The Sweetest Addiction

Downstairs had the same sense of purity and serenity as the room Lily and I had been staying in. The white walls matched the white furniture and the classic cherry wood floors. Some furniture had been black and others had a clear glass added to them.

Three men were seated at a glass dining table. The chairs were white and the rug underneath had been black. Each of them turned to us once we stepped into the dining room and a smile edged on their faces. As if they were ready to tell our death sentence and why we were chosen to die today and why we hadn't been the best of human beings so we were being sent to hell.

Quickly the man with black hair stood and walked towards us, “I'm Brother Ken, you can call me Ken for now. You must be Lily and Winter?” Had he asked our names for a few shits and giggles? I was certain he knew who we were and why we were here. He probably had our records etched in the cortex of his brain.

Brother Ken was a tall man with gelled back hair and wide rim glasses the size of two of my fists. He wore brown khakis and a white wife beater. He didn't look any older than thirty, but his fuck boy fashion sense made him look thirteen. I didn't even bother to look at his shoes, his too kind smile and horrid sense of fashion already drew me away.

I made my way past Brother Ken and sat in the seat he had recently left. Lily followed suit, sitting to my left next to Johnathon Teal. The other man at the table eyed Lily and and I, trying to appear nonchalant. Ken sat back down at the head of the table and folded his hands on top of the glass.

“I'm Raylon!” The cheerful one said, who sat next to Johnathon Teal and had been staring at us. His dark hair contrasted his bright blue eyes. He smiled a thousand watts at us, his teeth as white as the walls. Then I understood that white was the color of insanity and soon the walls and his million dollar smile will drive the madness out of us all.

White was used in padded rooms, insane asylums and hospitals to calm the patients, as a form of simplicity. Although, no one is this room was crazy. The color, as pure and clear as day, was here to slowly do so. Soon enough we'd all be the crazy ones in this world.

My head began to spin and that hangover I thought wasn't so bad got worse. I heard the soft sigh next to me, as if the giant elephant in the room had weighted everyone down. “Why are we here?” Lily asked, speaking what her and I were both thinking from the moment we woke up in a room that was not ours, yet again.

“We're starting a new program, kind of like rehab, but without the seclusion. We take people like you, uh addicts, and bring them to a volunteered home. Here we'll make sure they attend AA meetings, get on their feet with new jobs, and where they'll properly over come their addictions. Here you guys can find salvation, be brought back to God, and live the lives-” Brother Ken was interrupted by Lily taking Johnathon's wine glass that was placed on the table in front him.

She eyed the glass in her hand, swooshing the red liquid around as everyone else in the room stayed silent. They all stared at her as if she were a dog in a glass box, being watched and observed. She didn't dare to take a drink from the glass, no this isn't what she was addicted to. She wanted to play a game.

The boys were beginning to sweat, just waiting to see what she'd do next. “So, we're like your guinea pigs?” She asked, finally finished swishing the wine around in the glass. Lily looked just above the glass held up in the air at Ken across the table. She eyed him keenly, then with a smile began swishing the wine once again.

He swallowed and pulled his shirt away from his sticky chest. “Well, when you put it like that I suppose...” Brother Ken muttered.

“And you suppose to shove your religious beliefs down our throats? The Bible, God, even forcing us to call you Brother,” Lily then set the glass on the table. She took the bottle of wine and began to refill the glass.

He rushed his answer, like she were about to commit a sin right in front him, “No! Of course not! It's completely up to you and Winter. We won't make you guys go to church, pray at every meal. We just want you, both of you, to get better. Whatever it takes,” Raylon explained. His eyes focused on Lily, he smiled at her as she set the bottle down on the glass table. Finally she looked up at him and rolled her perfect round eyes.

Johnathon finally looked up at us, he opened his mouth, ready to say something. For a second he didn't say anything, just stared at the two invaders in his home, “We just want you two to over come your addictions and live the life you were intended to live-”

Again, interrupted by Lily. She slammed the fragile glass on the hard glass table and looked Johnathon Teal directly in the eyes. “What lives were we intended to live? Surely God didn't intend for our lives to turn out this way. You didn't plan our lives, we didn't want to turn out this way. You really think we planned to be rejects? In the eyes of other citizens, in the eyes of your God?

“Because, damn, John if we really did plan this out there's obviously no hope in us. So tell me Johnathon Teal, what's your master plan on getting us on the track of living the lives we were intended to live? It seems to me that addiction just doesn't seem like the right path for us. We just keep ending up right back at square one, in all honesty, we're all addicted to something.”

Lily was right, as she always was. We did not intend for our lives to turn out this way. It was our parents, they witnessed us turning into them, and they did nothing to stop it. They watched us spiral into the deep depths of their useless footsteps. We didn't want to be crack heads, alcoholics. We do what we do to forget the pain they had inflicted on our lives. Our own family was to blame. Not us, not God.

The men in the room didn't have a thing to say, they looked at one another and swallowed the hollow air in their throats. Ken clenched his wife beater again and let the air flow against his chest. The smile on Raylon's face fell and he gave Lily one of the most frightening looks ever. Johnathon continued with his emotionless expression and blinked at Lily and I.

Lily stood, running her fingers through her deep brunette hair, she let the air out her lungs she had been holding in. “Boys, I don't think my friend and I will be willing to stay with you. Tonight or any other night. I'd rather be an addict than praise to an unknown being.”

Brother Ken reached out, touching Lily's hand and looked her keenly in the eye. Just as she did to him not too long go, “See, the problem is you were turned over to rehab once you were in the hospital. Then when you two refused to go into rehab they turned you over to our hands. The church and our new program.”

Lily snatched her hand away from the 'holy man' like his skin would burn her, “Well Brother Ken,” she sighed, stepping through the chairs and going around the table where the men were seated. Lily stood behind Ken, putting her hands on his chair, careful not to touch him, “Enlighten me, what are the rules?” I could hear the defeat in her voice, but I knew the fight wasn't over.

“Therapy, at lease once every week. I understand that you don't want to attend church, but you will be required to do our weekly church activities, surprisingly they're fun. Going to restaurants, hiking, paint balling, feeding the homeless. We won't restrict you too much. We want to rid your addiction, not lock you up in a house,” Brother Ken folded his arms, resting in his chair and solely focusing on me. It was the first time someone had acknowledged me in the room, when I was the reason they were all here.

Suddenly a voice a few feet away from me spoke, “My house,” John said. I turned to him. He did not want us here as much as we didn't want to be here. He did not want addicts in his house, ruining his life and his time praising his God we certainly did not believe in.

With a flick and a flash the air in the room thickened with anticipation. Everyone turned towards Lily as she stood behind Brother Ken, lighting a cigarette she got from her bra. There she always kept her pack of cigarettes, weed, flask, anything she needed to get through the day.

The flame lit the white stick and soon the room smelt of a sickly sweet aroma that I hadn't smelt in far too long. I watched as my best friend, practically my sister, took a fresh breath and began to breath in the cancerous air again.

Brother Ken stood from his seat and turned toward Lily, “And absolutely no drugs,” He took the stick from her mouth and ripped it in half, dropping the remains in the wine glass, “Cigarettes, alcohol. Anything that's harmful to your body will not be allowed in this house. I will administer drug tests if necessary.”

“Hypocrite...” Lily muttered, mentioning the wine that was setting at the table. Ken shrugged his shoulders. That's how the game had to be played, this was rehab after all.

Ken walked towards the front door of the insanely clean white condo and opened the door. He grabbed his coat and with his final goodbye and left us with the two that would be in our care.

“Well is this a fucking joke or what?” Lily yelled, she rocked on the back of her heels and looked up towards the ceiling. She began to walk around the condo in her white socks.

“This is a nightmare...” I could hear Jonathon say near me.

I didn't look at him, or Lily, I stood and looked straight ahead at the glass wall. I went towards the kitchen that had a sliding glass door to the patio, “I need some air,” I said, making an effort to slide the door open. I didn't bother to close it behind me.

I touched the marble railing and leaned against it. I looked up at the sky, the stars didn't exist here. But always, I imagined the planes in the sky were stars, then once they disappeared, behind a building or to another destination, I made a wish. I wished on anything, health, life, money, liquor.

Abruptly I heard the door close behind me. Almost immediately, Johnathon was beside me, leaning on the rail. “I don't want you here as much as you don't want to be here. So please, don't hate me for being here," I said to him.

I continued to look at the stars as Johnathon spoke, “They just volunteered me. 'Brother John,' they said, pointing straight at me in our members meeting, 'you will be the start of our outreach to these girls. You will help them find salvation.' I couldn't even object, they said I had experience.” He scoffed and turned around, facing the glass door, but leaning on the railing.

I turned my attention towards John. His shoulders had just gone down from a shrug, he looked at me with a smug look on his face. I turned back towards the city, “I could never hate you. I don't even know you Johnathon.”

I sighed, looked up at the sky and watched a plane pass by a building, disappearing behind it. I closed my eyes. Good life, good health, sobriety. I breathed in the good clean air. I never wished to be like my dad, but I became worse. A drunkard, a pill popper, weed smoker.

I could drink, I could smoke, I could take as many pills and I pleased. I know I had turned into my father, the one person I've truly hated, but I could never end up like him. Dead, in a pool of liquor.

Johnathon sighed beside me, I heard him step into the house. I turned at looked at him, “What kind of experience?” I asked him. He turned his head towards me, with a confused look on his face he tilted his head to the side, “You said the church thought you had some kind of experience with this kind of stuff. What kind of experience?”

Jonathon opened his mouth to answer, then as if he decided not to talk he shook his head and shrugged. He began to go back inside, then turned back towards me, half his body out in the cold New York air and the other half toasty in his home.

“Have you ever been completely sober for 24 hours?”

I shook my head, with a smile on my face I answered his question, “No, I'm an intoxicated mess.”