Such A Beautiful Disaster

Part 10

Once I had gotten home from Julie's office, I didn't know what to do with myself. I felt physically and emotionally drained. I decided to lie down and take a nap, thinking that there was nothing better for me to be doing. I don't remember falling asleep, because when my phone rang at some point, I jumped off the couch completely startled. I picked the still ringing phone off the floor where it had fallen and answered.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Molly. It's Julie."

I looked at the clock on the wall, thinking that she had called back extremely quick, and realized that I had been asleep for two and a half hours.

"Hi, Julie. Did you find somewhere for me to go?"

"Tri-County Memorial will have a bed available Friday. They've arranged for a driver to come pick you up from my office at 9:00 AM that morning."

My stomach churned as she said those words. I really did want to get help, and I really felt I was ready to change this time, but it was so...sudden. This was all happening very fast.

"Uh, okay," I said to Julie. "You're going to be alright Molly. Just hang in there until Friday. Be safe, okay?"

I nodded my head, then realized she couldn't see me doing that.

"Yeah," I replied.

"Okay. I'll see you here Friday morning then. Bye."

"Bye," I said and then we hung up.

I sat back down on the couch, my head spinning with the thought of everything I had to do. I felt sick, both from the pills and knowing I would have to call Luigi's and quit without giving them a full two weeks notice. I really needed to call RC back too. I decided to deal with Luigi's first. I dialed the number and heard Krista's voice on the other end.

"Luigi's. How can I help you?"

"Hey Krista. It's Molly. Is Lynn or Debbie around? I need to talk to them about something."

"Uh, yeah, Lynn is here. Is everything okay?"

I didn't know what to tell her. I didn"t even know what I was going to tell Lynn. Telling her I had to quit because I had one last chance to go to rehab before I totally screwed up my life didn't sound very good. So I just told Krista "Yeah, everything's cool." "Okay. Well, here's Lynn," Krista said. I could hear the phone being passed around and then Lynn's voice "Hey, Mol. What's up?" At that moment the perfect lie popped in my head. I felt bad about lying but I didn't want to seem like I was just up and quitting.

"Hey, Lynn. Look, I feel really bad for telling you this on such short notice but I didn't find out until just know. My knee has been really bothering me lately. I tore my ACL when I was in high school and I dealt with it then but when I saw my doctor today about the pain, I found out it was in really bad shape. He wants to do an arthroscopic knee surgery right away before it gets any worse and totally falls apart. He scheduled me for Friday morning. The thing is that it's going to take 4-6 weeks to fully recover. I won't be able to be on my feet for long periods of time during that, besides the physical therapy. I'm so sorry that I'm leaving you guys without more notice. I was hoping that once I was fully recovered I would still be able to come back to Luigi's."

This had happened to a friend from high school that I didn't even talk to anymore but I somehow still remembered the whole ordeal. I held my breath waiting for Lynn's response, hoping she wouldn't be angry. "Oh my god, Molly! I mean yeah, this is going to be inconvenient for us because we'll be one person short, but you know how we always get kids coming in here to apply. I'm sure we won't have a problem finding someone new. But don't worry about it! You're such a hard worker. As soon as you get better you give us a call and I'll make sure we fit you back into the schedule, if anything just a few hours a week until we can get you back in full time.

"I breathed a sigh of relief. "Lynn, thank you SO much! Again, I'm super sorry that I didn't know any sooner."

"Don't worry, Mol. We'll be okay. You take care now. And let us know as soon as you're ready to come back." "Thanks, Lynn. I will."

"Okay. Talk to you later. Bye now."

"Bye," I replied, then hung up.

I was such a liar. Ugh. But I wanted to keep my job and that's what happened. I was grateful that Lynn was such a nice person. And I was a hard worker. Just a very troubled individual. The next order of business was to call RC. I didn't want to do it. I just felt horrible for ignoring him this whole week. He had to know something was up by now. So I dialed his number, taking deep breaths while it rang.

"Molly! Holy shit! What is going on?! Why haven't you called me until now?! What bad things have you been doing?!" RC assaulted my ear drums with his loud tone, but I had to laugh. Even at his most pissed off state, RC never can pull off actually looking or sounding angry. "Molly! This is not funny! Your warped sense of humor is not appreciated right now!" I took a breath then said "RC, dude I'm sorry. I know this isn't funny. You sound funny which is why I'm laughing. And I'm sorry for not calling. That wasn't cool. I'm going to rehab on Friday morning." I added that last part almost as an afterthought, to get it out there.

"WHAT?!?!" RC practically popped my ear drum with the force of his voice. I pulled the phone away from my ear and massaged the damaged area. I switched the phone to my unharmed ear and replied innocently "Um, what part did you not understand?" "Don't get smart Molly! Why is this such a joke to you?! Do you ever think about how you're affecting others by your actions? Like do you ever stop to think about how much it sucks for me when you keep disappearing for weeks at a time? Or how it hurts when we make plans and you blow me off? Or when you just plain ignore me because you're off getting high? I know that sounds selfish but I'm sick of having my best friend be MIA all the time."

I hung my head in shame. I always felt bad when I didn't tell RC something that happened because I didn't want him to worry. Or when I ignored him because I didn't want him to see me the way I was. But I never stopped to think about how all of this affected him too. I started crying. "RC, I'm so, so sorry. I'm such a horrible friend. I'm just a bad person in general. A fucking junkie. It's just that....the anniversaries are...coming...up." I barely got the last sentence out because I was crying so hard. "Oh, Molly." RC's voice totally lost the hard edge in it. In it's place was a sadness and understanding.

"I don't even know what to say. I can't even imagine what you're going through. But getting high isn't going to help. As much as it sucks to see you go away again, maybe it will help you finally get the help you need to deal with what happened." RC paused for a moment while I got a hold of myself. "Do you know which one you're going to?" "It's called Tri-County Memorial," I told him. "Where the hell is that?" he asked. "Uh, actually, I have no clue," I replied not realizing it until the moment I told him. We both started laughing at the stupidity of it. It felt good to laugh though. "Well, you better find out so I can come visit you," RC said between laughs. "Yeah," I said still laughing myself "I will."

"Okay well I don't care whether you like it or not but I'm coming over. We're going to go out and do something fun. So you start getting ready and I'll be there in fifteen minutes," he told me. I opened my mouth to protest but thought better of it. For one thing, RC would come over whether I told him not to or not. The other thing is that I figured doing something with him would probably make me feel a lot better. "Okay," I responded. "Later, best friend in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD! I'll see you soon," RC said.

"Later BFF," I replied then hung up. Then I finally hauled my butt off the couch to get ready to have a good time.