As usual, I caught her glancing at me several times when she thought I wasn't looking. Army training goes a long way when it comes to surveillance. You miss something out in the field, you're as good as dead. I still couldn't tell what that look meant. Was she suspicious of me? Curious? Afraid? They were probably all legitimate reactions.
She wouldn't be drinking in the bar. Too obvious. But all the staff got a short break every three hours, and I suspected that's where the crime went down. Sure enough, when her time came up, she excused herself and ducked out toward the back door. I went out the front and looped around the building, coming up on the alley from the street. No need to draw attention to her.
She was leaning up against the wall, shoulder slumped, head bowed. There was a glint of something silver in her hand, reflecting the moonlight. I watched as she raised the flask and took a short slug, her face twisting ever so slightly as she swallowed.
"Feeling a little on edge?" I asked.
She jumped. "Jesus Christ! What the hell are you doing sneaking up on people like that?"
"Sorry."
She glanced at the flask as I stepped closer, but apparently decided it was too late to hide it. Instead, she opted for the defiant, angry approach. "What do you want?"
"To help," I said.
She blinked in confusion. "Help? What the hell are you talking about?"
"I know what you're going through," I said, nodding toward the flask. "Not the specifics, obviously, but I get it. I've been there."
She studied me for several seconds, and then let out a sour little laugh. "Trust me, you haven't been here. And you haven't got a clue what I'm going through."
I shrugged. "If you say so."
She glared at me, but didn't leave, so neither did I. Eye contact; I could work with that.
"If Charlie catches you, you're done. You know that, right?" I said.
She shrugged, almost petulantly, like she was suddenly sixteen again. "Are you going to tell on me?"
"No, but he'll work it out. He runs a business with the sole purpose to get people drunk. You think he can't tell when someone is on the sauce?"
Her expression slipped a little, and her teeth grazed over her lip in a way that turned my insides to jelly. She didn't seem to have a response to that. Instead she gazed down at the ground for a few seconds.
Then her eyes whipped up again. "You tried this before, that night we met," she said. "You said, 'It doesn't help.'"
I nodded slowly. I hadn't been sure if she remembered that. She'd been well on her way to a total blackout that night.
Her eyes narrowed fractionally. "Why do you care what happens to me?"
"I dunno. Maybe I just don't like sitting by and watching somebody else drown."
She let out a sick little laugh. "Is that what you think I'm doing?"
"Maybe. If not, I think you're on your way. And if you lose this job, I think that will seal it." I took a step forward, and she shrank into the wall. I couldn't blame her. Six foot five with a motley collage of scars and ink, I wasn't exactly the friendliest looking guy, but I felt this overpowering urge to be closer to her, like I could just scoop her up in my arms and that would make everything alright. Fucking ridiculous.
"Look, I get it," I said. "You don't know me from Adam, and I don't know shit about what's going on with you. Quite frankly, I don't want to know." That was a lie. For some reason I was curious. But asking someone in her position to throw all their problems out in the open, to a virtual stranger, was a fast track to having them close up for good. "But you aren't going to beat this thing alone."
I stepped closer again, leaving less than a foot between us. She gazed up into my eyes looking ready to bolt, but all I could do was stare at her lips. Such a tiny, insignificant part of her, but they held me in a trance. I desperately wanted to know what they'd feel like; against mine, against other parts of me. It took all of my willpower not to lean in and find out.
I gave my head a little shake. Christ, what was I doing? "That chaos that's raging inside you," I continued, "you need to do more than just douse it in booze. That puts it to sleep, but it doesn't get rid of it. And later it comes back with a vengeance. There are ways to beat it. You just need a little help."
Her expression softened ever so slightly. I could see a yearning in her eyes, a powerful desire to believe that I might be telling the truth. Nobody with an alcohol problem really wants to drink. They just don't know how else to handle whatever is eating away at them.
That hope only lasted a second, however. Her face tightened and she swallowed hard. "There's no help you can offer for this."
She really believed that, which made me incredibly sad. "Maybe that's true, but isn't it worth a shot? When I was where you are now, Charlie reached out to me, and that changed everything."