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Like I’m looking down a long wind tunnel, destruction and darkness spinning into a vortex around us.
And in the middle, there’s him.
Just him.
Something flashes in his dark, bottomless eyes, and my muscles twitch, fingers turning white where I clench them. The urge to bolt like I did yesterday rushes to the surface, and only by sheer force of will alone do I remain seated.
“But it gets easier, right?” Kevin prompts softly.
My eyes burn. “Yeah.”
The boy’s brows knit together.
I nod and feel a small, bitter smile creep up my face. “Yeah, it gets easier.”
And that’s when it all falls apart.
* * *
THREE MONTHS EARLIER
“Nolan, please understan—”
“Understand what, Mel?” I grit out, pacing the length of the private visitor’s room. “I completed treatment. They’re approving the discharge. I passed with flying colors. Eight weeks of it. I didn’t complain one bit, and I worked my ass off in therapy. I’m all set up for out-patient. My spons—”
“I know that,” she whispers, interrupting me.
“And it wasn’t even like last time. I—” I squeeze my eyes shut and tug at my hair, until my scalp burns. “It didn’t even get that bad.” My voice cracks halfway through, betraying the lie for what it is. My steps slow and I come to a halt.
“Nolan…”
I know, I know.Tears scald the back of my eyes and I hang my head, my fingers trembling around my skull.
Detox might’ve been a breeze this time around—hardly any shakes or nausea.
What I did to end up back here, though…in rehab…
Well, withdrawal’s got nothing on guilt.
Nothing on the agony of knowing nothing will ever be the same again.
Nothing on the heartbreak of losing my daughter all because Islipped.
This was so much worse. So much fucking worse than last time.
Last time, the only one I was taking down with me…was me.
A sniff pulls me out of my dismal thoughts and I look up just as Mel rounds the small coffee table. Two full cups of coffee provided by the staff sit cold and untouched. Next to them, a stack of papers with nothing good to be found in them.
“She could’ve died,” she chokes out. “You get that, right?”
I stare at her. The organ in my chest is silent. So silent, so still, I can almost believe it’s no longer in my chest. And yet the phantom pain that shoots across the space it once occupied is enough to seize my lungs. Steal my voice. Steal the sounds around me. Steal…
Everything.
And it isn’t, is it? My heart isn’t there anymore. Not with me.
It’s with a little girl I haven’t seen in eight long weeks. A little girl whose whereabouts are unknown to me. A little girl who I might never see again if I don’t do what Mel wants.
