Rating: R, just to be on the safe side.
Disclaimer: No way, no how, no hell does anything remotely close to Gilmore Girls belong to me.
The Chronicles Of…
Shane
It's funny really how this thing we call life can turn out. I mean if someone would have told me three months ago that I would be sitting in some cramped classroom in Hicksville USA at an A. A meeting with invited troubled teens, who would hear the horror stories of alcoholism and change their ways, waiting for my two month sobriety mark along with my mom I would have declared said person insane on the spot. Yet here I'm, the only son of Tristan Dugrey's and Rory Gilmore's short marriage, doing just that. As I said life works mysterious ways and I haven't even gotten to the weird part yet, you see when I say along with my mom I don't mean in the normal I'm-here-to-support-my-son- way, no I mean literally ALONG since she is also receiving her two month sobriety mark. It goes figure the ONE thing we have in common is alcoholism. Ironically enough everyone kept telling me how much I was like my dad when my life started to get off track but no one did rat ass about since they figured my mom would straighten me out just like she did with dad. Little did they know she was just as messed up as me only she was better to keep up appearances, I guess it came with all the years of practice she had gotten. Anyway by the time anyone saw behind the façade we put up, it was too late in more ways than one. Granted my looser great-grandparents did a pathetic attempt to save the honour of the Gilmore name but considering they hadn't care before I just threw it back in their faces.
The sound of my name being called up brings me back to reality and I go to the makeshift stage to get my mark and reveal my life's story to a room of strangers. As you might have picked up already I'm not a big fan of these meetings and all the sharing it involves but if it helps me to take the road less travelled I'll deal with it.
"Hi, my name is Shane Tristan Gilmore and I'm an alcoholic", I wait for the standard Hello Shane's to die down before continuing."I took my first drink when I was 14 and by the time I was 15 I was a full blown alcoholic I just didn't know it at the time. To understand why I took that first drink you guys need to know the background also known as my life and I guess I should start with my parents. Now that isn't as easy as it might sound since their story isn't exactly a conventional love story because they both were knee-deep in issues during the time they first met. Anyway it all started with the casual hook up during High School in the no strings attached type of relationship, which each of them entered for their own personal agendas and I'm the product of a very drunken night in Las Vegas that also landed them married, kind of fitting huh? Anyhow seven months later they got their act together and declared their love for each other and everyone lived happily ever after…if it had been in the movies yeah...here in reality ever after lasted for three months until the day I was born. You see my dad got himself killed in a car accident the very same day, so I never met him, well actually I did once but I was way too young to remember so it doesn't count. Let me tell you it really is a curse to know you're born on the same day as your dad both was born and died. Sounds complicated? Well welcome to my life.
To get back on track here as soon as she could mom took us to San Francisco for a new beginning. San Francisco became my home for the next twelve years and I loved it there, sure mom had a dead end job but we made ends meet and I never lacked anything. I had friends, good grades, a mom, but most of all I was allowed to be a child, something I didn't fully appreciate at the time.
On the day that fateful phone call came telling us that grandma was in a coma after a car accident, it was rainy hard outside and I somehow knew, as soon as mom announced we were going to move to Connecticut that my life would never be the same again, but even so the magnitude of this change exceed my wildest imagination. Being back on the East Coast seemed to open up some old wounds of mom's and she went from caring to absent and cold. After a while you could barely contact her and she spent most of her days screaming or crying as she sank deeper and deeper into her depression and thus leaving this world's responsibilities behind. I guess she started drinking when we had been back for about six months and she completely surrendered to the ghosts of her past. At first it wasn't such a big deal as it just happened only on the weekends, however, soon the weekends lasted all week long and she was lost. Meanwhile I grew up and started looking more like my dad for each and every day, which lead her to avoid me more and more. Suddenly I alone had to take care of both myself and the household as in I had to cook, clean, do my homework and try to make rent part-timing at the same time as mom was shacked up with the latest flavour of the week being a total bitch.
In this manner my life went on until my 14th birthday, which was forgotten just as my previous had been, so nothing new there. Something that was new though was coming home and finding a bottle of vodka standing there on the coffee table. To this day I'm not sure if it was meant to be a birthday present from mom or just something she had forgotten but seeing how things turned out I don't really wanna know the answer to that. So there I was staring at that bottle and I don't think you can say anything other than the temptation of forgetting everything that had become my life was too well tempting and I drank. The first sip burn like hell let me tell you but in a good way and it did offer the relief I was in such a desperate need of, so I took another and another until I passed out on the couch. And from that day on I was doomed to repeat the same cycle mom had went through earlier, although it was first when my grandma woke up and nothing changed that I completely surrendered to the alcohol. As I said earlier I was about 15 then and my mom was too busy in her own personal hell to notice except when we got drunk together.
Now when we have established how I became a drunk I'm the first one to admit I'm a nasty one. As soon as I get alcohol in my system I become a ruthless mean son of a bitch, who isn't above using people to get what he want and it isn't pretty. Up until two months ago at an intervention I lived for the next drink or how to obtain it and made a rule of being constantly drunk. Therefore most of my teenage years went by in a blur and now I'm a newly sober 19 year old alcoholic with no education and with the only ambition of staying sober. Hell the one thing I have going for me is that I broke the Gilmore tradition of becoming a teen parent or at least I hope I did. Now if this doesn't sound like the life for you I suggest you stay away from the bottle. That's all for me, thanks for listening, bye".
After finishing I slowly make my way outside not feeling up for all the pity looks and in need for a smoke. I know the cliché of going from one addiction to another but in all honestly I don't give a shit and at least this way I am not breaking any laws. Just as I take the first calming drag I hear the door closing behind me and feel a hand on my shoulder and somehow I know it's grandma.
"Shane are you ok? she asks concern evident in her voice.
It feels nice to know someone still cares.
"Yeah", I hear myself answering.
"Come back inside then, it's Rory's turn".
With a sign I put out my smoke and let her lead me back to listen to my mom's version. As I said funny how life turns out.
TBC
Author's note: I know nothing of how an A. A meeting goes, thank God for small things huh, but this is the way mine does. I hope you liked it and I will write at least another chapter and hopefully it won't be too much of a repetition. Any tips on how I can make the next chapter better are welcome!
Oh and sorry about the typos and grammar mistakes I know must be present since my first language isn't English and I have no BETA. Till next time,