wild star| ongoing

two

CHAPTER 2:
November 8th, 2015
• • •

"Would you like to share anything, Brandy?"

A perpetual sense of anxiety seemed to define her very being. Without something acting as a barrier between her and the world, she was a storm of electricity with no channel to spill the excess. She likened herself to a train without brakes, hurtling down the tracks with an ominous sense of impending doom, heading toward an unavoidable collision. 

"Brandy?"

Her gaze drifted away from her well-worn Converse sneakers, her attention finally drawn to the group of people sitting in front of her. Two women and three men, all sharing her same struggles, surrounded her. But her eyes were drawn to the one person who stood out amongst them, a blonde man situated in the center of their circle. He was always dressed differently from the rest, his clothing clean and new-looking, a sharp contrast to Brandy's grey hoodie and blue jeans that she had worn for the past three days. As she sat there, her mind wandered, and she was tempted to take a whiff of her hoodie, wondering if it smelled like Keith's cigarettes. 

The man, on the other hand, had a pleasant aroma that she couldn't place. Whenever he walked by her during their breaks, the scent of sandalwood and body wash filled the air, a welcome change from the familiar smell of smoke and beer. 

"Share something?" she asked, stealing quick glances at the blank faces gaping at her. "I don't, um, I don't have anything to share today."

"Didn't you say you just got out of rehab yesterday?"

Brandy swallowed thickly, feeling as though she was on trial in front of a judge and jury. "Uh, yeah. I did. I got out yesterday and my boyfriend picked me up. I've already been there a couple of times. Maybe three. I can't remember," she rambled. "I have a problem, I think. I have a big problem and I had to go there."

The men and women didn't say a word. They weren't supposed to, but it was unnerving being in their presence. The sole purpose of these meetings was for it to be a judgment-free zone, though it was turning out to be quite the opposite. She could see it in their eyes, written in the micro-expressions of their faces, unspoken on their tongues. She could see the judgment.

"I also, I also, uh," her foot restlessly tapped against the floor, "I used yesterday too. As soon as I got out and went home, I used. Two lines. I was in rehab for two weeks and I didn't use in there but I got home and I couldn't help myself, so I used."

The man judged her too.

"It was just super tempting, you know." Her soft laughter bounced off the walls like bullets in the otherwise silent room. "The baggie was on the dresser and I hadn't had anything for two weeks. I thought I would go insane if I didn't use some. All I could think about in rehab was using some."

When the sugar flooded her veins and pooled in her blood, there was no other feeling like it. The feeling of floating on a weightless cloud high above the ground, watching the earth vanish into a speck of nothingness as she drifted aimlessly into space on her cloud. She didn't expect them to understand exactly what she experienced, but she did expect them to understand why she wanted to float. Why people had reasons for floating and how every reason was different.

"Let's take fifteen, everyone," Blondie announced, wearing his most superficially blinding smile while his gaze swept through the room. "Go get some coffee and we'll regroup."

Everybody shot out of their plastic chairs as if they wanted to run away from her. The girl who loved to float.

But Blondie didn't run. He leaned back in his seat and kept on smiling. The sort of smile Keith had given her at the bar that night, different from the smile he had given the rest of the attendees. A smile from the inside.