Who: Tea and Cosette What: MATCH UP Where: Outside the library When: Afternoon Warning: Throwing up. Mentions of drug abuse/recorey.
Walking back from to the tattoo shop from her lunch break, Teat tried to ignore the nauseated feeling she had in her stomach. She was in the process of withdrawal from the pills she'd been addicted to for years and her body was really rebelling against her. She'd learned not to eat a lot because whenever she did, she just threw it back up. It was why she'd only had a smoothie for lunch because atleast that wouldn't taste too bad coming out. Or so she hoped. She was about to find out because she felt it all coming back up, causing her to bolt to the nearest trashcan and upchuck her smoothie. Good thing she saves some incase this happened. A few moments later, she stood up and wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand. “Sorry you had to see that” She said to a girl near by that was watching her. “I’m fine”
***
Cosette had been watching in a morbid sort of horror as the girl threw up in the trashcan. She didn’t want to watch, but she couldn’t bring herself to move away, either. She’d been sick before, of course she had, but she’d always been so careful to be sick in private, so as not to disgust other people. This girl didn’t even really seem ashamed, and Cosette looked down at her feet so as not to make eye contact with her. She was very uncomfortable, as she was uncomfortable with so many things in this strange, new place.
“Are you well?” She asked, basically because it seemed like the polite thing to say. She obviously was not completely well, but if she needed help maybe at least Cosette could accompany her to the clinic.
***
“Nope” Tea replied honestly with a shake of her head as she moved to sit down on a bench near by. Her legs felt a little wobbily since she needed to sit down for a few minutes before she got back up and headed back to work. She had time so it wouldn’t be an issue, as the shop was near by. Needing to wash the taste out of her mouth, she took a sip of the very smoothie that she threw up and sat back, her face looking pale from how sick she was feeling. Ugh she needed this feeling to go away already.
***
“I...could walk you to the clinic?” Cosette asked. She really didn’t want to, but it would be terribly impolite not to help at all, and she couldn’t stand the idea of papa being disappointed in her, even if he wasn’t here. She was a little nervous, though. What if what the girl had was contagious? She didn’t want to get sick herself, or die of the plague, or anything like that. Maybe the girl had just eaten something that didn’t settle on her stomach. That could be true. Cosette found that a good deal of the food here didn’t settle on her stomach.
***
“I don’t need to go there” Tea replied as she reached up and wiped her mouth again “I don’t have time to detox that way. I gotta do it the old fashioned way” She had two more movie nights to plan, college to get ready for, tattoos to do, a brother and roommate to mourne. She didn’t have time to do rehab or anything like that. She was going to cold turkey this and just ride it out as best she could. She knew her future, she knew she could do it. It was just not going to be an easy road to get there.
***
“Detox?” Cosette didn’t know that word. There were a lot of words that she didn’t understand in this world, as she was still working on her English, although being immersed in it for the last few months had helped a lot.
“What does that mean? Did you eat something bad?” That was what made the most sense to her, people got sick a lot when they ate something bad but they didn’t have to worry about going to the doctor usually because they would just be sick for a little while and then it would go away.
***
“I’m assuming they have alcohol where you come from, right?” She asked, looking up at the girl as she dropped her hand from her face. It was clear that she wasn’t from the modern world and that Tea would have to explain things to her. That was fine with her. “Let’s just say I drank too much of that and now I’m trying to stop” That was the easiest way to explain what she was going through. Her addiction wasn’t to alcohol but this girl might not know what drugs are so that was the best example she could come up with.
***
Cosette definitely knew what alcohol was, and she knew how it could ruin a man and turn him into a beast. She’d spent a good part of her early childhood at the Thenardiers’s inn and had seen many drunken men, and had been terrified of them and careful to avoid them. She herself hardly drank. She had a glass of wine with dinner sometimes, but never enough to make her even tipsy. She’d seen the horrors that could bring with it.
“Oh,” she said softly, almost shrinking back into herself. “I see.”
*** Okay maybe alcohol wasn’t the best example to use seeing how the girl reacted but she couldn’t go back on it now. “But it’s not alcohol I used to drink” She added on, deciding to fully explain her situation to make the girl less afraid of her. “I used to take a lot of pills that made me feel good … so now that I don’t take them anymore, I don’t feel so good anymore” She told her, taking another sip of her slushie after she was doe.
***
She blinked a little, trying to understand what she was saying. “Pills?” She didn’t know the word. “Like...medicine?” She said they made her feel good, so it sounded like medicine to Cosette.
“Did the doctor tell you to stop taking them? Maybe you shouldn’t have.”
Yes, Cosette was innocent and naive.
***
“Yeah, like medicine” Tea replied, pulling out her phone to check the time. She should probably start heading back to work now so she had some time to get her station ready before the next client came in. “I need to. It’ll be better for me” She told her as she tossed her slushie into the very garbage can she had thrown up into. She was done with it and had another drink waiting for her back at work.
***
Cosette was pretty sure she didn’t understand at all, but it was what it was. There were a lot of things about this modern world that she didn’t understand. She was trying, but the language was even still a struggle for her, so she couldn’t expect herself to understand everything yet. Maybe someday.
“Well, I hope you feel better soon,” she said compassionately.
***
"Thanks. See you around" She told her with a nod. Giving her a wave, she turned and walked in the direction she had been going before she vomited up her slushie. Hopefully, that would be all the throwing up she did that day because she was tired of doing it.