asari
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"Do you think they do meditation there?" Calum pondered, resting his chin on the heel of his palm.
I shrugged, handing him the cutting board and placing bell pepper and a knife in front of him. "Probably. They'd have a great garden to do it in as well. If they do, you should join,"
He twisted his face in disagreement. "Nah. It's too quiet. You just sit there? Or you stand? Or what,"
Darlene took a pause from stirring the pot, snorting at Calum's reply. "Watch them align your chakras,"
I laughed, trying to envision Calum in the middle of a meditation session. "It's all about the believing in it," I hummed, placing my hands in a prayer position to mock him.
"Now, what if my chakras don't want to be aligned? Or my chakras were just made like a thin jenga tower -"
"That explains why you're fucked up," Darlene pointed the ladle at her brother, grinning at her joke.
"This isn't how chakras work," I commented, placing the knife in Calum hand and the bell pepper in the other. "Please cut those, I need them,"
Calum scoffed. "I'll cut this bell pepper's chakras alright," He began, slicing them thinly. "Uh, do you wanna come to a party with us? Later?" He gave a glance at Darlene and I paused, not having expected that.
"Party?" She repeated.
"It's more of a gathering, really. Just Mike, some friends from our meetings, a couple people," I didn't know what I meant by 'a couple people'. Mike seemed sociable enough to know a hundred people, so I had no grasp of what he considered as a small gathering.
Calum nodded, agreeing. "Yeah, a gathering. He attended his - what was his? His -"
"Fiftieth," I filled in.
"His fiftieth meeting today, and since that's a pretty great accomplishment, he thought of celebrating it, you know?"
Darlene looked between us with a humoured look on her face. "You sound like two kids trying to convince a parent something stupid," She gave a casual laugh, which I took as a good sign. "Guys, if you wanna go, then go. I don't have to go along with you. As long as I know you're safe and with trusted people, then -"
"You misunderstand," Calum interjected.
"Well that's formal," Darlene retorted.
I slid some vegetables into the pot.
"We just want you to meet them," I said, stirring the pot as the steam warmed my hand. "And Mike already agreed that you could come. He's looking forward to meeting you. Plus, there's tons of people you might like,"
I looked at Calum for more support but he only nodded.
Darlene shifted her eyes between her brother and I, contemplation a conflicted-looking thing on her eyes. Calum and I just wanted to see her face free of the brow-furrowed worries, eyes glazed with fear. I still kept the guilt like a permanent layer on my skin, but little by little, I felt it chip away. Though I still felt as though I was only feigning it all, that my motives weren't as clear as I wanted them to be.
I wanted her to like them, to see just how wonderfully Cal and I belonged somewhere, or at least how wonderfully we'd met such the likes of a group.
"Alright. Sure, okay. I'll go," She murmured, and I almost smiled st how the corners of her lips turned upwards for a moment before she pushed them back down and pursed them. "Is it a fancy type thing? Where's it at?"
"There's a bar across True To North, nothing fancy. Really just some drinks with friends," I responded, already trying to predict how the rest of the day would go.
I expected most of the Grief meeting members to make an appearance, surely making the place livelier. I wondered if they weren't always this way, if they'd been just as sullen and dull as I was when they entered the meetings. Was it the meetings that changed them ir the realisation that they belonged somewhere and not just to the ache of whomever they'd lost?
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"Friends of friends are welcome!" Mike's voice shook with a laugh, wounding his arm around Darlene's shoulder and making her cower into his chest when people had started making their way to him like a magnet.
Everyone I'd met on my first meeting was there. I hadn't recognised a few but for the most part, it wasn't as nearly uncomfortable talking and socialising. Everyone knew everyone, it seemed, and I just had to pretend like I did, too.
I was slightly off-put at the thought that Mike had never mentioned fifty meetings, or six months, or anything at all that meant he was celebrating anything any time soon. But there we were waltzing into the bar across True To North, already hearing the drunken singing from within.
Idiotically, I bought a cheap bottle of wine, thinking it might make a nice gift. Idiotically, I forgot. Bars already have drinks like this. I hid it in my cardigan when I came in, letting Mike get distracted with Darlene as Calum and I took to finding a free table.
As far as I could decipher, everyone in the bar belonged to the party, which was a lot more crowded than I'd anticipated. But once I spotted a table by the corner, I immediately grabbed Calum's wrist and paced towards it.
The bar wasn't all that large, but as we made our way to it, the room stretched and stretched as I slowly became aware of the magnitude of the "gathering". There were too many people for my peace to be able to come together, and the table stood across the room that by the time Calum and I crossed halfway, someone sat down with a pint of liquor in their palm.
I halted abruptly, making Calum bump against my shoulder as I pouted at the person in dismay.
"A gathering," He murmured, lightly scoffing as he loosened his wrist from my grasp. "He's a social butterfly, I don't know why we thought it'd be any smaller than this,"
I sighed, recognising that he was right.
"Asari?" a delicate voice called my name, grabbing my attention by its familiarity.
When I turned, I was met by Liz's worried face, eyes boring surprise right into mine.
"Liz?"
"What - what are you doing here?" she approached with caution in her movements, letting her hands reach up to my arms to hold me in place.
I placed my hold on her wrist, surprised she was there as well but not as shaken up as she seemed to be. "Mike invited me and my friends. He attended his fiftieth meeting today,"
Liz nodded, and I presumed she already knew the reason for the party, but she still stared as though she'd only asked one of her thousand questions. "You... you attend the meetings?" she said, a slight tone of dismay showing through - and I was trying to decide whether she was disappointed that I was fucked up or if she simply didn't want me in the meetings.
"Yeah. Do you?"
Her eyes fell on something behind me and she shook her head, pulling me close to her as I was enveloped in a sudden embrace. Before I could return the gesture, we parted, catching her intense gaze once again. They were almost as blue as Luke's, only a tinge faded, the weathers of time seeming to have worn the shade down.
"I'm... uh, I'm glad you're here," she finally said as though it was an unfortunate thing to be. Here.
I nodded and stayed silent, unsure of what to say to what had happened. Instead, I turned to my side and gestured at Calum. "This is Calum, he also attends the meetings, though not the same ones Mike and I do.
There was something oddly sad about the way she looked at me. Like I was far away and unreachable, she even let her hand linger on my arm as though I was slipping further. "Nice to meet you," she said to Calum, letting a smile spread on her lips despite how her eyes gave her away. "Where's your table? Why aren't you seated?"
"Oh, we just got here. It's kinda... uh, busier than we expected, so we haven't gotten the chance to grab any free tables," Calum replied, looking around as I let my eyes find Darlene, making sure she was enjoying herself.
"Goodness. You've been standing and walking around all this time?" Liz exclaimed above the noise. "Come! Come, I have a table. I hope you two don't mind sharing,"
She ushered us between the crowd and led us the other way. I wrapped my arms by each other as I felt my shoulders brush against everyone I passed by. It wasn't long before I started recognising the putrid scent of liquor, invading my peace and making itself the forefront of my thoughts.
I hugged the bottle of wine closely to my chest, pressing its glass bone onto my breast bone, feeling the world around me constrict smaller and smaller and tighter. It was no longer world, but arms and shoulders and shouts and pass me the bottle!. I hated it. I hated it so much that I forgot I hated it up until I found myself there once again.
I screwed my eyes shut and kept walking, no longer caring if I'd lost Liz and Calum. I only wanted the world to be reduced to silence and nothing. Nothing at all if it meant it wasn't arms and shoulders and whiskey in the air.
"Hey, wrong way," I felt his familiar voice softly say, a hand on my wrist making me open my eyes to Luke's face.
"Just leave your stuffs here. Calum, come help me get two chairs, will you?" Liz's voice rang behind me, then Calum's answer of "Sure,"
But I stared at Luke, certain that if I looked away, I'd find myself once again in the arms and shoulders and ice clinking on glass, ice crunched between teeth. He was there, at least, I was thankful. He even smiled as though I hadn't just been walking with my eyes closed and a wine bottle to my chest.
"Are you okay?" he asked, voice gentle and undetermined to ruse above everyone else's, but he sounded perfect. Not loud. Not shouting. He wasn't. I didn't want him to.
I shook my head. "Yes,"
He reached forward and grabbed the neck of the wine bottle, forcing me to loosen my strength and let him have the drink. "This is a bar, you know. They already have this," he laughed, setting it on the table beside his phone.
I offered a nervous laugh as I came to sat beside him, his hand still on my wrist, his thumb moving back and forth in light motions. I focused on that instead of everyone and everything. He swept back gently on my skin and I paid attention to it, and forth on the bone of my hand and I made sure the noise melded into the background.
"You don't go to bars often?" Luke continued.
When I looked at him, I heard the world again. I didn't want to, but it was there. To hear him was to hear the world, and unfortunately the world was full of noise and static. But I reminded myself that Luke himself wasn't full of noise and static. He just came along with everything else that was.
"I don't go at all," I replied as normally as I could, letting my back face the crowd so all I could see was him. As far as I knew, the room was filled with Luke and the bottle of wine I idiotically brought. Perhaps that way, the world could start becoming unheard. "I mean, I went once before. When I turned eighteen, my friends brought me to a bar as an - I don't know, they called it my 'debut birthday' - and I tasted beer for the first time, and whiskey, and something else. All I remember is that it was too noisy and I had to go because of it,"
I pursed my lips and pressed on a smile, deciding that I'd started talking too much.
He took it lightly, though. I was surprised. He left my wrist and intertwined his hands. "I didn't take too well on noisy places either," he answered. "I sorta adapted to it, though. It's hard to escape it when you're constantly being dragged to noisy places,"
"And now?"
He sighed. "And now... well, I don't know. I still don't like it. But I just," he lifted a hand to the air and pinched all his fingers together. "Ignore it. It's not the kind of noise that matters anyway,"
But how could one decode what kind of noise mattered? I thought that by calling it 'noise', it implied it was insignificant. It's noise. You didn't care to call it a voice, a song, a kind of sound - it's noise. Below static, below sound. I didn't know what he meant by that.
"Yeah, just place it there," Liz's voice returned, followed by Calum's agreement then the chair feet landing across the table.
"Luke! Good to see you, man," Calum made his way around the table and met Luke's hand in a quick hand-clap-shake thing. I never understood those.
"You too," Luke then placed a firm hand on Cal's shoulder.
"Oh, my sister's here. She came with us, we wanted her to meet Mike and some friends,"
Luke turned to the crowd and I watched his eyes fall on me for a moment before scanning the dozens of faces that weren't Darlene's. "Which one is she?"
Calum pointed somewhere behind me. "Her, red top,"
He took to sitting beside Luke as they both began a conversation on something I barely understood. I caught glimpses of you know those see-through looking ones? and nah, four-strings is better for me. As far as I could try and understand, they were talking about something music-related, which I was far educated from.
But I liked how they looked amidst conversation. Calum sounded as though he'd been doing this for years. My chest felt lighter at the thought that he'd found a friend. A good friend. He wasn't as alone the way he was before. I didn't know about lonely, only he'd know if he were, but at least he knew someone outside of Darlene and I.
"Good evening, everyone!" Mike's voice rose from the noise as we all turned to the middle of the room, Mike stood on the bar counter with a mug of some foamy liquor thing. "As you all know, I'm Mike, I'm from the Grief group meetings, and I'd like to thank all of you for coming today,"
Our eyes met and I smiled. I wanted him to know that even though I was sitting and barely socialising, I was supporting him.
"Earlier this afternoon in one of the meetings I attended, I surpassed fifty meetings, which, I know, overrated, but hell - it's still a great fucking achievment!" He rose his mug higher and everyone cheered, making me cower further into my seat as though I was asking it to swallow me.
Not a second later, I felt Luke's hand on the small of my back.
"So, thank you for celebrating this wonderful thing with me. You only get fifty meetings once," he lifted the rim of his mug to his lips and drank, people whistling and clapping and even shouting chug! Chug! Chug! as Mike finished whatever had been in the mug.
"Holy shit, this is fun!" Darlene emerged between the distracted bodied, her face lit in amusement. "If I knew things were like this, I would've gone to meeting with you two, too!" She laughed, setting down the mugs and sitting across me. "Oh, hi! I'm Darlene, Calum's sister," she stretched her arm over the table at Luke.
Luke obliged, shaking her hand with a grin as the warmth of his palm left my back. "I'm Luke, group therapist for the Addiction group meetings,"
Darlene slowly nodded, as though piecing something together in her head. "Ah... that's cool. Is it fun? I imagine it's fun, having studied psychology, seeing the psyche of random people,"
A chuckle came from Luke. "I mean, as fun as trauma can get. Not fun at all, but it's definitely interesting,"
I saw Darlene shrink away at Luke's casual wit. I'd never seen her so small. Even when she and Calum constantly fought, neither shrunk or grew - they fought like they knew they were noth simultaneously tallest. With Luke, she slid back so easily, dumbfounded.
"Right. Yeah, sorry. That was a stupid question,"
"No, it's alright. I get what you meant. It's fun having learnt the human mind, seeing connections to what you learnt and real life. You? What do you do?"
"Oh, I teach at an elementary school. Math,"
It felt odd seeing my two worlds collide. Everything inside merging with everything outside. It felt wrong and confusing but most of all what was supposed to happen. But I had no sense of what was suppoxed to happen. All I knew was that I lived with the Hood siblings and Luke was someone from a different universe, the one where the evening was permanent, the world was a flower garden, and that when it rained it sounded like his poetry. Together, it wasn't meant to look like two strangers in a bar.
"Oh, my dad used to be a Math teacher before,"
I couldn't tell if I wanted the two worlds separate or in one. If it were one, it would've been easier to manage. I didn't have to think of a separate life, everyone I knew knew each other, and we were all just big blob of familiarty and mundanity. Separately, I could have my familiarity and mundanity and also have the other world be entirely mine. My secret, my whisper, my confessions, and mine to never share.
"She was? It's cool, isn't it? Being related to a math whiz? Calum, be thankful,"
But, objectively, it was too late to be contemplating such things. I was past that point of unmerged worlds because right in front of me were two planets becoming one. I had no say in the matter anymore, if I ever did in the first place. This was the kind of thing you'd say well, it had to happen eventually. And so eventually it did. Here it was. Eventually.
"A math whizz and a narcissist!" Calum beamed sarcastically. "I'm honoured,"
"Ase! Hi!" Zuzi's familiar tone alerted my senses and I immediately turned to where it had come from. "You're here!"
I rose to meet her as she dove in for a hug, patting my back before parting and grasping my shoulders. "I am!" I replied in a mimicked enthused voice. "Mike invited me and my friends. Hard to resist,"
She laughed, only then I noticed Nico standing timidly behind her. She gave a wave and clutched her arms around each other.
"Oh, hi! I'm Zuzi, I'm in the same meetings as Ase," Zuzi made her way behind me and greeted everyone at the table, watching Nico slowly approach to my side.
"Please tell me I'm not the only one who's kinda nervous right now," she shyly said, a sliver of humour sliding into her tone. I could tell she wasn't used to being so social, same as I, so shrugged amd gave my best comforting smile.
"Nope, you aren't. When I came in, I got a bit overwhelmed by the noise that I had to shut my eyes and practically walk blind," I nudged her arm and gave a small laugh.
She grinned, which I took as a good sign.
"You wanna head to the bar for some drinks? Anything ordered tonight is on the organisation!" Zuzi offered, placing a hand on my arm as she nudged her head towards the counter. Before I could fit in my reply, we'd already begun heading there, her cheery disposition lighting up the way.
I had Nico's wrist in my other hand's hold, making sure she wouldn't get lost behind us as Zuzi lead the way further into the front.
Once we'd reached our destination, I let go and watched as Zuzi tapped the countertop to catch the bartender's attention. "Hi! Hey, can I have a paloma, left-rock ice, with extra lemon. Girls, what do you want?"
I, clueless about what kind of drinks they had, ordered the same as Nico.
"You know, they have the best drinks here. Not too pricey either, which is a lifesaver for us broke girls," Zuzi laughed, sliding a stool from under the counter and hopping on it to sit. Nico and I followed her actions.
What would be a real lifesaver is if you didn't drink at all, I thought, accepting the drink placed in front of me.
"You don't go out to bars much, I'm guessing?" Nico commented, taking a sip out of the drink and nodding her head in satisfaction.
"Not at all, no," I took the cold glass in my hands, moving the ice around and watching its corners hit the glass. "This is Jack-and-Coke, you said?" I asked her, leaning towards her shoulder.
"Yeah. It's just Jack Daniels Whiskey, coke, and ice. Not much to it," she shrugged and drank.
I felt Zuzi lean an arm on my other shoulder and I turned to her and saw she'd been looking back at the table with Luke, Calum, and Darlene. "I recognise one of them. Luke, right? Addiction group therapist. Say, by any chance, is Calum taken?"
Nico, surprised by Zuzi's forwardness, choked and laughed. "Zuzi! Jesus, didn't you have your eye on someone already?"
Zuzi gave me a playful wink before taking a sip from her drink, quickly chasing it down with a bite of lemon. "Just saying. Does he attend any of the meetings?"
Nodding, I looked back at the boy in question, seeing him deep in conversation with Luke and someone else who had approached the table. "Yeah, he's in the Addiction meetings,"
Zuzi hummed, her gaze emerged in contemplation. "Explains why you were sitting with Luke," she shrugged. Partly explains, I wanted to say. "And what's he in for?"
I gave her a double glance. "What do you mean?" I knew what she meant, I only wanted to hear her say it. It wasn't any of my business sharing to anyone outside the meetings what Calum was 'in for'. That was between him, Luke, and everyone else in the meeting.
"You know, why's he attending the meeting?" Zuzi replied, an aloof grin plastered on her freckled features. "I'd love to get to know you and your friends better,"
"Well, uh," I swallowed. "I'm not really sure either. I mentioned I was going for a meeting, he asked about it, said he wanted to come along, Mike told him about the other meetings, and he chose to go to Addiction," I drew my glass closer, looking down and noticing the ice was a lot smaller compared to how it was a few minutes before.
I didn't really have much of the bravery to drink it. I was scared to find out whether I was just as light weight as I recalled, or perhaps I'd enjoy the feeling of being inebriated and pay for its cruel prices the next morning. Either way, I wasn't up to being entranced by its temporary loss-of-mind, no matter how much I felt as though it might've been convenient at the moment.
"I'm so glad I bumped into you guys tonight," a voice chimed in, neither Zuzi's or Nico's, but instead inserting itself between my and Nico's space. "God, finding newbies from the same meeting was hard!"
I took a second to take in her features and why she'd been so friendly before offering her a smile upon realising she was Lorelei. Indeed, a newbie, just as much as Nico and I.
"Do you mind if I sit with you guys?" she sounded as though she was asking but she was already pulling out a stool.
"Not at all! The more the merrier," Zuzi clapped my back and gave a laugh, hailing one hand at the bartender before pointing at her nearly empty glass. "If we stick together, it might be easier for us to go through things in the meetings. What, with you three being new and me having been there longer. It's not bad to team up,"
"Sounds like a great idea," Nico fawned, placing her empty glass back on the counter.
"God, you're all so welcoming," Lorelei grinned before preoccupying herself with the bartender.
"Sounds good," I echoed, unsure why we'd need to team up, but not entirely opposed to the idea either. I projected the scenario upon a school setting. Surely, you could go about your academic years as a lone individual, succeed on your own doing, fill your mind with whatever school had to offer - or, experience it with others and make the time a little more worth your while. If you came out miserable, well, at least be miserable with some friends, right?
I turned behind me and glanced back at Luke's table, expecting Darlene and Calum to still be by his side, perhaps lit in some exciting story that required all their attention, but a frowned pulled on my lips when all I saw was Luke sitting by himself. Accentuated by everyone else's pack-like tables, he looked extra lonely with only his phone in hand and an empty glass and wine bottle on the table.
Promptly, I hopped off the stool and took my drink along with me, planning to make my move on it and at least finish what I ordered. "Guys, I'm gonna go back to my table alright?"
I watched as Nico's face slightly fell, but she quickly recovered with s soft smile and a slight tug on my sleeve. "You alright?"
"Oh, yeah, I just don't wanna leave my friend alone right now,"
Zuzi looked back at Luke, something unreadable coming across her face. "We'll see you then,"
Lorelei jumped off her stool with her drink and came to take me in a one-side hug, pressing her cheek against mine before scrunching her nose. "Mwah. We should definitely all have a group chat," she whipped her head back at Zuzi then at Nico and patted my shoulder. "You're fun. Go, I hope your friend's alright,"
She tiptoed and took the stool I'd been sitting on and sipped her drink.
I still didn't know what to feel about her. I was pretty sure she didn't even know who I was talking about, or whom we were looking at, but she seemed extra friendly so I tried my best not to be so biased.
I started my short journey from the bar counter to the very end of the room, all across like walking through a sea. This time, I hadn't been as anxious about doing so. I remained focused on the ice in my drink as I walked, watching it sway left, then forward, right, and then forward, each accompanied by my strides.
When I reached Luke, I nudged his foot with mine and smiled when he looked up. "Hey, where'd Darlene and Calum go?"
I followed his eyes as it fell on something behind me. I turned and saw the two siblings mingling with a group of 6, all grinning at someone who was in the middle of sharing something with all of them.
"Ah," I turned back to Luke and set my drink down. "And you're not with them because..."
He quirked a brow before closing his phone and shrugging, letting a sigh overtake the next 2 seconds of our time. "Because I'm not much of a people person. Besides, I'd hate to steal all that guy's thunder," he smirked.
"Thunder?" I glanced back at the stranger and mentally made a list of comparisons. By a quick conclusion, I decided Luke couldn't be compared to him. He was already winning by owning a red car. I was willing to bet that that guy didn't have a similar one, too. "Ever so humble, are you?"
"I wasn't raised an asshole," He answered before pushing the table forward, grabbing his empty glass, the wine bottle, and scooting through the small space in between the table and chairs. "Come. Let's go out,"
"Out?" I began to reach for my sitting drink, the ice completely melted.
Just in time, Luke pushed my arm along with my whole body and gestured for me to start walking ahead. "No, don't drink that. Leave it. Come on,"
Feeling as though this was some sort of rush, I obliged, skipping forward and making my way through people's backs, then through a small hallway which I assumed led to the restrooms, then to where Luke had pointed at, the bar's back exit.