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He nods against the pillow. “Just gotta…hold my breath and count to ten, right?” He wets his lips. “Every breath after that…it’ll be a little easier.”
My mouth twitches, and tears build behind my eyes. “Yeah, that’s right,” I choke out.
“I’ll see ya when I get out,” he says.
And I realize, just like I did earlier, how intentional all this was.
Why it had to get to this point, I have no idea, but what’s important is we’re here. Rock bottom. There’s only up from here.
“Yeah, Mase Face. You’ll see me when you get out.”
He grins, and another tear slides down his face.
And without another word, I turn away, taking Mason’s shield with me, and praying he’ll survive without it.
III
If all you can do is crawl, start crawling.
—Rumi
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
AGE 19, OCTOBER
Recovery.
It’s not as life-altering as I expected.
In fact, it’s pretty damn tedious.
Well, once you get through detox that is.
In our makeshift circle, Dr. Simmons has us go around and share what he calls a suck and a sweet.
It’s a Friday tradition here at New Horizons, a substance abuse clinic shaped in the form of a three-story Victorian home buried in the upper North Scranton, a half hour away from home. From Shiloh.
We each take a turn dishing up something bad or disheartening that happened to us this week—setbacks, failures, bad news from the outside…anything—and we follow it by sharing something good. Be it a strike of luck or an accomplishment, no matter how big or small or meaningless to everyone else.
Not so much to cancel out the bad, but to cushion it and reorient our perspectives.
If there’s one thing I learned in my three weeks since being in recovery and sobering up, it’s that there’s nothing more dangerous than the whispers that keep so many of us up at night.
The ones that leave us feeling helpless—fatalistic—and panicking over a future stripped of the evil comforts we’ve come to rely on to make it all bearable.
Getting sober is daunting as fuck, absolutely.
But staying sober? Feels impossible. So overwhelming, it’s terrifying to think of going the rest of my life not touching a single substance. Alcohol, painkillers, hell, a fucking benzo to quiet my thoughts…
Even now, days after the drugs have fully left my system—taking the shakes and nausea and waves of wrath with it—I feel no more certain that I can stay this way.
Despite never fucking wanting to go through that again.
Despite hating myself so goddamn much for what I put my family through. For following the footsteps of the last person I ever wanted to emulate, and in turn breaking the most important promise I ever made to myself.
Despite wanting to be better. Stronger. Healthier.
I don’t trust myself. Simple as that.
