"So how's he doing?" asked Sarah as AJ pulled out his chair and dropped into his seat, resting his elbows on the table. "You look tired."
"It was ... yeah, draining," he admitted. He didn't really intend to get into why with her, though, not right then. She would think she understood without knowing everything that had gone on between him and Nick, and he just didn't think he had the patience to handle that yet.
"Well, of course it was," she said, and it looked like she was gonna jump to that conclusion in spite of him. "Being back there, being reminded of what it was like ... that had to have been hard."
"Not as much as you think."
"No?"
"Not easy, but ..." He wasn't sure how to put it, really, the mix of emotions he'd felt over the last couple of days. "It was ... enlightening. I learned a lot."
She smiled in satisfaction, but for a fraction of a second he missed the mocking Justin would have given him for saying "enlightening". He blamed Justin that he was even aware of saying it in the first place.
"Well, that sounds promising. Did you go to any sessions while you were there? I know how much you felt those did for you."
"What? No ... no, it really wasn't about me, Sarah." He gave up on the chance that they might talk about anything other than Nick and rehab and any other related topic that Sarah might come up with. If he was being honest with himself, he would have been doing the exact same thing if he'd been the one who'd been left behind. All she wanted was to know that everyone was okay, everyone was good.
"Oh, I know, honey," she said. "I thought you might've gone with Nick. Really been there for him, and gotten a bit of a refresher for yourself. It's really empowering to be around people who understand where you're at."
"It would've been intrusive, for me to attend the same kind of sessions as Nick. I'm not in quite the same place he is anymore." Something that had been very obvious to both of them when they'd been together. Still, there was a big something that bound them together now. They'd have a lot to talk about when Nick was ready.
She nodded like she understood. "So did he tell you about the programs he's involved with? Tell you what's working for him?"
"We didn't talk much about that," he said, which wasn't entirely true. They'd talked about everything, but Nick wavered between acting like he wasn't in rehab at all and suddenly giving AJ infodump on his coping strategies. Always at the strangest times.
"Well, what else did you have to talk about?" AJ looked at her incredulously for a moment, until she started to laugh. "I mean, I know there are plenty of things you could talk about, but I figured he'd want to talk about this. About recovery."
"Well, he didn't," said AJ, and left it at that.
He knew he was being too short with her, but it was hard to stop. He just wished he could go through one day with her and not talk about Nick's recovery, or his, or both. It didn't matter that he knew she was just being as supportive as she knew how, and that he loved her for it. He just wished he could just live a day without it.
She sat silently for a moment, and AJ knew his curtness hadn't gone unnoticed.
"Sorry," he murmured a few moments later, giving in. He didn't need to be an asshole about it. "He says they've got him doing some art therapy. I always thought that kinda thing was for, like, trauma victims, but he says it's good."
"Oh, that's wonderful," she said, forgiving him that easily. She was good like that. "That's the perfect thing for Nick. Drawing his pictures always did help keep him grounded."
AJ nodded and ran his fingers around the rim of his own water glass. "Yeah, he says it's working for him." They'd talked about it a little more in depth than that, and Nick hadn't specifically asked him not to talk about it, but it still felt private. "So who am I to argue? You go with what works."
"Within reason of course," she had to add. "How do you think we should handle it when he comes home? Do you think he should stay with us -- with you, I mean -- for a while?"
"It's a little early to be thinking about that, don't you think?"
She obviously didn't, though; it was probably some girl thing. Planning things way before you needed to. "We're going to want to make sure he's coming back to a place he can feel safe and comfortable. We're the only two people who know what he's going through."
"Now that's not fair ..." he started. Not only that, but Sarah really didn't know. It wasn't like what she was thinking it was. It wasn't just about getting clean. "Nick has a lot of friends."
"Friends he ought to stay friends with?"
"That's not our choice to make. Nick has other people who love him."
"Maybe it's not our choice," she agreed, "but it's our responsibility to help him make the right choices. Even the hard ones. Especially the hard ones. Don't you think we should do that for him?"
"Of course I do," he muttered. He just thought that the choices he thought were right, and the choices Sarah thought were right, might not be the same thing at all. And who was to say which one was better for Nick? Who was to say that either of them were right?
Thankfully, the waitress came to take their order before they had to begin to figure that out.