medicine {h.s.}

CHAPTER TWELVE

december.

"He's been there all night," Fletch juts his head out in the direction of Styles' slumped over and sleeping form. His head is resting against the grimy surface of the bar. All around him, there are visible splotches of sticky and spilled alcohol, his head blockading anything from spreading too far. His cheek rests against a mysterious stain on the counter. Fletch seems to have made a halfhearted effort to clean around Styles, but it is clear that he gave up rather quickly—opting to not risk touching his sleeping body and unintentionally waking him. As I am staring at him, Styles' hand twitches briefly. Both Fletch and I freeze, nervous that he has woken up prematurely; but he quickly returns to his otherwise dead and comatose state.

"This is some déjà vu," I sarcastically remark, referring to all of the nights that I'd been called in at 4am while Fletch was shutting down the bar. All those nights that he would inform me that my mother had passed out and needed someone to help her home. Of course, I don't add in that I had thought—assumed, hoped—that these nights were long behind me. Nearly ten years later, and I cannot avoid the lingering sense of abandonment and influence from my mother. Some wounds never heal in the way that we want them to. Like a bone that never properly sets, there are some things that will forever come back to haunt us, I suppose.

Fletch offers me a tight lipped smile. "I didn't know who else to call," he admits, pulling a rag from his back pocket, and he casually begins to wipe down the surface of the bar. Chairs are already stacked on the tables and I know he is just wasting time for me to gather Styles and get him out of here so he can go home. "You've seen him here," he puts the rag down on the counter as he looks up at me. "He comes in alone every night, doesn't talk to anyone 'cept for me. And maybe some of those ladies he goes home with. He's been doing this since you all started in July. I know you're all in the same group. I didn't have anyone else to call. It was either you or the cops, hon, and I think he'd rather it were you."

"I'm not sure about that."

"I am," Fletch challenges me, dropping the rag against the counter as he crosses his arms over his chest, "everyone thinks they'd rather the cops. At least, until it is the cops." The words serve as a somber reminder of the time my mother had spent the night in jail. I'd been up studying for a chemistry final and fell asleep without charging my phone. A careless error on my part, sure, but I was only a kid. I shouldn't have had to make those decisions. It had been just before she left me, perhaps that was a final straw. That day, I think she saw me as I was: her daughter. I was not born to be her keeper, get out of jail free card, or whatever else she viewed me as. I was a reminder that she couldn't count on me in the way that she had become reliant on.

More than that, the memory serves as a vehicle for the blinking red lights that warn me how little I know about Styles. I've worked with him for five months now. In these five months, all that I've learned is that he has a knack for avoiding trouble, and loves to spend his free time with nurses in the on call room. Recently, I learned a traumatic story from his childhood. I can't discount that admission; that was a big moment for the both of us; even if I doubt it meant very much for him to admit. This aside, there is very little that I concretely know about him. The majority of my perceptions on him are wholly speculation.

"Listen," Fletch says, giving me a pleading look. His voice snaps me out of my thoughts. "Can you please get him out of here? I just want to go home."

Guiltily, I nod my head. My childhood consisted of nights of him calling me in to pick up my mother who was too drunk to drive herself home. He did it so often, for so long, that he still will joke that mine is the only phone number that he knows by heart. It's been years since he has needed to do that for me last, but how many people have filled the void for him since? "Yeah, Fletch, I'll get him out of here." I agree immediately.