Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Recovery

Now that I have an internship, you guys are going to have to suffer with me jumping around in timeline all over the place because I am not going to fight with my brain and what it wants to write. 

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Several years earlier 

His apartment was in a poor neighborhood in the next county over from Orion, by a drive of five to ten minutes, primarily made up of subsidized housing and low rent apartment buildings. And here Thomas was, out of the system on his second, second chance and had been clean for about six months now, those months being primarily comprised of all the time he spent working through the system and trying to convince the judge that he really was ready to do the court rehab.

The judge had been skeptical, but she had believed in him enough to let him try. That's what last chance was for, people like him.

And it really did feel different this time. The last time he had gone through rehab it was sort of just going through the motions, doing what he had to do until he could get out, where he fell right back into his old patterns with his old friends and his old haunts, but now he was trying something new. He had been forced to stay in the same area because rent was cheap, but there was a really nice charity group that had helped him find a job, and for the first time in a long time his paycheck was going to rent.

Rent on a shabby quadriplex with noisy next door neighbors, but he had done his best to make it a clean, homey space. For the first time in what felt like years, he felt okay putting family pictures up on the walls, where before he had refused because he felt like if they could see him the real people would somehow know and be disappointed. All his furniture was a mismatched collection of whatever he could pick up from yard sales or for free, and there was even a musty old guitar in the corner.

He didn't know how to play, but talking to his counselor last week, she had discussed with him an interesting theory. A lot of the people she knew who felt sad and empty, weather it be due to drugs or depression or whatever else, none of them seemed to have hobbies, at last not any more. She had a theory that hobbies were a great source of intrinsic motivation and self worth, and encouraged him to find something that he liked.

Thomas was sad to find that he didn't have any old hobbies to go back to. He had started his spiral so young that he had never really had time to develop interests. He wasn't really sure he was all that interested in music, but he was going to try.

He was sad a lot these days.

But the counselor said that was normal for someone so long dependent on a high.

A sudden knock came at the door, and he jumped nervously where he sat before leaping to his feet and hurrying over. He paused only once to take a deep breath before opening the door.

Outside, he found three familiar faces.

And one new one.

His mother smiled at him, His father's face was cautiously stern, and his little brother offered him his best version of his goofy kid smile, though it was still somewhat subdued. Looking down he saw the third face, a black and tan German Shepherd with large ears, and wearing a red vest that said:

SERVICE DOG: DO NOT TOUCH

"You made it!" He said, doing his best to sound cheerful, and leaned forward to hug his little brother. The exchange was warm, and Thomas squeezed tight. He owed his little brother his current sobriety because it was him that had inadvertently knocked some sense into him. He noted, with a lump in his throat, that Adam was still wearing the Jacket that Thomas had given him that day.

He let Adam go and hugged his mother and father in turn. Unsure about his father's expression, he stuck out a hand for a handshake, but Jim waved it aside and gave him a hug instead, which was nice, and touching coming from his father, who he hadn't always gotten along with, a fact Thomas was now recognizing as his own fault.