This is an excerpt from my new two books series The Rise and Fall of Skye Wright. This excerpt is from the first book.

You can buy this series here!

One day at a time. Sweet Jesus.
Whoever wrote that one hadn’t a clue.
A day is a fuckin’ eternity

Roddy Doyle – From the novel Paula Spencer

     Slumped in her seat, Skye tried paying attention to the speaker.
     Molly Mix was sitting right next to her. Molly was barely moving, pointing her thick glasses and prominent nose towards the floor, showing her short, spiked black hair to the speaker. Skye could feel her skin buzzing. Molly was edgy. Molly was nervous. Skye could tell by the way she was sitting and tightly folding her arms. There was also the suppressed but obviously pained expression on her face. Even her hair seem to be nervous.
     They were at the Gilman club meeting, the only twelve step meeting Skye had ever been to that was held in a night club. Every square inch of the small club’s walls were caked with graffiti, band stickers, show flyers, and artwork. A prominent weekend club that was infamous in the punk, metal, thrash, and alternative scenes, it lent its space twice a week to Narcotics Anonymous meetings, and was quite popular with those recovering addicts who were part of those scenes.
     The place was full, mostly with punks and heavy metal headbangers. The rest of the crowd were the more typical twelve steppers who weren’t necessarily from those hard rock cultures. That meeting was not unlike the other alternative meetings, the Trevor House meetings, which was the other popular rock and roll meeting space.
     They were listening to a heavily tattooed punk in all-black clothing and a black baseball hat share. At least Skye was trying to listen. Molly was distracting her.
     When the speaker was done and the secretary opened the meeting for general shares, Skye nudged Molly. Molly flinched. Skye looked right at her with wide eyes. Molly shook her head.
     Someone started sharing. When they were done Skye shot her hand up. The secretary pointed at her.
     “My name is Skye and I’m a grateful recovering addict.”
     The room gave the traditional greeting in unison. “Hi Skye.”
     “Or Skye high as they used to say.” Skye was pleased when a few people laughed. “I recently celebrated my first year clean.”
     The room gave a standard round of applause. A few people in the back let out some congratulatory whoops.
     “What can I say. In the last year I’ve managed to nail down a good job, I’ve managed to ground myself with some new friendships, and I’ve also discovered some old friends I lost track of. I found them again, right here in these rooms.”
     Skye made sure she looked around the room as she spoke. She did not want to stare straight ahead or make anyone feel as if she weren’t talking to them.
     “It was a challenge for sure. I had just indulged in some pretty gnarly behavior before I came into these rooms, getting drunk and high and cheating on my boyfriend with jailbait. That’s right, I said jailbait! True story. It’s not just a guy thing. I was working at a job that I hated and didn’t pay me enough, and I kept losing my temper all of the time. Okay, yeah, the temper thing is something I’m still working on.” Skye made a face. “I’m getting better at controlling my temper. I’m also studying German, a language that a long lost friend of mine had taken up, a friend of mine who uped and disappeared not too long ago.”
     Skye glanced at Molly who did not glance back.
     “My friend who disappeared was one of my oldest friends. She was the leader of my high school gang. She’s the one who introduced me to drinking, to speed, to getting into fights, to getting into trouble, and all of that. That’s how I think of her sometimes. But she also introduce me to music, to wild and crazy music that I love to this day. Her family took me in after I ran away from home, and her biker dad was like a father to me. And I said she taught me how to get into trouble, and that’s one way of putting it, but she also taught me how to fight, and how to stand up for myself, and how to stick together with my friends, with my crew. So, to honor my missing friend, wherever the hell she is, I’m learning to speak German. Und das ist kein Witz!” Skye looked around the room one more time before turning to Molly.
     “In any case, my name is Skye, thanks for letting me share. And my friend Molly is next!”
     Skye pointed at Molly who shot her a wide-eyed look. Skye could not tell if Molly looked angry or scared or possibly just surprised.
     “Hello,” stuttered Molly. “My name is Molly and I’m a recovering addict.”
     Molly looked uncomfortable when everyone greeted her in unison.
     “I’m really here because I have friends who pick on me to step up and come out. I guess, I mean, I know I’ve got a problem. It would be hard to not admit that, especially when I was hanging out against a wall with winos not too long ago.”
     Molly put her head down and brought it back up. “I got pulled off that wall…” She stumbled and glanced at Skye. “By a friend. Someone who for reasons I can’t even begin to imagine decided not to give up on me.” Molly fumbled with her fingers. “Because, too many people gave up on me.”
     Molly became quiet. Skye sat still, carefully watching her out of the corner of her eye.
     “I’m doin’ okay. I’m stayin’ at a friend’s house, and my new wave band is doing well. We have a couple of shows lined up, and I’m really lookin’ forward to that. The only thing I really need right now is a steady job. Or a lottery win maybe.” A couple of people laughed. “So yeah, lookin’ for work.”
     Skye could have sworn she saw a tear welling up in her eye.
     “That’s all I got,” blurted Molly. “At least, for the moment.”
     The secretary started the clapping, getting everyone else to applaud.
     Molly elbowed Skye and gave her an irritated look.
     Skye tried her best not to smile.

     “You put me on the spot,” protested Molly through a cloud of cigarette smoke.
     “Lee said you needed to start sharing at meetings,” said Skye.
     “Lee’s not here.”
     “I know. Just think of me as her clean and sober torpedo.”
     Molly shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do with the two of you.”
     “You’ll hate us now but love us later.”
     “I already love you, you fucking bitch!”
     “That’s it, keep it classy,” smiled Skye.
     Skye and Molly watched as people left the meeting. A few circles of friends were outside the Gilman club, chatting and smoking.
     Skye observed the various meeting people as they mingled and conversed through cigarette smoke and vaping clouds, talking and chatting casually. Skye thought they looked like the crowds that would congregate outside of Gilman in between bands during their weekend shows.
     Skye knew or at least recognized virtually everyone from the meeting. Some were original punk scenesters. Many of them she recognized from the old days, the club hanger-ons that were at almost every one of the countless number of shows that Skye had attended. She recognized them even though they had not been part of her crew back then. Those were the people she had never really talked to until she saw them again in the Narcotics Anonymous rooms.
     She was surprised how many of them had remembered her, and her reputation.
     Many others she did not really know until she got into the rooms, but they were still kindred spirits. She only had to see an Exploited skull tattoo or an Operation Ivy patch or a plumage of hair dyed in an unnatural color to form a quick bond or connection.
     Skye already knew Molly from her clubbing days, the infamous singer of the legendary punk band Bus Stop Hookers.
     “I was wonderin’ if you’ve talked to Harp lately,” asked Skye.
     Molly brought her head up, looking as if Skye had just said something unexpected.
     “Damn, I haven’t heard from her in a while,” said Molly. “I should zap her a text.”
     “I’m still drivin’ her car. I borrowed it from her four weeks ago and she hasn’t asked for it back yet.”
     “Eh. She always zooms around on her cycle.”
     Skye shuffled her feet. “I’m kinda worried about her.”
     “How so?”
     “I dunno. She’s like, a little more sketchy lately. A little more flaky and out of sorts, which is kinda weird for her. She’s always been so confident before.”
     Molly slowly nodded. “Harp maybe seemed confident, but really she’s always been kinda on the edge what with her drinkin’ and screwin’ around.”
     “Yeah, sure, but lately she seems just, I dunno, kinda different. She doesn’t have her usual swagger.”
     Molly turned to Skye. “Truth is I pretty much stopped hearing from her when I quit drinkin’ an’ doin’ drugs. She told me it was because she knew I was tryin’ to stay clean, but I know what she really meant.”
     “Those party animals don’t like bein’ around sober people.”
     Molly looked out at the milling punks across the street. “It’s fuckin’ crazy. I’m such a train wreck when I drink. I mean, fuck, you’ve pulled me off of a warehouse roof and a liquor store wall when I was smashed. If you hadn’t found me I might’ve plunged to my death off of that rave warehouse, or drank myself to death in an alley.” Molly flicked away her cigarette . “There are people who actually want me to keep drinking, people who don’t want to be around me when I’m stone cold sober. It’s fucking insane. They can’t handle sober Molly. They actually want that fabulous disaster Molly. That’s the Molly they’re comfortable with.” She shook her head. “It’s fuckin’ insane. It just really tells you what alcoholics are really like. It’s just… sick.”
     Skye scrunched herself up as a gust of wind kicked up. “You should say that at a meeting.”
     Molly looked up as if she had just had a revelation. “Hey, yeah! I should share that, right?”
     “Next time.”
     “Only if Lee’s here.”
     “Shit, you wanna try and impress the boss, right?”
     Molly broke out into a grin. “She’s not supposed to be our boss you know. She’s just another glorious member of Narcotics Anonymous.”
     “Fuck me Molly. You know that’s bullshit. Lee is the boss. A lot of that NA crap about principles is simply horseshit. That’s not how the real world works, even in those rooms.”
     “You don’t have to tell me that twice,” said Molly as the lights in the club across the street flickered on and off, letting everyone know that it was time to leave.
     Skye and Molly walked across the street and stood among the milling NA members. They gave out their ritual rounds of see-you-laters to their clean and sober comrades.
     They were walking back to Skye’s car when Molly suddenly turned to Skye.
     “Can’t you be my sponsor?”
     Skye looked at Molly with with surprise. “Damn Molly, I’m barely up on this shit as it is. You need to hook up with someone who’s got a lot more experience than I do.”
     “Shit, you’re the one who bitched at me to do this.”
     “Yeah, I know. But I just did that because I had to do something.”
     “You did?”
     “A’ course. Whattaya think?”
     Molly held her hands up. “You are the one who convinced me to start coming to these meetings. An’ you aren’t always on my ass like my current sponsor.”
     “You gettin’ tired of Lee?”
     Molly bobbed her head around and shrugged. “Well, she’s always buggin’ me. I feel like I’m getting picked on.”
     “That’s what she’s supposed to do.”
     “She keeps tellin’ me I’m on the edge.”
     “Aren’t you?”
     Molly slumped in her seat as Skye started the car. “Maybe. Sometimes I think I need someone who can let up on me once in a while, not hover over me so much.”
     Skye glanced at Molly. “That’s what you need though, right? Someone who won’t let up? Who won’t let you slide back down?”
     “Das macht mir kein Spass!” declared Molly with a demonstrative finger.
     “Spass?” asked Skye.
     “Das bedeutet ‘fun’.”
     “Gotcha. Wir müssen Spass machen.”
     “Sehr gut! Your German is getting better.”
     “Yeah. Toby is a good teacher.”
     Before Skye drove off she got out her cell and typed out a quick text. “Lee you fucker, where the fuck have you been? We need to go to a meeting together sometime soon.”

Buy the Rise and Fall series here:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B3WBDZP2

Buy Stella Maris on Amazon, Skye’s story right before The Rise and Fall of Skye Wright. Free for Kindle Unlimited users!

Stella Maris is the sequel to my previous novel. Even though it can be read by itself, check out what Skye was up to before her adventures in Stella Maris!

https://www.amazon.com/What-Hell-Ever-Happened-Rozhenko-ebook/dp/B08WC4DK6G/