“Roomie.Go on then, what’s your story?”he asks, dropping onto his bed.“What landed you in this five-star prison?”
No pretense.I like that.
“I got my brother killed,” I say.“And it should’ve been me.”
His eyebrows lift.“That’s fucked up.”
“Yeah.”
There’s a moment of silence before I ask, “You?”
He shrugs.
“Family didn’t like the optics of me getting locked up.Rehab looks better on a Christmas card.”
I almost smile.It’s the first time today I’ve felt human.
“Harry,” he says, holding out his fist.“Don’t be like these wankers and call me Harrison.”
“Nate.”I bump it.
“You want to grab food?It is edible, which is saying something.Just stay away from the apple pie, I don’t trust it”
“Maybe later.”
He grins.
“Suit yourself, man.”
When he leaves, the silence hits again.I lie back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
This is it.
Ground zero, the place where you stop running.
I pull the photo from my pocket and hold it over my chest, tracing her smile.For the first time in months, I don’t feel like using.Not because the craving isn’t there—it always is—but because I finally have a reason to sit with it.To see what’s left of me underneath all the noise.
Guess that’s what getting better is about, not fixing yourself.
Just facing yourself.
I close my eyes, counting the specks on the ceiling until my mind starts to quiet.
One… two… three…
I let sleep take me sober and somewhere in the darkness, I tell myself—quietly, carefully—that I’m going to try again tomorrow because that’s what I promised her.
EPILOGUE
NATE
Three Months Later
You know,I’m starting to remember what it feels like to wake up without my first thought being about where I can score.
Small victories, Dr.Hawthorne calls them.
I call them fucking miracles.
