[h2]Camilla "Cam" Moris[/h2]
[hr][color=lightblue]Location: Somewhere in Midtown[/color]
[color=lightgreen]Time: A day before her first AA meeting[/color]
[color=pink]Days sober: 57[/color]
[hr]

To say it hadn't been the best day would've been an understatement. This day fucking sucked. That's what I thought as I was sitting in a park, eating my already cold Chinese take-away while watching some poor homeless man feed pigeons on his piece of cardboard. How he had the means to do that, I didn't know. But I didn't really care either. My fingers were cold and pale as they clutched the chopsticks in my hand. My hair shifted on my face as I tried to eat the last bits of the cooled off noodles, and I got a tuft of curly hair in my mouth. Damned wind.
I hadn't slept a second last night. Even my sleeping pills hadn't been able to chase away the horrid fever dream-ish things that followed whenever my eyes closed. Living in a block of flats in the midst of a busy street wasn't my best choice of residence, but it was the cheapest, so I didn't have much I could complain about. Sometimes I was fortunate enough to get the night shift in the fast food place, but today my shift had been one of the day ones. This was my lunch break; it was ironic I was eating a take-away when I was working in a place that would let me eat there for free. I wouldn't touch the food with a long stick, though. Just working with it and seeing all the grease was enough to turn me off of it.
I realised I'd been spacing off only as my eyes started burning from dryness. I blinked, noticing I had been staring into the distance for god knows how long. The blinks moisturized by eyes but gave me painful flashes of mixed feelings, whispers of thoughts and a pang of migraine. It was bad enough that I had gotten hardly any sleep, I had to have a damned migraine too, didn't I? God, I was so tired.
Yawning, I got up from the cold bench, leaving the half empty take-away behind me, and returned to my work station across the street.

Later, after I got off my shift, was the time I had been waiting for. My baby brother was in town and I wanted to meet him. It had been a while since I'd last seen him. Maybe it would go well this time, you know? I knew he didn't like my lifestyle, but now that I was sober, I actually harbored a hope of him agreeing to get back in touch with me. I missed him so much.

"Hi, Camilla."
"Hi, Titus," I smiled as I opened my arms in an invitation of a hug. Hesitantly he hugged back, almost as if holding back. I hated it. "You've grown so much since the last I saw you!" I noted as I pulled back, examining my brother's appearance. He had grown a stubble, but his attire was very formal. Law school it was, then.
"Yeah," he answered distantly, ruffling his curly hair, then adjusting his tie awkwardly. "Look, what did you want, Cam? More money, is that it?" Titus seemed a bit frustrated, and I felt a pang of hurt at his words, forcing my eyes closed. He really hadn't forgiven me for how I behaved back then, huh? [i]'She looks so tired... she's drunk, isn't she?'[/i]
I felt a strong sense of claustrophobia overtake me as the beating of my brother's heart filled my ears, his thoughts swirling into my ears. I was filled with disgust for myself, disgust but also... disappointment. I felt disappointed, and I knew that wasn't my own feelings, but his. I swallowed hard and forced my eyes open. Mom and dad had really got into Titus' head over the past few years. He really thought I was still his drunk big sister, didn't he?
"No, ac-actually," I forced out as I felt my throat close up, "It's not. And I'm sober. 57 days to be exact. I just wanted to see my little brother." This seemed to surprise Titus since his eyebrows shot up, as if I had read his thoughts. Which, in fact, I had done, albeit accidentally. I hadn't meant to. Still, I saw Titus' expression change from surprised to slightly cold. Now the disappointment I felt wasn't his, but my own.
"Okay. Cool. Well, I'm here, you've seen me. I actually need to go now, so if there's nothing else..."
I sighed in defeat. Titus didn't understand. Mom and dad had never understood. What I had was a disease, I couldn't help it. I tried like hell, I really did. But they always judged me when I had needed them the most. They didn't have any idea what it was, living with this... this... curse, it had to be. Taking a deep breath, I shook my head. "No, it's okay. You go ahead. It was... it was nice to see you, pumpkin."
"Nice to see you too. Bye." With that, he was gone, and what I had been waiting for for the entire week was over, just like that. My mind screamed in agony and a hot, painful throbbing behind my eyes intensified.

I needed a drink.[hr]
[h3]The next day[/h3]

[hr][color=lightblue]Location: From East Village to Central Park[/color]
[color=lightgreen]Time: The day of her first AA meeting[/color]
[color=pink]Days sober: 0[/color]
[hr]

Great, just great. My first thought upon waking up was: [i]I fucking disgust myself[/i].
There was an intense throbbing behind my eyes, which only intensified as I opened the curtains and let the daylight in. The cars' noises and the screaming horns pierced my ears and made me hold my head in pain. What a better way to begin your first day at a support group than being absolutely hungover.
Despite from apparently having passed out, my last memory being the smelly floor of some bar, I had ended up safely in my own bed. That, and I felt absolutely no more refreshed than I would if I hadn't slept at all. Sometimes life just loved beating my sorry ass, didn't it?
Freshening up by taking a long shower helped only so much when every time I saw light I felt compelled to shield my eyes from it by closing them, only to be confronted with the onslaught of emotions from the flats around me, emotions that weren't my own. Or maybe the signals came from the street, because it was already midday so people would be at work and shit, I was almost late for the meeting.
Today was my day off so of course I hadn't thought about needing to actually get up today. Well, good thing I actually remembered the group meeting. Although at this point I was heavily hoping it to be an actual AA group than something else. I could really use some control in my life.

The journey from my flat to Central Park was agonising. People had such petty problems, who'd have thought people were thinking about stuff like [i]that[/i] while commuting in the subway? Alien emotions violated my mind every time I closed my eyes, even for a fucking blink. Flashes of heartbeats, of white figures against the darkness of my eyelids, weird and private thoughts I had no right seeing but couldn't help recieving. The whole way there I felt sad, miserable, then suddenly annoyed, annoyed but in a different way, and then almost manically happy. I just wanted a break from it, and since I had already broken my soberity once... [b]No.[/b] I wouldn't touch a bottle anymore. I wouldn't. I'd drown the need to drink by eating shrimp flavored corn chips if I had to (that's what I was craving currently, it appeared), but I wouldn't drink. For my sake, and my family's. They'd learn to understand me one day.

After wondering around for a while, I felt like I had come to a right place. At least there were others here and the chairs were assembled in such a manner I thought they must've been for the meeting. In the room there were three women and a man. The atmosphere in the room was odd, charged, somehow. When I closed my eyes, the first thing that greeted me was a feeling of being the worst looking person around here. Wait, what? No I wasn't, that wasn't how I felt. It must've been someone else here. I forced my eyes open, not wanting to feel anyone's mind but my own.
"Uhm, I suppose this is the right place? Like, the AA group thingie," I said, adjusting my glasses. Wow, the women looked very energisized. Except one of them, who just looked calm and was radiating some odd energy I couldn't quite put my finger on.
"Yes, you must be one of the newcomers," the same woman greeted with a polite smile. She said it in such a voice which made me feel like she already knew who I was, knew I was supposed to be here. It gave me a chill. "I'm Erina, the organisizer of these meetings. You can take whichever seat you'd like, make yourself comfortable."
Nodding, I looked over at the pile of danishes, hunger filling me. Not quite what I was craving, but they'd do. My heels clipped against the floor as I walked over to the table before going to take a seat next to a fizzy haired brunette, staying rather silent.