A Place of Hope and No Pain

Chloe's POV

I found Matt's story interesting, the story of how he ended up here. It was an interesting story and it was sad to hear that all of this had started at such a young age for him, but I got it, he was young and invincible, nothing could hurt him, but now here he was.

He got angry when he talked about his wife, but the anger was normal and I knew it was going to get worse, so much worse, but the part that I found interesting, the fact that she bought alcohol for Matt, then blamed him, left him. It was eerily similar to my story, the spouse who fed the addiction then ran when it got too tough.

I let him vent, he was angry and that was normal, but when he got up and left the bathroom, slamming the door, I didn't get up and follow him, I knew he'd be back.

Sure as hell, not even five minutes later, the door flew open and he lurched at the toilet, throwing up again.

I felt bad for him. I knew right now every part of him was hurting and I also knew we had many more hours to spend in this bathroom.

I stood up and rubbed his back.

"Don't fucking touch me." He growled and I pulled my hand away, reaching into my pocket.

Yep it was there. My personal alarm. We all were given a personal alarm to keep on us at all times, in case things got violent. Let me tell you, things did get violent, often. I was fortunate enough to not have had to use mine yet, but most of the other's had.

Detoxing, drying out, whatever you wanted to call it was a hard process and everyone goes through different stages, one of them being anger. They end up angry at everything and because we are here, we wore the brunt of that anger. We didn't mind, we signed up for it and only on one occasion it had ended in a hospital visit. That's why we had the alarms, we press them and within a minute someone is at the door.

I wanted to make sure I had mine, sometimes I could get a little lazy with it, but with Matt, well his height intimidated me, he was so big and honestly I knew if he lost it I'd be in a world of trouble.

I wasn't scared and I knew if it did happen Matt didn't mean it. I was a pretty good judge of character and I could tell Matt was a good guy and he would do anything for his family and friends.

"Drink more water." I said softly, holding out the bottle.

"Why don't you shove that water up your ass." He snapped back.

I sighed, sitting back down. "I don't think it would fit."

He groaned, laying back down on the tiles. "God I'm so sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me."

"It's fine." I reassured him. "Don't worry about it."

He fell silent for a few minutes, then he opened his eye's, staring at the ceiling. "I didn't think it would be this hard you know."

"Oh believe me I know." I said softly.

"Yeah, I guess you do." He murmured, falling silent again.

I took the opportunity to get up, grab another bottle of water and wet the washcloth again, getting comfortable next to Matt on the floor.

"It's hard." I said softly. "But you can do it."

He groaned, sitting up, heaving, then laying back down. "I thought I could stop anytime I wanted." He mumbled. "Anytime I wanted I thought I could just stop."

"I thought that too." I told him. "And then when I would try I maybe lasted an hour or two, and then I'd have just one, I only wanted one and then I'd wake up hours later with an empty bottle next to me."

"God yes." He murmured. "That was me, I tried the night Lucy left me, and I lasted maybe an hour and then I woke up two days later at Brian's place."

"Brian?" I asked him, it was someone he hadn't mentioned before.

"Yeah my friend and band mate."

"Does anyone know you're here?" I asked, curious.

"Yeah." He told me. "I told everyone where I was going."

I nodded. "You know that's not recommended."

"I know." He whispered.

The reason it wasn't recommended was simply because not everyone succeeded the first time they went to rehab, and the less people that knew, the less of a failure they felt if they started using again.

I remembered when I went into rehab, no one knew, well except Drew and he was to busy fucking his new girl to care where I was anyway.

I was proud of the fact that I didn't fail, I succeeded the first time, but like I'd said before, everyday was a test, I still fought it every fucking day.

"I won't fail." Matt said softly. "I can't fail, I wont fail my family, I've already failed them enough."

"You'll do fine." I whispered and for some strange reason I just knew if anyone was going to do it this time around it would be Matt.

"Yeah I will do fine." He announced. "And god, I can't wait to see them when they come to visit."

I smiled, visiting day was always a favourite, we just had a lot of shit to get through before then, but I'd keep that to myself for now, if thinking about his family made him feel better who was I to ruin it for him.

"I bet you can't." I whispered.

We both fell silent, staring at the ceiling, Matt occasionally throwing up, me trying to get him to drink water but we really didn't talk anymore and as the night progressed, things got worse for Matt and I sat there right beside him.

We stayed in that bathroom all night, I only left for a minute to shove half a sandwich down my throat and as the sun rose I realised we were probably going to spend the day in this bathroom too.

"This is fucking bullshit." Matt yelled at sometime around 5am. "I've had it."

I laid there, watching him stand up and watching as his legs gave out from under him, spilling him back onto the floor.

"FUCK." He screamed, punching the side of the bath tub.

I took a deep breath, not replying.

Now things were really starting, it was time for the anger, it was time for the agitation. It was going to be a wild ride to say the least.