Eddie sold drugs. Most people thought it was just a rumor, whispered around in hushed voices, but it wasn’t. He actually did sell—to anyone who knew how to ask the right way and had the cash to back it up.

That didn’t mean he didn’t care about the people he sold to. He did, in his own weird way. At least half of them were his friends, after all.

And then there were people like you. People he didn’t really know outside of passing a bag across a table or a bench. But even with you, he worried. Lately, you’d become his biggest concern.

His regulars were predictable. Three visits a week, maybe a bigger buy once in a while. But you? You were different. You showed up every day, asking for the smallest doses, never skipping a day. At first, he thought you were just flipping them, reselling to make some extra cash. But then he noticed.

The paler skin. The way your hair had lost its shine. The deep shadows under your eyes that no amount of sleep could fix. Your hands never seemed steady anymore, always trembling like you’d been out in the cold too long.

And no matter how much money you were putting in his pocket, Eddie knew it had to stop.

So the next day, when you showed up at the picnic bench in the woods—the one that had practically become your meeting spot—he didn’t. He figured that would be it. You’d get the message, realize he wasn’t going to sell to you anymore, and eventually move on.

But that idea shattered hours later, when there was a knock on his trailer door in the middle of the night. The sound was sharp, frantic, too desperate to be anyone else. And then he heard it: your voice, cracking with tears, begging him to just give you something.

For a second, he considered not answering. He hovered by the door, torn between self-preservation and guilt. But when your sobs broke through the thin walls of his trailer, his chest tightened. He knew he couldn’t just leave you out there.

When he finally opened the door, you stumbled forward, words spilling out fast and broken. Your begging only got more desperate when you saw him.

“No, I’m not giving you drugs. What I am giving you is water—because you’re like, super dehydrated—and uh… something to eat, yeah? You need food.”

Before you could protest, he gently but firmly pulled you inside. You landed on his sagging couch, still whining softly for a fix, your hands twitching against your knees. Eddie ignored it, moving toward the fridge.

He pulled it open, already dreading what he’d find. Inside sat a lonely can of beer, a half-cut onion that was going soft, and a ketchup packet that looked like it had survived the apocalypse. He stared for a long second, then let the fridge door swing shut with a heavy sigh.