Maybe trying is enough for now.
Maybe that's all any of us can do.
"I have to go," I say when the counselor signals that my time is almost up. "They're pretty strict about the phone limits."
"Okay." His voice drops, becoming softer. More intimate. "I love you, Vanna. I'm so damn proud of you."
"I love you too." The words catch in my throat. "I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"
"I'll be here. Waiting."
The line goes dead, and I'm left standing in the hallway with the phone pressed against my chest, trying to hold onto the sound of his voice for as long as I can.
That night, I dream about the first time I used heroin.
It wasn't my mother who introduced me to it.
That's what everyone assumes—that I followed in her footsteps, that she handed me the needle the same way she handed me her addiction.
But that's not how it happened.
My mother was already dead when I took my first hit.
I was missing the high of the pain pills, desperate for something, anything, that would make the world quiet again. Somehow I found myself standing in front of a trap house.
The guy who found me was named Mojo—yeah, like thePowerpuff Girlsvillain.
I don't remember much about him now—just a blur of a face, a voice that sounded almost kind.
He took one look at me and knew what I needed.
Not comfort. Not sympathy. Not the phone numbers for therapists or grief counselors.
Escape.
"This will help," he said, pressing the needle into my hand. "Trust me. It'll make all of this go away."
And it did.
God help me, it did.
One hit, and everything dissolved into warm, golden nothing.
All of it just... disappeared.
I chased that feeling for the next twelve years.
Through my marriage to Garrett.
Through the slow destruction of everything good in my life.
Through overdose after overdose, each one bringing me closer to joining my mother in whatever darkness waited on the other side.
But I'm not chasing it anymore.
I wake up from the dream with tears on my face and my heart pounding in my chest.
For a moment, I'm back there—eighteen years old, standing over my mother's body.
