I want it so badly. If I could just have a little, that would help. Just one more time, my addiction whispers. Nobody has to know.

My addiction is such an asshole.

In two hours I’ll get off this bed, and I’ll go to an AA meeting. I’ll sit in a dingy community room at a church and listen to strangers talk about how hard they fought to get sober, and I’ll feel a little less alone.

A little.

Heading out to a meeting will have the added advantage of getting me out of this room. Lark asked me how I was doing today, but I didn’t tell her the truth. I haven’t told anyone, because they’ll only worry.

My cravings are really sharp, and I haven’t wanted a drink this badly in quite a long time.

Living at home is part of the problem. My lowest moments as an alcoholic were lived right here in this room. It happened a year and a half ago, when Lark was kidnapped overseas. She used to have a job with a non-profit agricultural agency. They sent her to Central America, where she was snatched off the street. She was missing for weeks, and I was sure she was dead.

That’s when I climbed inside the bottle and forgot how to climb out. I stopped doing my law school work and ended each night drunk and weepy. I was so destroyed that I didn’t even care that everyone saw my breakdown. For years I’d hid my favorite habit, but when Lark was missing, I stopped caring who noticed.

My family was astonished by my behavior. They hadn’t noticed before that alcohol was my crutch, because they didn’t recognize the urge in themselves. The week before Lark was rescued was the one of great drama, when I finally admitted I needed help. My mother drove me to my first AA meeting, where I cried like a fountain the whole time.

Ah, the memories.

Many people would call me lucky. My addiction didn’t cost me my family. It didn’t cost me my job, and I didn’t have to kill someone behind the wheel of my car, or disappoint too many people before I acknowledged my problem.

I have sixteen months of sobriety.

But this is a rough patch. I’m stuck in this house again. Thinking about Lark again. And wondering how I managed to screw everything up with Daniela.

I feel really lost for someone who’s supposedly on an upswing.

My phone chirps with a text, and I dig it out of my coat pocket, needing the distraction. The number is unfamiliar. But when I tap on the message, I recognize the Gin Mill logo on the Avatar. It’s Alec Rossi.

How are you doing? he asks.

It’s the same question everyone asks me. But for some reason I don’t mind the question from Alec. He’s just an acquaintance, not someone who expects me to self-destruct under the weight of my recent disappointments.

Also, he’s super cute.