom looked over at me and shrugged. "I don't. I just met her."

  The elevator stops on Zander's floor before I realize it, and I quickly dig through my purse looking for my phone to busy myself before he tries to engage me in more conversation or God forbid ask me out. It's not until the elevator doors are closing behind him, and I'm still pawing through my purse, that I look up and realize he didn't even look my way or make an attempt to talk to me again before he got off. I don't realize how much I actually wanted him to do something like that until I feel a twinge of disappointment as he walks away from me.

  "See you around, Bakery Girl," he says over his shoulder as I watch the doors close and feel the elevator start to move again with my mouth wide open.

  I'm distracted.

  My mind is a jumbled mess ever since Zander walked away from me in the elevator almost two weeks ago. I've burnt cupcakes, dropped entire trays of cookies, and snapped at Meg, which I never do. She's the nicest person in the world, who doesn't look at me with pity, and I bit her head off about an order that I wrote down wrong.

  I skip the following week's meeting, not wanting to chance running into Zander again with his easy laugh or pretty eyes or the way he completely shocked me by just walking away. Even though I hate those damn meetings, I feel uneasy after missing one. I keep checking to make sure I don't leave the oven on, and I keep patting my pockets to make sure I still have my car keys. After running back into the apartment this morning to make sure I unplugged the iron, I kicked the front tire of my car when I got back outside, frustrated that all of this nonsense is over me feeling guilty about skipping a stupid meeting—a meeting that never helped me and never made
a difference in my life.

  My frustration is the only explanation as to why I am currently stalking over to the table in the corner—the table where Zander currently sits reading the paper. It's the same table where I found six more notes that followed in the first one's wake, each one reminding me that I'm much more beautiful when I smile or trying to fool me with humor like yesterday's note. "Every time you frown, God kills a kitten." I should have known that skipping the meeting wouldn't just make him disappear. And of course Meg has been having a field day over those stupid napkin notes, telling me that it's something right out of a Hallmark made-for-television movie.

  Who the hell does he think he is?

  "Who the hell do you think you are?" I ask angrily as I stop right next to his table and fold my arms protectively across my chest.

  He glances up from his paper and my breath catches in my throat. I was too distracted a few weeks ago by the fact that he was at my hospital in my personal space to notice anything other than how good he smelled or that he was cute. Staring at him now, I notice that his eyes aren't just blue. They're crystal blue. They sparkle as the sun shines in from the window next to him, and incredibly long, dark lashes frame them.

  One side of his mouth turns up in a smile, and a dimple I never noticed before pops up out of nowhere on the lower part of his left cheek. His jaw is smooth and freshly shaven, and he has a small scar above his right eyebrow that I have an unnatural urge to run my finger over. I'm so busy blatantly staring that I momentarily forget my purpose for coming over to his table. My eyes are taking in his soft, full lips, and after a few seconds of ogling them, I realize they are moving and he's answering my demanded question.