Chapter 3 - Susan drives to meet Michelle, and first meets 'The Man who tried to kill her'

Susan kept her foot pressed heavy on the gas. The car moving at least forty miles an hour faster than the recommended speed limit. As she drove, weaving dangerously in and out of traffic, she thought about Michelle and just how close to the edge she was. Susan had been there, too many times to remember. She had felt the drowning sensation of being sure that she would never be able to quit her dependency on illicit substances. Yet here she was, well over a year dry and not a single moment of weakness, not a single thought of returning to her ways of old. 

Susan grabbed the handbrake, spun the steering wheel and drifted around a tight ninety degree angle corner. I'm probably lucky the road is a little wet, might not drift so well if it'd been a dry day. Susan expertly controlled her 90s model Oldsmobile as it fishtailed coming out of the last hard corner. Susan had grown up in rural Ohio, where she had too much spare time on her hands as a youth, growing up in a place where the roads were long and straight and police officers were few and far between. Her father had been an amateur car enthusiast and she had grown up around them, more specifically, she had grown up around cars in a half-state of repair. 

As Susan gunned the engine it made noises that told her that if she kept pushing it like this something would soon give out. To that end, she took a little weight off the accelerator when she saw her destination at the end of the street. A once majestic, large neon sign that now read Caf- ate. When the sign was first erected it read Cafe-Nate, but since that first day of installation it had not been maintained, nor cleaned in any way. 

Susan hit the brakes hard, coming to a sudden stop in the car park of Cafe-Nate. She didn't bother with turning the engine off or locking it. Instead she got out and slammed the door behind her, leaving lights, music and the engine on. She covered the fifty yards from car to front door of the cafe in a time that any pro-athlete would be proud of and pushed her way into the cesspit of a coffee shop.

Inside she was assaulted first by the stench of the place. This cafe was the sort of eating establishment that used a grease cooker for the vast majority of their culinary offerings. The deeply baked in smell of month old grease filled the air and every corner of the establishment. It was a large space, with a seat-yourself, order at the counter business model that worked in the 70s when the place opened and hadn't changed since. 

Susan scanned the thirty or so faces littered around the room until she landed on Michelle, sitting in a back corner booth, tucked away, hunched over a cup of black. Susan let out a breath of air and crossed the room, oblivious to the looks she was and wasn't getting from the other patrons of this dive-cafe. 

Michelle did not look up from the remainder of her cup of coffee as Susan approached. Susan stood over her, watching her, taking her in. She was smaller than last she saw her. When was that? A month ago? Two? A pang of guilt crept over Susan, why haven't I seen her more recently? I should have gone to see her. Susan had a dozen reasons why she hadn't seen her, working fifteen hour days, going to night school, homework from night school, video chatting with her daughter, and of course the other ubiquitous time consuming activity - life admin. Just maintaining a semblance of normalcy murdered far too many hours of the day. When you're using and drinking, life admin is the first thing to go. Laundry, bathing, cleaning, shopping, eating, the importance of these fundamental elements of self-care go by the way-side almost immediately when you pump your body full of artificial stimuli.   

Susan could see from first glance that Michelle had neglected her life admin. Her collar bones stood out, more than they used to. Her skin, pale, paler than normal, her hair, what Susan could see of it that hung loosely from Michelle's ratty New York Yankees baseball cap, was greying, dirty and had likely not felt the caress of a brush in many months.

Susan didn't bother with pleasantries. To do so would be an insult. Instead, as she sat in the booth seat opposite Michelle she fished from her pocket a small blister pack of capsules and slid them into Michelle's line of vision. The sight of these pills broke her catatonic stare. Michelle's eyes flit up and locked on Susan, she didn't verbalise a question, her look was enough to convey her query. 

'They’re prescription. They’ll take the edge off.' Susan offered reassuringly. 

Michelle nodded faintly, grabbed the pills, pressed them out of their pack and washed them down with the remainder of her cold black coffee.

'Are you angry?' Michelle managed after another beat of silence.

'Why would I be angry?' Susan asked.

'You're kidding, right? Why wouldn't you be?'

'This is my job, this is my role, to be here for you, to help you through these hard times.'

Michelle considers that a moment. Her subconscious head-nod turned into a head shake as her thought transitioned from Susan's statement to her next thought. Tears well in Michelle's eyes. 

'I'm not you. I can't do what you did.'

Susan took that in. She checked her initial response which was to reply immediately with one of a hundred   positive affirmations she had read along her own path to sobriety. But she didn't, as she knew that quoting a feel good phrase didn't mean anything when you're where Michelle was. No amount of telling her that everything was going to be fine, that eventually she would be living free from drug dependancy, was going to help Michelle. 

Susan sat quietly, until something dawned on her. She spoke softly, with the least amount of intonation she could manage, allowing the words themselves to carry the message, rather than allowing them to be wrapped in emotion.

'You're looking at it wrong. I don't see it that I've done anything. This isn't something to be done and when it's done it's dealt with. This isn't doing the laundry or washing the car, or taking the trash out.'

Michelle looked up at Susan for the first time, the faintest glimmer of curiosity in her eyes. 

She thought on what Susan had just said before asking, 'Well, what is it then?'

'I don't look at it in the past tense. To me, sobriety is a constant. It's something I do every hour of every day. Right now I'm doing it. Right now I decide not to drink. Right now I decide not to use. When you think of it like that, it's no longer a hurdle to over come, it becomes a practice that is always a part of you.'

Michelle stared blankly at Susan as she let that sink in. Susan wasn't sure where that came from. She had never had that conscious thought before. It came to her as she spoke it, but on reflection she realised that she had just learned something new about herself. This was one of the many benefits of being a sponsor. It wasn't just being there for another person during their hard times, it was the on-going process of self discovery. We discover ourselves through those we know.

Suddenly, Michelle looked up. Her eyes widened as they beheld a sight that caused her body to visibly tense. Susan didn't need to turn to see who it was, she knew immediately that Michelle's dealer had just walked through the door to the cafe. 

Michelle whispered, 'He's here.' 

'Let me talk. Don't say a word.' Susan said in the most authoritative voice she could manage to conjure. Michelle managed a meagre nod, then scratched behind her left ear nervously. 

A large shadow fell over their booth table. Susan looked up and saw a face she hadn't seen in well over a year. A twisted face full of hate, the very sight of which filled her with a peculiar pain, a pain she hadn't felt in a long, long time. 

The man's beady eyes squinted as they scrutinised Susan, trying to place her. This man was the very reason Susan had quit drugs. A little over a year ago, he had tried to kill her. As the man sat in the booth beside her she had to hold back the vomit that rose in her throat, a reflex brought on by the stench of his aftershave mixed with week-old sweat. It was the same aftershave, she realised, he was wearing the night he tried to take her life.