The First True Thing

by Claire Needell

  Hannah is somewhere out there. She is an addict, a heartbreaker. But she’s also alone, I think, and maybe hurt, or maybe with someone even worse than Alex.

  It isn’t true, I want to say to Kevin, that you can’t love an addict, that you can’t save a friend. It isn’t true that you can change your life by walking through the doors of some lame brick building in the middle of town. But I can’t speak. And anyway, according to Kevin, I’m not a real person yet. I still have an addict brain. I am a subhuman, an unreasonable beast, a worthless sort of being incapable of human connection. If that’s true of us all, how does any addict get better?

  “Now, stop your crying and write a plan, Marcelle.” Kevin interrupts my train of thought. “You won’t have any real friends until you’re sober at least a month. You probably haven’t had a real friend in years. Maybe you don’t know how to be a friend, or make a friend. That’s true of lots of kids your age. You’d be surprised. So many different kinds of users, using the drugs, using the sex, using the money, you name it. But we’ll find out. We’ll pop the trunk, drain the lubricants, and take that engine apart piece by piece. We’ll see what’s working and what’s not, my friend.”

  I begin to write the words Personal Responsibility Plan across the top of the yellow pad. I’m still crying, so I can’t see what I’m writing. Tear drops mark the paper.

  “Three goals,” Kevin says, and he holds up three fingers. I want to poke his eyes out with my pen, but I keep scrawling, because I can’t wait to get away from him.

  When I finish, he looks at my paper and smiles. “Marcelle,” he says brightly. “Fantastic. You can go to Group now.” He immediately goes back to his iPad as if I were already gone.

  “These are okay, then?” I ask.

  “Since you ask, Marcelle, I’d say those are some piece-of-shit goals, but take them to the Group. James and the others will give you feedback. Maybe your peers will buy your bullshit, but I doubt it.” I stand for a second in the doorway, stunned, not knowing whether to bolt for the exit or drag myself into Group for more abuse. I go to Group, not because I want to, but because the only thing that seems worse than going is trying to explain to Mom and Dad why I ran.

  Seventeen

  I STARE DOWN the hall at the door to the Group room. There’s a small window panel on the side of the door, and through it I can see the top of James’s slightly bowed head. I try to breathe, counting my breaths, and by some miracle it sort of works. I breathe in and out. A few hot tears still run down my cheeks, but I’m not making a sound as I reach for the door handle.

  I can’t panic.

  James, Cyndi, Ali, Maria, and Martin sit around the worn wood table. They have their journals open, all of them the same regulation black-and-white composition books, like the one I’ve left in my cubby. Martin is eating a doughnut and drinking coffee. I’ve hardly eaten anything since breakfast, and the sight of Martin’s doughnut makes me feel faint. Cyndi, I notice as I work my way around to my seat, has a sandwich in front of her. She sees me look at her and gives me a tight smile. It’s the sort of look that tells me she’s making an effort to be nice, not that she actually likes me. “Here, take half,” she says. Before I can say no, she’s sliding half the sandwich over to me on a paper napkin. I say thanks too quietly for anyone to hear, and then James gets up and goes to the back of the room, where there’s a small fridge. “Coke, Sprite, or Diet?” he asks. I say Sprite, since too much caffeine this time of day will probably keep me up. The last thing I need is my mind racing all night, thinking about Hannah, and what might happen next. Each hour Hannah stays missing I feel slightly more numb. I tell myself, there is nothing I can do, not now at least. Right now, I need to be here, in Group, not fucking this up.

  “Okay,” James says, glancing at the clock. “It’s four already. We only have ninety minutes.” Ninety minutes, an hour and a half, is an eternity. I think how long it will take me to get home for my bike and then back to Michiko’s. Can I get to Michiko’s by six to have at least a half hour with Andy before my parents get suspicious?

  “I’d like to start,” Cyndi announces. She sits up straight with her hands folded in front of her, like a grade-school kid giving a report, only she speaks in a voice that’s way too loud for the size of the room, like she’s talking to a hundred people, instead of just the five of us.

  “So, I’m going college visiting with the step-monster,” she says. “Yeah, I know, bad attitude, but you have to cut me some slack, because I need my boundaries with this bitch. I mean, I need to acknowledge she is who she is—a total gold digger, and that’s the situation, and I have to accept it.”

  I wait for someone to interrupt her and tell her she can’t talk like that in Group, but it doesn’t happen. Everyone just nods. It’s weird that Cyndi had her six-monther yesterday, but still seems to need to dominate everything today. Maybe she’s just your typical attention whore after all.

  Cyndi continues, “I have to figure out how to handle all this because, you know, there’s my past with her and I have to be accountable.” Cyndi goes through every detail of her college trip, down to whether she should help her stepmom pay for gas out of the money she has saved up from working at a retail store in Greenwich. My legs start to twitch. I’m supposed to present my goals today. I need to be formally accepted to the Group by submitting my goals and my accountability letter.

  Conditional acceptance at the Center is almost immediate; you get through intake and you’re in. But to be an actual member, you need to have your goals and plans accepted and to present your accountability letter to the Group. Until I get my act together about the accountability letter, my attendance at meetings doesn’t even count toward my six-month rehab course. After I get my Sixer, like Cyndi, I can choose whether or not to attend Group. But as of now, it’s like my three alcohol-free weeks are meaningless. I’m nowhere until I have unconditional acceptance.

  “You should pay her for gas,” Ali says to Cyndi, “but let your stepmom pay for the hotel rooms, because that’ll be way too much, especially if she wants to stay in bougie places.” I’ve zoned out, and when I snap to, I involuntarily shoot Ali a look. He frowns back at me. I can’t believe they’re all taking this crap of Cyndi’s seriously.

  “Have you written anything yet for your sober living contract?” James interrupts. “Are you limiting your search to schools with sober communities?” I tap my feet and sip my Sprite. I stare at the clock on the wall. I repress the desire to yawn. I’m both emotionally drained and jumpy. I want to scream that none of this matters. Who knows what Cyndi will be doing a year from now? Even if she has a plan, who knows if she’ll follow it? It’s like when I’m on a diet thinking about what I’ll look like when it’s over, but then it’s never over, because it hardly even starts. I can see why it matters to Cyndi that she made it through her first six months, but I don’t understand why all these other details of her life should matter to the rest of us.

  It matters that people disappear. It matters that people are not found. My head throbs every time I think about the past twenty-four hours.

  Cyndi nods. “I’m in touch with lots of sober student groups on Facebook,” she says. “There are healthy living options at all my choices. No way I’m rooming with some stoner chick or some Adderall junkie.” She shakes her head and grins. Again, I see the Hannah-like look—the hardness in her eyes, the flash of unexpected anger. You can see in Cyndi’s straight little nose, the light blue eyes, the high cheekbones, the sort of girl her parents must have thought she’d be. Without tattoos and the crazy hair, she’d be a yacht-club type, a summers-in-Maine girl. But the girl she is doesn’t need drugs to show herself. There is something combustible in Cyndi. I wonder without drugs what she uses to cool that fire. I see her glance at Martin, who has added nothing to the conversation. Yesterday, they had seemed close, but today he is disengaged and sullen. I wonder if that’s her thing—playing the guys against each other. Today, it’s James who seems to be winning her flirty glances, her n
ods, her long, deep looks.

  Finally, Cyndi scribbles a few notes in her journal. “Thanks for your suggestions,” she says. “These are great ideas. The money is really important for my family since I basically blew through half my college fund.” Then she turns and looks straight at me. “I stole from my stepmom, you know. About fifty grand.” I feel my jaw drop. I can’t imagine how she pulled this off. A part of me feels like she’s almost bragging, exaggerating even, for shock value—like Cyndi wants to make sure she’s the biggest badass of us girls in Group.

  “She hardly noticed it was missing, she’s such a dumb, rich bitch. But I see now how fucked up I was.”

  James clears his throat. He seems impressed with Cyndi’s magnanimity.

  “It’s pretty amazing what you’ve done in the last six months,” James says. “I just want to give you props on the whole traveling-with-Becky thing. When you got here, you couldn’t be in a room together.” Cyndi looks meltingly at James.

  “Just taking it a day at a time,” Cyndi says, and smiles electrically.

  I think how terrified I’d be to get Cyndi as a college roommate, sober or not.

  There’s a heavy silence as Martin, Ali, Maria and I all eye one another, waiting for someone to start next. Martin runs his hand across his close-cropped head. My throat still feels dry. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to start speaking to introduce my goals. I think there may be a protocol I was supposed to read up on in the manual—some way to signal to James that I’m ready. But just as I get my courage up, Ali breaks the silence.

  “I’ve been having trouble getting focused on school,” Ali says. “I haven’t been gaming, but I can’t sit still. I’m, like, all over the house, bugging my brother and shit, anything instead of homework.” I’m instantly sympathetic, but to my surprise Cyndi and James look stone-faced.

  “I don’t want to have a Group on this again, Ali,” Cyndi interrupts, her face a white mask of annoyance. I’m amazed how quickly she goes from sunny and flirty to out-and-out bitchiness. “I feel like instead of changing, you’re just talking about change. It’s really frustrating.” Ali suddenly looks small and miserable.

  “I know,” Ali says, grabbing both sides of his head. “I know, I know.” To my astonishment, he seems to accept getting beat up on. Then James adds, “If you know, why don’t you change? This is serious, Ali. Maybe you don’t want to be here? Maybe you don’t need Group or the Center if change is not on your agenda?” My heart skips a beat. I can’t believe James has given him this ultimatum.

  Ali looks close to tears. It’s scary to see such a big kid about to cry. It’s bizarre how James and Cyndi seem to be able to do and say whatever they want.

  “I have to think about your feedback,” Ali says. “But this is my issue, I guess. I really miss it. I miss gaming and weed so fucking much. I’m so pissed I can’t concentrate. I just want to fucking hit something.” He shakes his head and scowls. I can feel myself involuntarily nodding. Ali is the first person to say anything in this room that sounds like my life.

  James looks around the table incredulous. “Ali, I can’t believe I’m hearing this from you,” he says. James’s jaw is set. He stares for what seems like several minutes without blinking. I wonder if I’m seeing some fragment of the old James, a flash of the junkie, the kid who had no fear of the needle.

  Cyndi suddenly laughs, a cold, incredulous bark. “It’s really fucking unbelievable. You leave the building right after Group, when you could do all your work right here. This agitation you’re crying about is something you’ve pursued.” She says this last word with strange emphasis, as though it holds a secret meaning. How does anyone pursue agitation or anger?

  “Everyone leaves after Group,” Ali whines. Ali is now crying big, fat man-tears. He wipes them away impatiently, trying to recover, but he’s dissolved into a snotty mess.

  “Has Ali ever asked you to hang out?” Cyndi addresses James. James frowns and shakes his head. “Ali, when I first started here, I asked James to stay after Group almost every night. And he did. We’d watch TV, do our work together, listen to music. Sometimes I just sat and cried.” Cyndi, like James, fixes Ali with a furious stare. It seems like something they’ve agreed between themselves to do, and I start to feel even more nervous. Have Cyndi and James been told to bully us? To befriend people one day and slaughter them the next? Is this part of the program somehow? Or is it something they’ve devised on their own?

  “I hear Ali,” Martin interjects, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe there’s at least one other sane person at the table, someone who will actually stand up to James and Cyndi. “No one told me we could hang out here late,” he adds. I notice for the first time that Martin speaks with a slight lisp and works hard to pronounce every word precisely.

  I begin to think the remainder of Group will go this way, with James and Cyndi taking on Ali and Martin, me sitting here nervously, and Maria mutely staring into space.

  Then James interrupts, retaking control. “I think this Group on Ali’s procrastination issue has turned into a Group on goals in general and the function of peer leaders, which is probably a really good thing. I think we are all ready for a learning moment.” James turns to me. I get a sinking feeling in my gut.

  “I think if anyone here knows what the primary action a person on goals needs to make, we need to make that clear—Marcelle?” I shake my head and look away. Maria gazes at me, and I think I see the slightest smile cross her lips—is she laughing at me, or is she shyly showing some sign of solidarity?

  Cyndi looks impatient and I pray she doesn’t speak. Martin sighs and looks at the ceiling, blinking. “We pursue our goals,” Martin says. He says this bitterly, but James smiles approvingly.

  “Right. Pursuit is active. That’s how we work on our goals. We think about our pursuit all the fucking time. We move on from goals when we’re thinking about them all the fucking time, not when we’ve stopped, not when it becomes easy, but when we know how hard it actually is every fucking day.” James stops. He seems almost choked up, and everyone, even Cyndi, stares, captivated.

  “That’s why you guys have to ask questions. Pursue. You’re too lonely or angry or bored at home, say so. Maybe you, Ali, have the wrong goal?” He pauses and looks around the room. I watch his Adam’s apple rise and fall. James no longer seems like one of us. It’s like he’s not a kid at all, but someone special, someone who somehow knows more than any of us about how to have a life.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t be working on procrastination, Ali, or giving up gaming? Maybe you’re overlooking what you need in your life because you’re so blinded by having to push away what you can’t let yourself have?

  “I think you basically need more love, man. You need to surround yourself with love. That was someone’s goal last year, right? ‘Surround myself with loving friends.’ I think that was Carrie. A really beautiful goal.” Ali has stopped crying, and sits with his head down, nodding slowly. Just when I was convinced of James’s total assholery, he starts talking to Ali about love.

  I glance at the yellow pad where I’ve scribbled down my own goals. I doubt James will find much beauty in them.

  “Let’s have it. You’re up.” James turns his gaze to me.

  I clear my throat. I take a deep breath and then blurt out some approximation of what I’ve written on Kevin’s legal pad.

  “Goal one is do all homework. Two is be more honest. Three is earn back Mom’s and Dad’s trust.” I pause, suddenly wishing I had written more. “That’s it. That’s all,” I say. Martin looks down at his hands. I am met by the blank stares of the others. I think I must have forgotten something, some critical word or catchphrase.

  “I’ve actually really been struggling,” I say hesitantly. “There’s this thing with Hannah. It’s starting to seem serious.” I want them to see how afraid I am, and how I am not using Hannah as an excuse to not have my goals and plan completed.

  They all stare in silence.

  Then Cyndi lets out a bi
g sigh. “This is tough,” Cyndi says, “because I don’t know you, but I have to say, Marcelle, I don’t believe a word you say. I’m so sorry, but to me you sound like every addict I’ve ever met. This drama with your friend, Hannah?” She shakes her head, at a loss for words. “I’m not buying it.” Everyone—even Martin, even Maria—nods. I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach. I want to scream. This isn’t fair. I’m telling the truth!

  “Yeah.” Martin shakes his head, scowling. “You remind me of where I was, like, a month or so ago.” Everyone nods. Martin is the most recent kid to join Group besides me. “I mean, the accountability letter is not even something I know how to talk about. How do you have goals without at least doing a draft of that? This Hannah shit is smoke and mirrors in my book. Something you’d have known if you wrote your AL, or if you’d taken any of this seriously.”

  “That’s true,” Cyndi says. “I think you’re on target, Martin, to question Marcelle’s process. Your goals are really juvenile-sounding, really insubstantial.” James nods sagely.

  “Okay, I think it’s actually not a great use of our time to do a Group on Marcelle’s goals today,” James says. “We all agree they’re bullshit. Let’s check back tomorrow. I think you should use the time to rework your goals, Marcelle. Come back to Group for a review when you’ve completed that step. Also, I think Martin is onto something with your AL. You need to get thinking about that as well. Could be clarifying.” I nod, wiping away tears. The way James is talking makes me worried I’m somehow being demoted back to square one, like in some stupid little kids’ board game where you think you’re moving along, but then one roll of the dice and your progress is obliterated.

  James brings the whole thing to a quick close. “So then, let’s make Group time for Marcelle tomorrow. And Marcelle, I think the goals show that you are, like Cyndi says, still hiding from the truth. You’re not being real with us, or yourself. So, you’re still probationary. Not actually a part of this Group. You should take the rest of this afternoon to think on both your goals and your accountability letter, in whichever order you decide. That’s our feedback, okay?”