Iwasn’tlucky.
Lucky people didn’t spend their mornings walking five blocks begging for a sip that never came. Lucky people didn’t havetheir only break come in the form of a shared cigarette from a stranger.
Acting like a damsel in distress didn’t get me anywhere, because I wasn’t acting. The distress was real, fixed in the tremble of my hands and the ache in my chest.
Anything I ever got wasn’t because of charm or wit or some clever ploy—it was because of pity. And if there was one thing I hated more than this gnawing, inescapable craving, it was pity.
But no matter how much I hated it, it didn’t stop me from wearing it proudly, wrapping it around myself like a threadbare jacket. Resenting it but clinging to it all the same.
What else did I have? Pride wasn’t ever going to pay my bills or keep the shakes at bay.
The stranger stood without a word, crushing the cigarette onto the pavement, grinding it out with the tip of his shiny black shoe.
He then reached into his pocket and pulled out the full pack of Marlboros and the light, slipping them into my coat pocket.
He didn’t look at me again as he turned and walked away.
For a moment I just sat there as still as stone. That was it? No parting jab? No smug advice?
When I finally moved, it was to reach into my pocket, half-expecting to find the Marlboros gone, as if he’d changed his mind and taken them with him. But they were there. My fingers brushed the crinkled paper of the pack that was still warm from his touch.
Next to it, I felt something else. I pulled it out.
A hundred-dollar bill.
I stared at it, turning it over in my hand as if it might be a counterfeit or a cruel joke.
But no. It was real.
Cillian used to hand me cash like it was Monopoly money, hundreds stuffed into my purse “for a rainy day,” though it neverrained much in the penthouse. Now? One hundred dollars felt like a lifeline. Or maybe just a really pretty insult.
The fact he’d given me anything meant I looked like I needed it.
I didn’t like how that made me feel.
Cheap.
I stood there for what felt like ten minutes, just staring at the cracked pavement under my feet. I thought that maybe if I stood still enough, time would pass me by, and I could take a second to think about what I was going to do with the money.
It wasn’t that I didn’t know what Ishoulddo. Of course I did. Buy groceries. Maybe pay off a fraction of something—anything. Be responsible. Take one step toward the person everyone thought I was supposed to be.
But responsibility didn’t come with a guarantee. It didn’t promise to stop the shaking in my hands or the static in my chest. It didn’t offer warmth or silence or the gentle, suffocating oblivion that waited at the bottom of a bottle.
Drinking wasn’t a choice for me—not really. It wasn’t something I wanted. It wasn’t even something I enjoyed anymore.
People love to talk about control, about willpower, like it’s something you can pick up at the corner store, right next to the aspirin and the cheap sunglasses. What they don’t tell you is that willpower doesn’t work when you’re drowning. All you want is air, and you don’t care where it comes from.
I didn’twantto go back into the store. I didn’twantto grab the bottle off the shelf and hand over the money as if it didn’t matter. But I did. I went back in, and I bought my box of wine.
CHAPTER 3
MARCO
NOVEMBER 12, WASHINGTON, D.C
Thump.
Thump.
