Read Whittaker 03.5 If Nothing Changes for Free Online

IF NOTHING CHANGES
    I’m ashamed to say that the first thing I thought when I found Jillian lying on the storage room floor was, “Who left that here?” The splayed figure looked like a prop for the ongoing Halloween party, not a dead girl.
    She lay on her back in a froth of white petticoats, her blond hair curled in tight ringlets, one hand tucked awkwardly underneath her body. The other arm lay on her stomach, palm up, red smearing the tips. A thin, engorged purple band ringed her neck - not a scarf or necklace - but the indication of how she’d died. Strangled, if my TV/thriller novel education was worth anything.
    I screamed just like in the movies, except that nobody came running because nobody could hear me over the band, Dry and Dirty. I screamed again with the same results, thus proving that A.A.‘s slogan “nothing changes if nothing changes” is as true with dead bodies as with addictive behaviours.
    I was either going to have to wait for the band to break or leave Jillian alone on the floor, but I felt as though someone had Gorilla-glued my feet to the sticky linoleum. Dressed up as Little Bo Peep for the costume contest, Jillian exuded a vulnerability made infinitely worse by the fact that nothing would ever hurt her again. I just couldn’t leave her.
    In the distance, the band thumped at a decibel level dangerous to human hearing. Conversations thrummed in a beehive hum. People laughed.
    I stood trapped in a bubble of secret knowledge. Unable to grasp that Jillian lay dead beneath the dusty shelves of generic toilet bowl cleaner and rug deodorizers and a half-used case of industrial strength paper towels. And only I knew it.
    Nobody was coming. I backed out into the hall and gave screaming another try. This time, it worked.
    For the next few days, the HP & Me members buzzed with speculation. Despite naming the club for our Higher Power, we all turned into amateur detectives, none willing to leave the job to HP or the real professionals, either. Drunks have trust issues. Besides, most were pissed that the cops forcibly relocated us to a local church basement while they “worked the scene.” Drunks also have logic issues, apparently. I needed to talk to Sue, my sponsor. I needed to talk out what it meant to find a dead woman on the floor, but every time I went to the club the gossips swarmed over me, flitting like ill-mannered gnats in my face. Although nobody would admit it, the excitement of murder close at hand - of somebody else’s, that is - was a rush. We take our highs however we can get them.
    Nearly a week passed before Sue and I could get together. I suggested we meet at a coffee shop so we wouldn’t be bothered; Sue suggested we slap the shit out of anyone who tried to bother us.
    I deferred to violence. We met at the club.
    Sue peeked inside an adjacent room that club members used for sponsor meetings and playing cards. Mostly cards, since a group of longtime buddies - nearly all of them veterans of distant war, men used to facing violence and death and chaos - had claimed squatters’ rights to the small room. It stank of cigarettes, old guys, and past conflicts. Sue had the room cleared in under thirty seconds, although not without a steady barrage of cussing and vile threats. The guys cussed back, which just encouraged her more.
    In the wake of battle, peace reigned over the stinky room.
    “ So, how’re you doing, Letty?” Now that we were alone, Sue morphed back into a reasonable woman.
    “ I’m doin’,” I replied. “How about you? You were Jillian’s sponsor, too. This has to be hard.”
    She nodded, looking away. “It is. She was doing well. She would’ve made it, I think. I know you’re not supposed to say that, but … She was working the program, doing service work, she’d even just taken over the treasurer spot for the Sunday night group. I know you can’t say this for sure about anyone, but I felt like she was going to make it.”
    I knew better than to offer a