Title:
She Speaks
Author: Alanna diAblo
Rating: PG-13
Summery: Abby's POV. "She didn't just nod pretend to listen to me, but she
looked like she understood what I was going through, because she'd gone through
a similar ordeal herself only a few years before." Sort-of a continuation of
'Dependency.' But it can stand alone too.
Archive: Please e-mail me at [email protected], the answer is probably yes, but
just ask so I know and I can be happy.
Author's Note: See end please.
Disclaimer: If I owned em, do you think ER would still be on the air??
* * * *
Those days I was young and stupid, although my GPA didn't reflect my
intelligence level, my social life and drinking problem did. I'd gone back to
medical school after an absence during which I was trying to save up enough
money to go back. Then I'd met Richard, and after a few years, I'd met Calli.
Calli was my first sponsor, her real name was Calipso, but she said it made her
sound like a stripper, so we all called her Calli. She was much younger then I,
still in college, but she was an old soul. We'd met at AA and she was the one
who really cared about cleaning me up. At first, her coaching and support as my
sponsor made me quit, but after a month of being sober, I relapsed. But Calli
didn't give up on me.
Calli had a drinking problem as well, along with a bunch of other baggage. Her
father had left her and her mother when she was born, and her mother had been
overprotective. Calli's mom was one of those types that intended to live their
own life through their child. Calli had been perfect: captain of the soccer
team, straight A student, star of the school play, and class president three
years in a row. The problem with parents is that they expect to much of their
children, in Calli's mom's case, way to much.
Being so well rounded tends to make one rather stressed out. During Calli's
junior year of high school, she'd begun to cut herself and drink, a lot. No one
knew about her problems, and she finished high school on top, but inside she
knew she was falling. In college, her room mate had soon figured out her whole
deal, and tried to get her to go to AA. With that, Calli began to share at
meetings for a number of years, her drinking and cutting subsided and she began
to see a counselor about her problems. She'd been sober for about three years
when I stumbled into my first AA meeting.
Calli was sitting near the front, her calm blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair
stood out brightly inside the dark room. There was something about her, it was
healing and calming, and it surrounded her. I sat in the back, as most people do
at their first AA meeting. I watched as different people stood at the podium and
shared their stories. I wasn't brave enough to share mine. Compared to some of
the stories I heard that night, my problems were nothing.
It was after the meeting that I went outside for a cigarette. Calli was there,
smoke curling around her face and up into the night air. She looked at me.
"Hey." She'd said.
"Hi."
"First meeting?" I nodded. She took another drag and exhaled, and I followed
suit. "I could tell. You sat in the back right?" I nodded again. Calli smiled to
herself and looked at me again. "Even after I quit drinking, I couldn't stop
smoking." I smiled.
"I know what you mean."
"How long have you been sober for?" I laughed grimly at her question, then
stopped when I saw her serious expression.
"Try seventeen hours." Calli looked me in the eyes.
"So it's a real problem then huh?"
"Not really..." I said off handily. I didn't want someone to care, I didn't need
that.
"Then why did you come here in the first place? No one comes to a meeting if
they don't have a problem."
"I don't have a problem."
"Sure." Calli said. "You just think you don't have a problem. You *know* you
do." Normally that would have pissed me off, I hate it when people go all
Cheshire Cat on you, but something about Calli made me feel different. I took
another drag of my cigarette, then dropped it to the ground.
"I'm Abby."
"Nice to meet you, I'm Calli...Calipso, but just call me Calli." She dropped her
cigarette and crushed it under the heal of her doc Martin�s. That should have
been my cue to leave, but she'd triggered something in me that hadn't been
pulled before. Suddenly I wanted to share myself and my problems with someone. I
wanted to open up and relieve all the tension that had built up inside me.
"Do you want to go get a cup of coffee or something?"
"Sure."
Calli and I talked for what seemed like ages. It was strange, because most would
say that it was like speaking with an old friend, but even my old friends didn't
know this much about me. I told her about my bi-polar mother, and my father who
had left. Calli then shared with me her father had left too, and it sounds
corny, but for the first time in my life I felt like I wasn't alone.
I told her about Richard, and how I thought our marriage was deteriorating
slowly. How his rich family made me feel inferior and like I was nothing. I told
her about my odd-some years of nursing in order to save up enough money to go
back to medical school, and how Richard had come along and saved me the instant
he signed the first check to the school. I told her that no one had ever saved
me like that before, but now I knew better.
And the amazing thing was that Calli stayed and listened to me. She didn't just
nod pretend to listen to me, but she looked like she understood what I was going
through, because she'd gone through a similar ordeal herself only a few years
before.
After that, Calli and I would meet at AA and go out to dinner after a meeting.
We became friends, and she became my first sponsor. We'd listen to each other
and help each other through almost anything. She was the best friend I've ever
had. Before I knew it, I'd been sober for three months. It was Calli's fourth
year of being sober, so we decided to go out to celebrate.
"Congratulations." I said smiling, after we ordered our food. Calli didn't say
anything, which was strange. "Calli?" I asked, a bit concerned. She just stared
into space. "Calli are you okay?"
"Hm? Oh yeah, Abby, I'm fine."
"No, your not." My voice shook, I was scared. "...Calli?" She didn't say
anything, and I left it alone. But I was still nervous. The food came, but
conversation didn't, and we finished our dinner in silence. I paid the check and
we walked outside. "Calli, something is wrong, tell me what it is." I stopped
walking and looked at her. She had her head bowed and her coat wrapped around
her. I shook her by the shoulder. "Calli!"
"What?" She asked looking up at me, her eyes looking wild and giving me a shock.
Calli never looked like that. Calli was calm, and soothing, and open. But, still
waters run deep. I grasped Calli's arm and she winced, trying to pull away from
me. I rolled up her sleeve to reveal the scars and blood of three fresh cuts. My
stomach turned and I looked at her face. She looked ashamed, but there was a
smug smile on her face. It was not the Calli I knew, but it was.
In that moment, I had a flashback to when I was young. My mother had forgotten
her meds, and she was holding Eric's head over the sink, threatening to drown
him. One moment they were doing the dishes, the next, Eric was screaming for his
life. I stopped her, and hugged Eric's eight year old self to me. My mother sat
on the couch, shaking her head and murmuring something only she could
understand.
"Calli," I started, trying to pull myself together.
"I didn't deserve to celebrate Abby. I cut just an hour ago, and I drank behind
your back." I shook my head in disbelief.
"No." My hand felt like it was jelly as she yanked her wrist away from me.
"Yes." She said. Then she leaned in really close to me. I could smell alcohol on
her breath. "I have a secret for you Abby Lockhart." She whispered fiercely into
my ear. I tried to hold back the tears that threatened to escape from my eyes
that had been long dried. "You can't stop. You never will be able to. There is
no cure. You go to meetings thinking your bettering yourself and finally
quitting, but the addiction is still there. It will always be there, no matter
how badly you think you want to quit, you won't, 'cause you really don't want
to." I shuddered with fear and she pulled away.
She suddenly looked like her normal self again, serene blue eyes hiding all her
pain deep within. "I'm sorry I betrayed you." She said in her normal voice. And
she walked away. I didn't bother to call after her as I collapsed into a puddle
of my own tears on the sidewalk.
That night I bought a six pack and drank it all. No regrets. I passed out on my
living room floor, and my alarm clock the next morning was Richard tripping over
me on his way out the door. I told him I'd been watching TV and had probably
fallen asleep and fallen off the couch. He didn't care if I'd been lying to him
or not, he just nodded and left. I cried again as the door slammed. I cried all
morning and most of the afternoon. I'd cry, go in the bathroom to wash off my
face, look in the mirror at my pitiful, gullible self, and I'd break down into
tears again.
I think I was crying for Calli and all her demons, but I know I was really
crying for my own. I thought her relapse was my own fault.
The phone rang, and I picked it up. "Hello?"
"Abigail Lockhart?"
"Speaking."
"Ms.Lockhart, do you know one Calipso Gripling?"
"Yes..."
"Um, there's no easy way to say this, but Calipso was found in her bathroom this
morning, dead." The room spun and I grasped the phone with my sweaty and shaky
hands. "She uh, she slit her wrists, and her blood alcohol level was well
above..." The voice droned on and I pinched myself to make sure I was alive,
that this wasn't a horrible dream. That my best friend who had given me the
strength and courage to quit drinking had just killed herself. She was so young!
She'd had the world given to her, she was well on her way to recovering, and she
just ended it.
I drank again that afternoon. And before and after Calli's funeral. Richard had
gone on a business trip and he never called, so I was free to be as drunk as I
pleased. I wobbled around my house, trying to forget the pain that was jabbing
at me from all angles, but I couldn't, not even a glass of volka straight up
mixed with two beers could make me forget what Calli had done to herself and to
my spirit. She crushed me. I didn't want to go on.
Yet somehow I found the courage and continued life. I knew I didn't want to end
up like Calli did. If anything, she'd taught me that. The rest, as they say, is
history. Richard and I got divorced a year later, and soon after the medical
school kicked me out for not paying tuition. I became an OB nurse, then a trauma
nurse, and that's how I met you.
I thought I'd forgotten Calli and that part of my life, but you had to bring it
up again. I guess in a way it's relieving. I haven't ever told anyone about
Calli and what happened before. After her, I closed myself off to everyone and
every emotion. But then you came along and tried to make me feel, and the scary
part is that it's working. I hate you for that, but it's just become it's
bringing up bittersweet memories, you didn't know. You were asking an innocent
question. And now look at me, I'm a mess, tear-streaked face, puffy and red
eyes. But I'm free again for the first time in years, and it's all your fault.
Thank you.
****
LA
FIN
Author's Note: So, there ya go. The story of Abby's first sponsor. By the way,
if it wasn't clear enough, in the end of the story, Abby is talking to Carter.
:) I had to fit some Carby in there somewhere folks. This is somewhat of a
continuation of 'Dependency' but it can stand alone (like cheese) if you want.
Anyways, feedback would be just peachy. Ya know my thing, even if you just say
that you read the fic, I'll feel loved. (In a non-sexual way.) If y'all want
another Calli fic, mention it and I'll see if my muse is up to it. Thanks to all
those who sent me feedback about 'Aquatic Mischief' and 'Dependency.' This fic
is for Lydia En. E Ways, for being my "sponsor." :) All righty, I'll shut up
now.
