Garfield pushed himself into the final stretch of his morning run. It was a beautiful day: the sun was shining extra bright, the birds were chirping just a little bit louder, and the flowers the bloomed around the trail. Everything seemed extra bright, or at least to Garfield it did. In truth it was a terribly hot August day.

"Morning." He panted cheerfully to a miserable looking woman on the trail.

Choking on the humidity, she sneered at his cheerfulness, an action that went unnoticed by Garfield as he ran by. He could see the residence in the distance so he decided to sprint the last eighth of the mile. He brought himself into a running halt as he entered the lush green backyard. Hands on knees, he brought his stop watch to his face, and smiled. He ran the five kilometers in eighteen minutes. His time hadn't been that low since he ran cross country in high school. He had forgotten how great the running trail was in the park around the corner from his house. The trail at the recovery center had been overgrown by vegetation, another motivation for getting through the program as quickly as possible.

It had been the hardest, longest eight weeks of his entire life. The program had forced Garfield to admit that his drug habit had long developed into a drug problem. After the events that had transpired at the beginning of the summer, his parents had had enough and offered him an ultimatum: enter an eight week drug rehabilitation program or they'd stop paying for his school and disown him completely. It had seemed unreasonably harsh at the moment, but it was just the wakeup call he needed.

This was his first morning back home since completing the program. He felt completely refreshed. He was looking forward to the future and dedicating himself to his sobriety. He entered his house to the smell of breakfast being made.

"Something smells good." He panted entering the kitchen.

His mother Rita smiled at him, placing the last of the pancakes on the plate in front of him. "Granola pancakes, your favorite."

She kissed him on the cheek as he prepared to devour the stack in front of him. He took one bite and swooned.

"Hmm, I missed your cooking so much. The food at the clinic sucked."

"Garfield, language." His father Steve warned entering the kitchen and taking a seat with his wife and son.

Garfield suppressed an eye roll. Him and Steve had never been what one would call "close", but ever since his drug problem it had been like living in enemy territory. The tension didn't seem to assuage when he returned home. They continued their breakfast in silence.

"Oh, Garfield" Rita piped in "Your class enrollment was scheduled while you were-away so I took the liberty of signing you up for your fall classes."

Garfield looked over the list of classes. "Statistics, Financial Reporting, Principles of Management, Intro to Operations Management…I don't know about this. I know I'm declared already but accounting is such a bore. I was actually thinking about changing my major."

"Oh." Rita said surprised. She glanced nervously at Steve. "What were you thinking about? Finance? Economics?"

"Actually," Garfield said stirring the remaining syrup on his plate with his fork "I was thinking about maybe getting into animal science."

The table was quieter than a graveyard. The look in Steve's eyes was expected but very annoyed. He looked from Garfield back to his newspaper.

"Garfield we talked about this. If we're going to continue to pay for your education you have to live under certain terms-"

"I don't remember choosing my major for me was part of the deal." It came out angrier than he intended.

"Garfield calm down."

Garfield took a deep breath and counted backwards from ten. That was something they had taught him at the clinic.

"Look, I'm trying here. I'm following your rules. I'm living at home instead of on campus and I'm staying sober. I just need something that is mine."

Steven sighed dejectedly. "I don't want to talk about this right now."

"But-"

"We can discuss it later." The room fell into another long, awkward silence. "Speaking of living under our terms, have you found a meeting to go to?"

Garfield shrugged sheepishly. "I will I just-"

It was Steve's turn to sound angry. "Garfield that was a big, huge stipulation, not just for living with us but with the DA's office. You are supposed to attend a meeting every week."

"I know." Garfield sighed. "I'm going. I am. I'm serious about staying clean."

"You better be." Steve said pushing his chair back. "Get to a meeting. And that's an order."

Narcotics Anonymous was nothing like Garfield expected. It was held in a hot church basement. There were rows of chairs and a modest podium at the front of the room. In the back there was a table with a shuttle of coffee and a stack of Styrofoam cups. There were about a dozen and a half people there. No one really talked to each other. They just quietly assembled in.

Garfield fixed himself a cup of coffee just to give himself something to do. A tall girl with dark skin strode confidently into the room. She smiled pleasantly at some of the members and even greeted a few before making her way to the podium.

"Hi everyone," she said capturing the attention of the room. "I see some new faces so for those of you who don't know my name is Karen and I will be facilitating this meeting. We'll be getting started in just a minute so-"

She was suddenly interrupted by the heavy doors swinging open. A petite woman hurried in. She looked young, close to Garfield's age. Garfield did an actual double take when he saw her. She was wearing a thin sweater and long pants, even though it was hot outside. Her long, dark hair hung around her pale face. She kept her head down as she stepped further into the room.

When the Karen one caught sight of the mysterious woman she smiled before continuing. They seemed to know each other. The woman wrapped her arms around her chest and she slid into the seat in front of Garfield. Five minutes later the rest of the room settled into their seats and the meeting began.

"Good evening and welcome." Karen said beginning the official greeting. "I'm happy to see everyone who is here tonight. Before we begin I'd like to go some ground rules. This is Narcotics Anonymous which means this meeting is anonymous. What is said to members here tonight is in confidence so please keep it in this room. Tonight we'll be sharing our stories about our recovery so please feel free if you want, but this is a judgment free zone. I'll start. My name is Karen and I'm an addict. I have been clean for four years now." She paused to allow the room to clap for a moment."

Karen spent ten minutes talking generally about her recovery in the past month. Others that shared were more specific. It was inspiring hearing everyone's stories, and it gave him hope for himself. He wanted to share, but still felt too nervous.

"Thank you to everyone who shared." Karen said in closing. "We understand that recovery is a process and every step you take is an accomplishment. To celebrate those accomplishments we award sobriety coins. Is there anyone celebrating one month of sobriety?"

A few people stood up and received their coins while the rest of the group clapped.

"Two months of sobriety?" Garfield looked around nervously and slowly made his way to the podium. The applause was lost on him as he felt his heart pounding. He carefully observed the coin. It was dark gold with the number two in a triangle. It read "To thine own self be true. Unity service recovery." He smiled a thanks before returning to his seat.

He caught sight of the woman looking at him briefly while he returned to his seat. Her dark violet eyes were almost startling. He had never seen eyes that colored before.

"If anyone needs me to sign a probation card I'll be here. We encourage you to get to know other members, get their phone numbers for support or if you need help finding a sponsor, but in the spirit of anonymity please keep all contact information private. Peace be with you, and hopefully I'll see you all here next week." Karen finished.

Garfield went up to get his probation card signed. Karen was nice about it and seemed to not judge. She encouraged him to get a contact number and sponsor since he was new to the program.

He felt awkward about it. Everyone seemed to know everyone already. He noticed the mysterious woman standing by herself in the back. His friendly disposition told him to go make small talk.

"Hey," He said pleasantly. She seemed startled. "Sorry I didn't mean to scare you. My name is- wait this is anonymous right? Is it like a rule or something that I can't tell you my name? Well, anyways I'm new here to the program and Karen recommended that I get someone's number in case I need support or something, but uh everyone else seems… I don't know really old or something. I'm sorry am I talking too much. I talk too much when I get nervous and I get nervous when I meet new people."

His subconscious was telling him to shut the hell up, but his mouth wouldn't listen. No one said anything for a long moment, and then suddenly the loud sound of a phone vibrating broke the tension.

The woman scrambled to pull the phone out of her pocket. She glanced at the number.

"I have to take this." She said quickly exiting.

Garfield sighed dejectedly. He resolved to get someone's number next week. Karen stopped him as he was about to leave.

"Hey, I saw you talking to Raven." She said.

"I thought this was supposed to be anonymous." He replied.

She looked around before bringing her voice to just above a whisper. "It is mostly. It's just…I'm Raven's sponsor and I've been trying to get her to connect with some other people for a while now. I think it would good for her to have support from someone close to her age."

"That's what I was thinking." Garfield said. "But she doesn't seem interested."

Karen looped her arm around him and began to drag him towards the door. "C'mon at least let me introduce you two."

It was now dark outside and the street was empty save for a few passing cars and stragglers from the meeting. The woman, Raven, could be heard talking to someone on her phone.

"…I know it's just….I know, I understand, but I've been doing a lot better so I thought we could at least talk about it…Okay, I know…I know…" she sighed. "Okay…yeah, it's fine…I'll talk to you later. Bye."

When it sounded as though the conversation had sufficiently ended Karen cleared her throat to make her presence known. Raven started slightly.

"Hey, I wanted to introduce you to someone if you don't mind."

Raven looked surprised again. She looked between Karen and Garfield. "Sure." She said finally.

"Raven this is Garfield. I don't think you guys had a chance to be properly introduced."

"Hi again. Garfield. Garfield Logan." He stuck his hand out for a shake.

Raven eyes his hand suspiciously before slowly reciprocating the act. "Raven. Roth."

They shook hands awkwardly. Then more silence. Karen stared at them anxiously waiting for something to happen. When nothing did she intervened.

"I know you've been having trouble connecting with people in the group and I thought since Garfield is new you two could support each other." Karen explained.

The look on Raven's face didn't think that sounded like a great idea.

"It's just a phone number." Karen reminded her. "It's like if either of you feels the urge to use and you can't contact your sponsor you contact each other." She clarified to Garfield.

"Oh, that's a cool idea." He wasn't sure what he should say about something like that. "If you're not down with that plan it's totally cool. I can find someone else."

Raven hesitated. She looked towards Karen who aggressively encouraging her by nodding. She sighed.

"Yeah, sure I guess." She said finally.

Garfield couldn't help but smile. "Really? That's great."

He took out their cellphones and quickly exchanged numbers. Karen then wished them both a good night and departed. Raven and Garfield were left awkwardly alone.

"Uh, so are you…headed home?" Garfield asked.

"Yes. I'm just waiting for the next train." She answered.

"Do you live far from here?"

She shook her head, and was staring somewhere past him. "No, not really."

"Well, I can drive you-"

"No!" She declined abruptly. Garfield seemed taken aback. "I just don't want to trouble you is all."

"I…don't want to trouble you is all."

Garfield got the feeling that Raven wasn't comfortable around him, not that she was trying all that hard to hide it.

"Oh, alright then." He said giving an out to the conversation. "I guess I'll see you around then."

"Okay." She said simply.

"And you don't mind if I give you a call sometime?" She gave him a questioning look. "I mean until I can find a sponsor."

"Sure." She said simply.

Garfield watched as Raven walked down the empty street and out of sight. He sighed dejectedly and walked to back church parking lot and revved up his twelve year old Honda Civic. He was lucky his parents didn't confiscate as term to his reformation agreement. He drove a little ways down the street when he caught sight of Raven again. Her hands were stuffed deep into the pockets of her sweatshirt and she was walking fairly quickly. She crossed the street and disappeared into the subway entrance. Garfield didn't know what it was about her that he found so interesting about her. He wanted to know what her story was, but he had the feeling he would never know. Even if he did have an urge to use (which he didn't think he would), he doubted he would be giving Raven a call, and it wasn't like his parents were going to be much help.

He sighed. Looks he was going to be doing this sobriety thing solo.

Here's the deal. I just graduated and writing takes my mind off the anxiety of the adult world. I'm not having any luck with the next chapter of Blue Bloods and this kind of just came to me.

Big fat trigger warning, this story is going to get intense. Yey be warned.