"I told you, that when I commit to something- I really fucking commit."
Escaping your unsupportive family and provincial small town, you flea to New York to establish your career as a Journalist and conquer your alcohol addiction; only to be thrown...
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The elevated walls of the church glimmer with a refined, pearlish sainthood. Scalloped brick encloses you in its condemning arms; the embrace of God more oppressive than it was nurturing. The velvet, Jesus floor mat, scuffed with mud and threadbare from the persistent chafe of footwork, splayed between you and the other alcoholics.
You blatantly sweep a critical glare over both the dedicated and the new who filled the portable, rusted chairs.
Apparently, there wasa new volunteer here every week. Occasionally, they had the raucous, belligerent elementary gym-teacher type to forcefully motivate the crowd into disposing of their drinking habits. Sometimes, it's a young figure still dubious on alcohol conflictions, and they're just there to improve the substance of their community service factions.
Or at least that's what you'd gathered from a three hour scroll-through the Yelp reviews last night, before deigning to attend.
Now you were vacillating whether this establishment was insightful, or if the reviews were correct.
A voice announces your name exuberantly. You blink, shifting in your seat, defensively draping your arms over your chest. Silence filtered the air, as dozens of pairs of murky eyes drifted in your direction.
"Yes?" You mutter, eyeing this weeks visibly dedicated volunteer, as he supplies you with an amiable smile.
"Share something about yourself," he pries hospitably, tilting his head. "It can be alcohol related, or not."
You sigh, plastering on a candied grin, smoothing out the skirt cascading down your legs. "Oh, well..." You start, your smile faltering, as you casted your gaze to a broad man in the corner of the chapel. "I'm a journalist..." Your eyebrows furrow as the man spears you with a dull, but ever-penetrating stare. "Um, typically I do investigative journalism..."
The man ruffles with his loose, wrinkled tunic, feathering his hand through his raven, tousled locks, as he trudges over to the mostly occupied circle of chairs. His irises were a deadpan honey-hazel as they observed you, and then the array of seats. He awkwardly shuffles along the rug and plops down in the vacant seat perpendicular to you.
"B-but I have a range, in what I write." You slur, jumbling the words, as your eyes flicker from the inquisitive man, to the crowd of inattentive listeners.
"That's rad," the volunteer muses, nodding along to the awkward, heedful claps you gain in response to your bleak introductory.
There was an idle moment of silence, when just as the volunteer, that looked like a Dan or a Phil, opened his mouth to address another person, the mysterious man gruffly cleared his throat.
"You write?" He snorts, his dark eyebrows woven together, as he clasps his veiny hands and perches his elbows on his knees.
You stifle a perplexed chuckle at his evasiveness and give him a plain nod, suppressing the bewildered grin that was threatening to tug at your lips.
