Today was the day Bette would be arriving at Mountain Lake. She was being delivered straight from lock up where she had spent the last 4 days in the state of Georgia. Tina was really nervous at seeing her again after all this time. She had witnessed enough addicts and alcoholics while working here that she knew Bette would have already started going into withdrawals and most certainly would have been treated while in police custody as well as sedated for the trip to Mountain Lake. But no matter how awful Bette felt upon her arrival she would have to go through an intake interview.

To others Tina would appear to be waiting calmly in the interview room for Bette’s arrival but to anyone who knew her well they could tell she was as nervous as a whore in church on a Sunday. She picked up her pen and began to doodle on the note pad in front of her. Within seconds her mind pulled her back to the here and now and she realized that she had doodled Bette’s name all over the top of the page. Tearing off the page she crumpled it in her hand and threw it toward the waste basket in the corner of the room. Get your head in the game Tina she thought…Bette needs you to be the professional that you no you are.

Just then the door opened and in walked Bette Porter or what remained of her escorted by two male staff members on each side of her. Tina’s eyes quickly scanned her body from head to toe. She held her breath in from the shock of the changes in the beautiful form of the Bette Porter her mind remembered and this Bette standing before her she had never met before. Bette was about thirty pounds lighter, her skin was pale, her hair no longer had that healthy glow, and it looked as if the last time it had been cut Bette had done it herself. Uneven twigs of hair framed her face and were down over her eyes. She noticed that she moved with a shuffle no longer walking with the confidence and grace she once possessed when she entered a room.