Author's note: I hate this chapter. I've rewritten it five different ways and I'm still not entirely happy with it. Plus it's annoyingly long and boring and eurgh. Ick. I hate it. With a passion. So enjoy tearing into it like a shark, and be sure to check out the nifty artwork that Zankoku-Na-Tenshi did of Eric!
Mild Language Warning
4: Morning Group
The walking cliché was back, knocking on patient’s doors and shouting at them to wake up. She stopped at Eric’s room, poking her head in, as the door was already open.
“Up early as usual, Owen,” she said in a psuedo-enthusiastic tone. In truth, she’d rather be home sleeping instead of caring for a bevy of poor saps who had poor self-management skills.
“Aren’t I always, my lovely Jessica?” he said, practically singing. “I suppose I should get these two up… it’s a big day for young Eric here.”
Jessica nodded.
“You know where to go.”
“Sure do,” Owen said, picking up his pillow as she turned and walked away. He positioned himself between Bart’s and Eric’s beds, holding a corner of his pillow in both hands.
“C’mon guys, get up,” he said. Bart gave a half-hearted groan, while Eric’s eyes opened instantaneously.
Thwap.
“Hey!” Eric shouted, curling into a defensive position as Owen struck left and right with his pillow. “What the devil are you doing?”
“Oh, sorry mate,” he said. “This is how I have to get Bart up, and I assumed… well, I just thought it’d be easier to hit both of you.”
Eric sat up, rubbing the back of his head with one hand. Bart stretched and yawned.
“Ten more minutes, alright?” he said, curling back up into a sleeping position. Owen thwacked him again.
“Not alright, mate. C’mon, up ye get, let’s go.”
Bart groaned. Owen rolled his eyes at Eric.
“You’re both daft,” Eric said, getting impatient with the both of them. “When’s breakfast?”
“Right now. C’mon, Bart, we’re hungry. D’ye want to miss breakfast again?”
He didn’t reply, but pretended to snore loudly. Owen sighed.
“Alright, wake you for morning group. C’mon, Eric.”
Eric felt numb as followed Owen through the dining hall like an obedient dog, hunting for a place to sit. He had spent the night before in the recreation room, which he had stumbled upon mostly by mistake. He’d met some of the other alcoholism patients, and a few others. But with the relaxed atmosphere present in the room, he’d been able to forget what they were all there for. He’d been able to pretend he was on holiday, spending time with some new friends.
But now it was morning, and he’d heard that phrase again -- morning group. It frightened him. He didn’t know what it meant or why he felt afraid, but he did.
He ate with his head down, lost in his thoughts. Owen watched him, able to see along the part in Eric’s dirty blond hair.
“Would a straw make it a bit easier for you?” he remarked idly.
Eric looked up. “What?”
“No one’s going to take your food, mate, no need to hunch over it so much. Anyway. Think you’re ready for morning group?”
“What exactly is that?”
Owen snorted.
“And you call me daft. Morning group is morning group therapy – all the patients of a certain programme come together and talk. We try and break through all the boundaries and walls and things. There’s quite a bit of crying. It’s supervised by one of the therapists – Dr. Whitman’s with us, he’s a nice bloke. Looks a bit like Winston Churchill before he was old and fat, if you ask me.”
Eric chewed on his left index finger, an unconscious nervous habit. Owen watched him with interest.
“Don’t be scared, mate,” he said. “It’s not that bad. Well, okay, the first time is a little rough. But you get used to it. You can leave whenever you want, as well. No one’s keeping you here. But before long, you’ll realise being here is helping more than you think.
“There’s a mantra here, and in a lot of other treatment places – you’re as sick as your secrets. It’s time to be honest, Eric. My only advice is to not hold anything back.”
Eric kept quiet as the two finished eating and went back to their room, where Bart was still sleeping. Owen sighed.
“Mate, I’ve been here two weeks, and he’s done this every single morning,” he said. “He’s worse than a child. Here, grab his feet.”
Eric stared.
“Just do it.”
He obliged, and together they lifted Bart out of his bed and out of the room, where Owen deposited him on the hallway floor.
Eric blinked, still holding Bart’s ankles.
“Let him go. Trust me, this is the least of what we could do to him.”
“This place is bonkers,” Eric muttered.
+++
Eric peered around the room, taking note of every face occupying the chairs, arranged in a circle. Some of them looked more relaxed than others – a few had brought blankets, weren’t wearing shoes, hadn’t even bothered to dress presentably. He felt a little better about his torn jeans and t-shirt.
He sat ramrod straight in his chair, holding his elbows with the opposing hands. His legs were tightly crossed and he kept his face still. Owen sat to his right. He singled out a round-faced man with a white moustache sitting a few down from Owen, whom he presumed to be Dr. Whitman. He didn’t look too threatening, and Eric took solace in that.
A few stragglers filed in and took the remaining empty seats, Bart among them. He winked at Eric, who raised an eyebrow.
“Thanks for leaving me in the hall, mates,” he said.
“Is he being sarcastic?” Eric said to Owen.
“Nope, he means it. The first time he refused to wake up, I just left him there. He missed morning group by about three hours. If he’s left in the hall like that, enough people kick him as they go by.”
“Is there a particular reason I’m stuck with complete lunatics?”
Owen laughed.
“You’re stuck with lunatics because you are a lunatic.”
“Says you.”
“Says everyone else in this room. You’ll see. I was asking you that question yesterday for a very good reason.”
They sat in silence, Eric watching Dr. Whitman while the group settled down, smatterings of conversation breaking out between patients.
“Alright, settle down, everyone,” Dr. Whitman piped up in a crisp English accent, sticking out like a sore thumb amongst the twenty different Scottish accents. “My name is Dr. Anthony Whitman, and I say that because we have a new patient joining us today. Eric, say hi to the group.”
Eric froze as twenty pairs of eyes turned to face him. Usually, he wasn’t scared of speaking with strangers – he’d done it all his life – but he was overcome with a paralyzing fear.
“Er… hello,” he managed to say. Dr. Whitman smiled at him, kind and father-like.
“Big first day, huh? Don’t be scared. Here, let’s have everyone introduce themselves. Owen, we’ll start with you.”
And so they went around the circle, each person stating the phrase Eric had heard a million times over – my name is this, and I’m an alcoholic.
He didn’t know if he was ready to count himself among them.
Later he would realize it was an exercise as much for his benefit as it was for theirs.
“Okay, Eric, let’s start with you, shall we?” said Dr. Whitman, after the girl to Eric’s left – Fiona – introduced herself. Her name was one of the only ones he had actually picked up. “I have just one question.
“Why are you here?”
Owen smirked.
“A friend of mine convinced me to come here,” he said. “And my brother and another friend were on his side. I didn’t really have a choice – they’ve always told me what to do. It’s obnoxious beyond belief, but I’ve learned to just listen to them. They leave me alone when I do, so I suffer through--”
“That’s not what he asked you, Eric,” said a brusque-looking man, directly across the circle from him. “He asked you why you’re here.”
“I just told you,” he said in disbelief. “My brother Wyatt along with my friends Craig and Tracy forced me to come here. I’m humouring them.”
“Are you? Would they really randomly tell you to go to rehab?” interjected a slightly overweight woman near Fiona. “I mean, don’t they have a reason?”
“I’m sure they do, but they neglected to tell me.”
“I think they didn’t neglect anything,” Bart said. “You’re just too daft to realise you already know the reason why.”
“Bart,” the doctor snapped, and he grinned.
“I only say it because it’s true.”
“God, you’re all bonkers, every one of you,” Eric said. “Maybe they would randomly tell me to come here. I’ll be damned if I know how their minds work – especially Wyatt’s, he’s always been out of his tree. And Craig’s this self-righteous jerk who went through this himself and tells every stranger on the street to stick themselves here. Hell, I only met the guy a few years ago, and I’ve never actually spoken to him longer than ten minutes. He’s nobody. God, why did I listen to him?”
“I think you listened to him because you knew he had a reason for telling you that you need help,” said a dark-skinned man to Owen’s right. He spoke slowly and deliberately, and when his low growl of a voice piped up, the rest of the room went silent. Eric hadn’t even noticed he was there. “You know subconsciously that you’re here for a reason. You’re a sick, sick man – it’s obvious by the way you’re talking. And you know this, but you continue to deny it.”
There was silence.
“For God’s sake,” Eric exploded, making everyone in the room jump. “I am not a sick, sick, man, and hell be spared if I’m going to sit here and be judged by someone I’ve never met before.”
He stood, vaulted over his chair, and left the room, fuming. He stopped just down the hallway, leaning his back on the wall. His heart was pounding, sweat coating his brow as the anger and adrenaline subsided.
He stared at the opposing wall.
“God damn,” he swore.
