Shortness of Breath

Chapter Seventeen

A/N: Hey all, remember me? As a form of apology for taking months to get this update out, I've made it longer than your average chapter. Hopefully this one will last a while longer. I have some time off from school coming up soon, so I'm hoping to get the next one out faster than this one. Thanks for hanging in there and enjoy!

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Hallie - October twenty seventh

I was already five minutes late, but I'd quickly learned that within circles such as Narcotics Anonymous, one person's five minutes late could very easily be another person's twenty minutes early. People often shuffled in at odd times, and no one was ever really turned away. Even still, when I walked, in my boots seemed to crash down with every step on the laminate, my keys rang in my hand,  the door squeaked loudly, and everyone - seated in a chair in a circle this time - turned to face me and stare. I met all their looks in turn, and it felt like all of time had stopped. But I didn't make out any of the faces in particular until all of a sudden I recognized one and realized this had all been a mistake.

She looked shocked, almost apologetic, and almost opened her mouth to speak but didn't. The man I assumed was the meeting leader looked rightfully perplexed, because rather than coming in and taking a seat I was standing in the doorway and staring at Sylvana, making a dumb face at her that asked "What are you doing here?" but, of course, that was about the dumbest question I could've asked.

"Hello," he said slowly. "Would you like to come introduce yourself?"

"Oh, shit," I found myself saying. "Sorry, I'm in the wrong room."

I saw Sylvana roll her eyes, but she didn't speak.

"What are you looking for?" he tried to help. To me it felt like he was just calling my bluff.

I didn't know what room I was supposed to be looking for. I was in a church basement. Barring NA, which obviously wouldn't work as a lie, nothing I knew of happened in church basements except Girl Scout meetings, which would've been creepier than just running away unexplained.

"The church," I said.

"The church?"

"Yeah, the church part of the church."

He pressed his lips together and cocked his head.

"I'd like to attend a service."

"It's Thursday evening."

"Okay, sorry," I said flippantly. "Didn't realize I'd walked into a meeting for Metro PD."

I turned to go back out into the hallway when Sylvana called back out after me. "Hallie, don't be fucking stupid."

I exhaled, hard. "Well, thanks for doing the introduction part for me, Syl."

"You don't have to leave just because I'm here."

"Have to, no," I agreed. "I'm just choosing to."

"Would you just sit your ass down so you don't fuck up the five minutes of sobriety you have under your belt?"

The group leader looked absolutely petrified, and I'd have guessed that he hadn't been leading these meetings for very long. He didn't say a word, but really, what would he have said? I didn't want to make any more of a scene than I already had, and so I finally resolved to just take a seat, however painful the next hour would be.

"Well," I begrudged. "It's already been said. Hallie, fucking stupid, clean for five minutes."

She smiled and I hated her for it. "Hi, Hallie fucking stupid."