[Narrative: Marta] Who: Marta What: Narrative - Rehab check-out and new job. Where: Capital back to Repose (Motel) When: This weekend. Warnings/Rating: Long. So long. Some Marta-esque themes of drugs and sex work.
Marta knew that she'd gotten through the worst of the detoxing when the moved her to a different room. What she didn't expect (or didn't remember, since it was in the paperwork that she signed upon entering the facility) was that the program she'd agreed to didn't last much beyond the initial detox. At least not in a way that included hospitalization. There was definitely still parts of the program to come, but her "free ride" portion was over.
At least, that's how the employee at her discharge interview put it. She wasn't a very nice employee, but that wasn't exactly a thing that Marta had a footing to complain about. The interview came exactly one week after she'd transfered rooms, immediately after breakfast. It wasn't time yet for group or to meet with the doctor she'd been assigned to, and for a moment she got that weird feeling like she used to get when being called to the principal's office before she'd dropped out of highschool. Only this time, she didn't know what she'd done wrong. At least on a minor, immediate scale. She knew what she'd done wrong in general.
But there hadn't been anything like that. There'd been a facility employee (social worker? was that what to call her?) and another stack of paperwork. Marta'd sat in the uncomfortable chair in front of the desk as the social worker went through that stack. Some of it seemed vaguely familiar, like it was a repeat of what she'd signed at intake, but some of it was new.
There was the review (that she had no original memory of) of the probation period she was now entering, where she wasn't allowed to fall off the wagon. She had to come in for testing twice a week, and if her tests came back positive, her reprieve from prison was gone. She'd end up being arrested and charged with whatever she'd originally gotten out of by endering the program. So twice-weekly drug tests. One group therapy session. And she had to keep a job. Luckily, the job was pre-arranged, and came with somewhere to live. She'd make a little less than someone might normally make at the same job, but she didn't have to worry about rent or utilities. And to "remove her from the temptation of the city", the job was in Repose. As if there weren't drugs there.
But Marta signed the papers. Every last one of them. She agreed to the stipulations. And then she walked with the social worker back to the room that was no longer hers, so she could pack up everything that was. All the Christmas presents (and she finally had a reason to pull on the gifted boots and layer a few more of the warm things over what she was already wearing), rolled up her quilt, shoved everything into the weird cloth laundry bag she was given, and also accepted the bag of additional "necessities" from the woman (cheap underwear, some shampoo/conditioner combo, the sort of stuff the facility had provided while she was there), who otherwise just stood there watching as Marta packed. She was also given a two-week bus pass to get her to and from Repose, and then she was walked to the nearest bus stop.
Marta had to hand it to the facility; they had everything down to a science because the bus arrived not five minutes later. The social worker gave a nod and waited until Marta was on the bus with the doors closed before turning back to the rehab facility.
***
There was a man waiting for her when the bus pulled into Repose. He looked fairly decent. Maybe not the best-off in town, but he didn't look dirty. And there was a glint of gold around the ring finger of his left hand.
If only Marta didn't know of so many married men where that ring ment next to nothing.
He grinned at her when she climbed down off the bus, but it wasn't a grin that made her feel good. It was a grin that made her want to climb right back on the bus and go back into the city, head for her old job and fuck whatever happened. But while she didn't really care about dying (that wasn't something that'd changed - she'd just gotten better about hiding it from the doctor once she was sober), she was still paranoid about the police finding her and sending her to jail.
So she climbed into the man's car (Larry, he told her, after he'd taken her bags and put them in the trunk) and stayed mostly quiet through their short drive. To the motel. Where she was going to live in exchange for doing the housekeeping. "Honest work", the social worker had called it. As if opening her legs (and "donating" some blood, though they didn't know about that part) wasn't honest.
The room (her room) was off the back of the motel, right next to the laundry room. Larry dropped her things on the bed and pointed out the two uniforms in the closet. The uniforms she would have to wear whenever she was working. She was given the "tour" then, shown what she was going to have to do, given the key to her room, her schedule, and her duties. And with another one of his grins, the mention that there might be "other things" that needed to be taken care of around the place. And Marta's stomach turned with nausea, but she just nodded as Larry grinned again and let himself out her door. That she locked behind him, but didn't do up the chain. Because where it was supposed to be, there was nothing.