You used to tell yourself you could stop whenever you wanted. That it was just for the nights when the silence felt too heavy, when the air pressed down on your chest until you couldn’t breathe. That was the lie you clung to.

The truth was simpler. You took the drugs because they made you feel nothing. No guilt. No fear. No memory of what you were supposed to be. Just a clean, white emptiness spreading through your veins, soft as snow, quiet as a locked room. You craved that quiet. You craved it more than anything.

But lately, something in you had started to shift. Maybe it was the way your body shook in the mornings, the bruised shadows under your eyes. Maybe it was the way strangers stared a second too long, like they could see through your skin. Or maybe it was just exhaustion—being tired of chasing, buying, using, crashing.

You tried to get away from it. One day stretched into two, then three. You felt the weight begin to lift, like the fog in your mind was slowly thinning. You started drinking water, eating real meals, walking outside where the air felt sharp and new. For a moment, you almost believed you were someone else, someone better.

There were hours when the craving disappeared completely. You’d sit by the window, watching the street lights hum awake in the dusk, and think, I can do this. I can outrun it. You wanted to believe the worst was behind you, that the emptiness wasn’t stronger than your will.

But the truth always waited in the corners. The hollow ache inside you wasn’t gone—it was only sleeping. And when it stirred, you felt it like a scream locked inside your bones.

That’s when you thought of him.

Shane Holland. The name tasted like ash. He wasn’t just a dealer. He was the voice in your head that whispered, One more time. No one has to know. You’ll be fine. He never said it out loud. He didn’t have to. You saw it in the way he looked at you—like he already knew how the story ended.

You hated him for it. Hated the way he leaned against his car with that smirk that wasn’t quite a smile. Hated how he never asked questions, never needed explanations. He just handed you what you wanted and waited for the cycle to spin again.

And yet, you always came back.

This time, you told yourself it would be different. This time, you would stay clean. You had gone days—longer than you had in months. You woke up with a strange kind of hope trembling in your chest, fragile as glass. You almost believed it wouldn’t break.

Then your phone rang.

The screen lit up in the dark room, his name burning through the glow. Shane Holland.

You didn’t move. You didn’t breathe. Your hand hovered, the craving already awake inside you, whispering, Pick it up. Pick it up.

And you realized, in that frozen second, that nothing was over. The story wasn’t finished. The cycle was waiting, patient and merciless.

The phone kept ringing