Something wakes me. A sound that produces a fleeting dream of walking down the street when a garbage truck passes. Then I’m standing on a subway platform. In pitch black, the noise persists. I ignore it, rolling over in bed to the big empty space beside me. Then my brain catches up and I realize my phone is vibrating somewhere. I reach to the nightstand, but I can’t find it. Buzzing, skittering. I crawl around on the bed then drop to the floor. Finally, I see the light and reach for it. Carter’s name flashes on the screen.
“Carter? Hey, you there?”
“Yeah, Avery.”
“What’s wrong? Did you find him? Where is he? Is he okay?”
“Listen. I need you to take a breath, all right?”
“Tell me, dammit!”
Sitting on the cold cement floor, my heart races. My head is filled with the sound of a beating bass drum and blood rushing between my ears. I brace for impact, eyes clenched shut. If it’s bad news, if he’s hurt or worse, I don’t know if I can take it.
“Ethan’s been arrested. He’s okay, but—”
“What? What for?
Air fills my lungs, big and heavy.
“Avery, listen to me. He was arrested outside his parents’ house uptown. Police found him with a baseball bat smashing out the windows of his father’s car.”
Christ, Ethan.
“Paul isn’t pressing charges—”
“So he’s being released?” I jump to my feet and dart around in the dark for the first pair of jeans I find and start yanking them up my legs, bouncing on one foot. “Then I can pick him up? Where is he? I’ll leave right now and—”
“Please, Avery. There’s more. He’s been involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital for a forty-eight-hour observation period.”
“What?” I fall to the bed, jeans tangled around my ankles. “Why?”
“When the police arrived, he was violent and incoherent. It’s likely he was on something, but we won’t know until they run a urinalysis at the hospital.”
Oh, Ethan. What have you done?
“Then what happens? I mean, if he—”
“It’s likely he’ll be released after the forty-eight hours, but that’s entirely dependent on the eval and whether he cooperates with the doctors. If he makes this difficult on himself, they could hold him.”
My hands tremble. Up my arms and down to my toes. I can imagine what Ethan’s going through right now. Anguished and confused, so much rage and pain exploding inside him. I should have been there. Somehow, I should have gotten to him. The idea of his spending the night in a psych ward, alone, it breaks my heart.
Then a thought occurs to me.
“Carter, was anyone else with him?”
He’s quiet a moment, perhaps debating whether to tell me, until he says, “Vivian Mott was arrested and charged with possession of narcotics. She’s being booked and held for arraignment.”
After I get off the phone with Carter, I lie awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, anxious and breathless, trying to think of what to say. I don’t want to screw this up again, drive Ethan farther away when he’s at his most vulnerable. The last thing he needs is a lecture or someone else pointing out all the ways he went wrong. There’s time for that later, once he’s released and he’s had a chance to recoup. Once he’s home and I can make him understand that I’m not fighting him.
I know what addiction does to people. How it changes us, controls us. We aren’t bad people, we’re just sick. Our minds aren’t our own when we’re chasing our next fix—whatever it may be. It’s tunnel vision that filters out everything that isn’t what we’re after. Anything that gets in the way is an obstacle to be destroyed. We sacrifice everything to maintain the high. Most of all, the people closest to us. They’re the easiest targets. Because at its core, addiction is hatred. We hate what we become because this thing has taken control. Every day we wake up and say, No more. This time I stop. This time, I’ll be stronger.
It isn’t that easy.
So we hate ourselves a little more each time we fail, and we take that hatred out on the ones we love.
What’s happened to Ethan isn’t his fault, but he does have to take responsibility for getting better. He has to want it. Getting sober, no matter how many people stand beside you, is a solitary effort. All the counseling in the world can’t change the fact that 90 percent of the fight happens in our own minds. Every day is a choice. He has to want to make the right one.
If not, I can’t stand by and watch him suffer.
No matter how much I love Ethan, and I still do, I can’t sacrifice my recovery for his vices. It nearly derailed me once, and I can’t take that chance again.
The last several days, I wake in a cold sweat, dreaming of the rush and numb euphoria. I imagine the pure, excellent bliss when it hits my bloodstream and calms every nerve. How perfect and peaceful it is when the rest of the world melts away and there is only light and beautiful warmth. Ethan used to give me that. Without him, the repressed parts of my mind yearn for another source. Every old instinct screams at me to find the thing that fills the void. Sometimes I go to sleep afraid I’ll wake up with a needle in my arm and no memory of how it got there.
The only thing harder than getting clean is doing it again. There’s nothing on this earth that could make me go through another round of detox. Not for love or money or the promise of curing world hunger. It really is that fucking bad—the parts I can remember. The parts I can’t are worse.