Watch Over Me (6 page)

Dear Mom,

I miss you. I wish you were here.

I miss you more today than yesterday,

but not half as much as tomorrow.

Love,

Addison

"
Why do you hate going to the meetings so much, Addison?" Dr. Thompson asks as I settle
in on the couch and notice a cup of coffee from Panera sitting on her side table.
I close my eyes for a moment and pretend like I'm speaking to my mother while she
sips her favorite coffee.

"I just think they're pointless. It's not like I'm getting anything out of them."

She cocks her head and smiles at me.

"And yet you keep going back. You keep going back to the same place, week after week,
with the same people. I know it's hard for you to go back to that hospital, the place
you spent so much time while your mother was sick, but you still do it. Why do you
think that is?"

She sits there patiently, waiting for me to answer her, but I don't have an answer.
I honestly don't know why I continue to go back.

"Even though you won't admit it, I think going to these meetings gives you comfort.
It makes you feel a little more normal because you know you aren't the only one struggling
with someone who has an addiction. You aren't as alone as you think you are, Addison.
Around every corner is a possibility: a possibility of hope, of friendship, of support.
This week, try and put yourself out there. Tell them your name, open up to them, give
them
something.
Show them who you are and don't be afraid. No one can help you, no one WILL help
you, if you won't let them. For God's sakes, let them help you so I can stop giving
you these boring lectures."

She punctuates her statement with a short, loud laugh exactly like my mother's. For
a moment, it's easy to imagine
her
sitting across from me instead of Dr. Thompson. I would have immediately taken her
advice without a second though had it been my mother doling out words of wisdom.

I pull into the parking lot of the hospital at quarter past eight in the evening and
have to wait another ten minutes for an elevator. Regardless of the fact that I absolutely
hate these meetings, I hate the fact that they have to be
here—
the same place where I spent the better part of my last two years of high school.
I hate the smells, I hate the sights, and I hate that I continue to come here week
after week and subject myself to this torture.

At 7:50 I was adamant that I wasn't going to another meeting since it was pointless
to keep going to something that clearly wasn't helping me at all.

At 8:00 I was starting up my car and cursing loudly as I backed out of the driveway
of my apartment.

The elevator takes its sweet time going up and stops on almost every floor. I let
out a growl of frustration as it stops on the seventh floor and my eyes pop out of
my head when I see who gets on.

What the hell is HE doing here?

It's the guy from the coffee shop. The one I pretend to never notice but think about
constantly. The one who always smiles at me and who wrote me a note on a napkin. A
napkin I swore I would throw away, but now it sits next to my laptop at home, smoothed
out from the irritated crumple I gave it.

His footsteps falter as our eyes meet, but he quickly recovers and smiles broadly
at me as he gets on and stands right next to me.

"Ten, please," he happily tells the woman standing directly in front of the elevator
buttons as he shifts his backpack up a little higher on the shoulder he has it slung
over. I stare straight ahead at the closing doors, wishing I could make my feet move
to run out of there. I refuse to look at "Napkin Guy" even though I can see him staring
down at me out of the corner of my eye.

The elevator crawls up to the next floor and dings its arrival before the doors open
again. I silently curse the person who gets on and stands right in front of me, blocking
my escape.

"Fancy meeting you here, Bakery Girl," he finally whispers to me in the crowded elevator.

Bakery Girl? Did he just call me Bakery Girl?

I grind my teeth and finally turn to face him, my breath catching in my throat when
I see how close his face is to mine. He's about a head taller than me, and he bends
down so he can speak without being overheard. I've always noticed how cute he was
from a few feet away at the bakery, but being this close to him is distracting.

"Are you stalking me?" I whisper angrily, saying the first thing that comes to my
jumbled mind.

His smile immediately broadens and he chuckles to himself as he moves in even closer
and speaks right next to my ear, his chest brushing up against my arm.

"If I was, this would be the most boring and depressing place for me to show off my
mad stalking skills. This place is sick. Literally."

The clean, manly smell of his cologne is disrupting my concentration, and his nearness
and joking manner make me feel nervous. Aside from Meg, people don't joke around with
me anymore. Lately, I don't really have the type of personality that begs to be played
with or teased in any way.

I take a step away from him, forcing me to bump up against the nurse in purple hospital
scrubs on the other side of me.

I hear him chuckle under his breath again as I turn my body away from him and pretend
like I am completely engrossed in watching the numbers above the door light up for
each floor they pass.

"Are you visiting someone?" he whispers, close to me again.

Jesus, he's like a ninja.

I keep my face straight-ahead and don't acknowledge his question.

"You're not sick, are you? Maybe I shouldn't stand so close. You might be contagious."

His jovial demeanor makes me want to look him straight in the eye and tell him that
I am indeed sick, but luckily for him, it's nothing he can catch. He's obviously not
going to stop until I give him something. Maybe if I'm mean enough, he'll go away.

"The Stalkers Anonymous meeting is on the second floor. I think you made a wrong turn,
Napkin Guy," I mutter angrily without looking at him.

"Did you just call me
Napkin Guy
?" he asks with a laugh. "My name's actually Zander. And Stalkers Anonymous is on
the fourth floor, and they only meet on days when the person they're stalking is busy
or when Creepers Consortium is cancelled."

As more people get on and off the slowest elevator known to man, I continue to ignore
him, even though it's growing increasingly painful to keep biting my lip to stop myself
from smiling at his quick comebacks. When the doors take too long to close after the
last person exits, he reaches in front of me and hits the "close doors" button, his
arm brushing up against me, and I have to force myself not to shiver.

I glance at him out of the corner of my eye while he stares straight-ahead and hums
along to the muzak version of
Stairway to Heaven
that's being piped through the speakers in the elevator. He looks to be in his early
twenties. He's got short, black hair that appears to have been freshly cut by how
clean the lines are at the edge of his neck and around his sideburns. He wets his
lips with his tongue, and when I manage to tear my gaze away from those lips, I realize
he's staring at me again and has caught me practically drooling while watching him.
I quickly turn my eyes away and feel a blush form on my cheeks.

I don't know what he's doing here, and I wasn't really joking when I called him a
stalker. While I should probably be nervous that he seems to be following me around,
there's something about him that puts me at ease. I've kept myself closed off from
people for so long that the feeling of my heart rate quickening in excitement instead
of dread is a strange sensation. It should make me happy that
something
has the ability to do that to me, but all it does is irritate me. I don't need some
weird guy trying to get in my pants, which I'm sure that's what this is about. Or
he's just a friendly person who will talk to anyone no matter where he is, just like
my mother.

"I've been lucky. I haven't had any nausea at all with the chemo. My sister had breast
cancer about ten years ago and it was horrible for her. She would throw up for days
afterward. My doctor still gave me a prescription for Zofran just in case."

I walked up behind my mom who was in a deep discussion with the cashier at Macy's.
I pulled my cell phone out of my purse and started scrolling through texts to distract
myself from the topic of my mom's cancer. She was having a good day, and I didn't
want anything to ruin it, especially my worries.

"Make sure you tell Dr. Fuller I said hello. She was wonderful. I still get a Christmas
card from her every year," the cashier told my mother as she slid the receipt into
her bag and lifted it over the counter to her.

"I will, Debbie. I'll also tell her about your new granddaughter."

"That would be wonderful. Take care and I will make sure to keep you in my prayers,"
Debbie, the cashier, said with a kind smile on her face.

My mom said good-bye and we made our way out of Macy's and head towards the food court
for lunch.

"Where do you know that Debbie person from?"

My mom looked over at me and shrugged. "I don't. I just met her."