Read Online I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl by Kelle Groom - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Kelle Groom
Ads: Link
few minutes. At the very least, people are still milling around. I can find someone to talk to before I go home. It’s good for me to have one place I can rely on, that feels like home. Sometimes, sitting in a meeting, I don’t really hearwhat’s being said. I just read the steps numbered on a laminated poster by the front door. If I’m late, and the room’s crowded, that’s where I sit, squeezed in between people. Safe. It’s best if I can get a seat further in, in the middle of things. Otherwise it’s too easy to be scared at the end of the meeting, and just rush out the door to my car without talking to anyone. But I don’t want to go out drinking again. The release isn’t worth that pain, the risk of having other people control me. The worry that if I drink again, I’ll die.
There’s an inner room where a second meeting is sometimes held. It’s good for me to sit there. I have to pass by a lot of people before I get outside, lots of chances to say hello, hug someone. My favorite part is when I get to hold hands with two people at the end of the meeting. Everyone does it. We say a prayer together. I love it. Sometimes the two people whose hands I hold are the only people I touch all day. Except for handing back change at the store, touching someone’s palm with my fingertips.
One Saturday night, before a meeting, a little girl comes up to me, the daughter of an alcoholic. She’s five. I’m sitting at a round table, talking to a mountainy guy. The little girl and I have crayoned together before, and she’s played hide-and-seek with my purse. But this night, she puts her arms around me and is touching my arm, asking, “How did you get your arms to be so soft?” Before she touched me, I could have been a ghost. I could have floated away.
If it’s a school day, I go into work later, to close. But sometimes I’m free and can go to the 6 p.m. and the 8 p.m. meetings. The recovery house is at the center of my life. For once, I don’t go into bars at all. After meetings, at home, I write until late at night on my new typewriter. I start running again, in the mornings, on the weekend. My mom likes me. She’s calmer, softer. I’ve always loved her, even when she was so hard. At the university, I’m taking a class on the English novel and a writing class.
At 42 days, I did risk drinking. Rachel called. I used to work with her at Dino’s Pizza, my first job in Florida, at eighteen. Going out with her was always trouble because it was never just alcohol. She’d always have drugs too, and the mix made things unpredictable, but I agreed to go to a bar. I didn’t plan to drink. Luckily, when I arrive at her house at 11 p.m., she’s taken Valium with whiskey and is too wasted to do anything. There’s a strange, skinny guy in her kitchen. She wants me to go out with him, but I don’t. I go home. At 64 days, I go out with the sisters I drank with the night of my abduction, rape, almost-murder. I feel so uncomfortable in the bar with them, not drinking. It feels as if I’m in the wrong place.
At 68 days without a drink, Sophie’s back. She calls, suggests we go to Bill’s bar. I say okay. Bill there, all in white from a wedding. He said, “I want to know your every move.” When I’m 74 days sober, Bill says he loves me. He drinks. Sophie drinks. But neither of them wants anything to do with me if I’m drinking. I’m still going to meetings, but now I’m going to the bar too. Pretty often. When I have 76 days, one of the barbacks said, “You’re Bill’s girlfriend.” But it’s never just me. At 80 days, Sophie tells me, “You better just forget him—he left with that Susan girl last night.” It’s not just Susan either. Now, at nearly 180 days, I still see him once in a while, but go out with other men. He’ll never be my boyfriend. At the university, my creative writing teacher tells me that if I don’t drink I can be an assistant at a writers’ convention in Winter Park. I’d like
There’s an inner room where a second meeting is sometimes held. It’s good for me to sit there. I have to pass by a lot of people before I get outside, lots of chances to say hello, hug someone. My favorite part is when I get to hold hands with two people at the end of the meeting. Everyone does it. We say a prayer together. I love it. Sometimes the two people whose hands I hold are the only people I touch all day. Except for handing back change at the store, touching someone’s palm with my fingertips.
One Saturday night, before a meeting, a little girl comes up to me, the daughter of an alcoholic. She’s five. I’m sitting at a round table, talking to a mountainy guy. The little girl and I have crayoned together before, and she’s played hide-and-seek with my purse. But this night, she puts her arms around me and is touching my arm, asking, “How did you get your arms to be so soft?” Before she touched me, I could have been a ghost. I could have floated away.
If it’s a school day, I go into work later, to close. But sometimes I’m free and can go to the 6 p.m. and the 8 p.m. meetings. The recovery house is at the center of my life. For once, I don’t go into bars at all. After meetings, at home, I write until late at night on my new typewriter. I start running again, in the mornings, on the weekend. My mom likes me. She’s calmer, softer. I’ve always loved her, even when she was so hard. At the university, I’m taking a class on the English novel and a writing class.
At 42 days, I did risk drinking. Rachel called. I used to work with her at Dino’s Pizza, my first job in Florida, at eighteen. Going out with her was always trouble because it was never just alcohol. She’d always have drugs too, and the mix made things unpredictable, but I agreed to go to a bar. I didn’t plan to drink. Luckily, when I arrive at her house at 11 p.m., she’s taken Valium with whiskey and is too wasted to do anything. There’s a strange, skinny guy in her kitchen. She wants me to go out with him, but I don’t. I go home. At 64 days, I go out with the sisters I drank with the night of my abduction, rape, almost-murder. I feel so uncomfortable in the bar with them, not drinking. It feels as if I’m in the wrong place.
At 68 days without a drink, Sophie’s back. She calls, suggests we go to Bill’s bar. I say okay. Bill there, all in white from a wedding. He said, “I want to know your every move.” When I’m 74 days sober, Bill says he loves me. He drinks. Sophie drinks. But neither of them wants anything to do with me if I’m drinking. I’m still going to meetings, but now I’m going to the bar too. Pretty often. When I have 76 days, one of the barbacks said, “You’re Bill’s girlfriend.” But it’s never just me. At 80 days, Sophie tells me, “You better just forget him—he left with that Susan girl last night.” It’s not just Susan either. Now, at nearly 180 days, I still see him once in a while, but go out with other men. He’ll never be my boyfriend. At the university, my creative writing teacher tells me that if I don’t drink I can be an assistant at a writers’ convention in Winter Park. I’d like
Similar Books
