Picking up her clothes off the floor with shaking hands

Trying to be quick and quiet despite the throbbing at her temples (ohgoddon’t wake him)

His roaring snore, at once terrible and reassuring

The queasy cramping in her gut, not only the result of all she drank last night (this morning)

But the pressure to get away, get out, get lost. (isn’t that exactly how it started again)

Purse in hand, wallet, credit card, phone intact (it isn’t always) she makes her escape, avoiding all reflections, leaving all doors open.

Calling an Uber she starts to run to the gas station two blocks away, the rain mixing with her tears, she doesn’t taste the salt.

At the gas station she grabs a bottle of water and takes a big drink before she pays

For a minute she thinks it’s going to come back up, swallows three times, and it stays down (it doesn’t always).

She has managed to avoid all reflections, but she can see how she looks to the Uber driver as he watches her climb into his backseat

She doesn’t like it.

The rhythm of the wipers keeps time with the pounding in her head

They don’t speak until he pulls up outside her apartment, and then it’s just the briefest thanks.

She lets herself in to her apartment, twelve steps down.

Gato, her cat, is happy to see her, insistent to be fed. She nuzzles and apologizes to him

His purr says he understands (again).

She showers away the night, the man, tells herself that it won’t happen again

It can’t (again)

She searches her phone, finds an AA meeting she can go to at 6.

Good she’ll do that

After some sleep.

She wakes at 5, checks the address on her phone feeds Gato

She climbs twelve steps up into the waning day

She walks toward the church

when she gets there, she opens the heavy door

It closes behind her with a finality that sounds like the end of something.

Twelve steps down to the dank basement

Stale cigarette and fresh coffee smells come up to meet her.

She picks a chair near the door.

The room begins to fill with people

She begins to feel

Uncomfortable

Claustrophobic

Twitchy

As a man with a grey mustache and graying hair walks up to the microphone

She slips out of the room

Up the twelve steps

Out into the waning day

She tells herself she’s fine

She walks twelve steps to the corner

Turns left

And then twelve blocks up

She opens the door

It shuts behind her with a slam that sounds like welcome

The smell of beer, stale, fresh, comes to meet her (an old friend, that smell).

A man with brown hair and a darker beard catches her eye.

“Your usual?” he asks, already grabbing a bottle from the well

“You betcha” she says, already settling on her stool

Avoiding all reflections in the mirror

(Again)