She came to in the middle of the night. Head still pounding, sheets tangled around her body. Wondering how late it was, and if the bar across the street would still be open.

Where was it coming from, this craving? She scanned her body, looking for the culprit. Her head was the obvious suspect, but that was just a red herring. A clever misdirection.

She thought back to the first time she’d had a drink and felt the relief. It was fall of her senior year—two years after Annie died. She’d fed her guilt and her grief and her self-loathing with punishment. School work and running. She’d gotten a job at a local clothing store to fill the bits and pieces of spare time. She’d lost fifteen pounds because she’d deprived herself of every indulgence.

It was Columbus Day weekend. Three days off from school. No cross country meets or tests to study for. Her parents had both been gone—her father to a conference and her mother to visit Evan. Saturday she’d woken up and run ten miles. She’d worked her shift at the store, then come home to an empty house. A quiet house. She’d tried to read but her mind had been tired and refusing to cooperate. She’d turned on the television but nothing had been able to pull her in.

That was the first time she’d felt them—the hollow spaces. The emptiness that would not fill up. Not with anything.

She’d gone for another run, at night, until her body had shut down and she’d been able to sleep. But then morning had come and her legs wouldn’t move and her mind wouldn’t focus. The store was closed. She’d run out of distractions.

She would come to understand that the hollow spaces had been carved out by the grief, and the guilt, and the self-hatred. But on that Sunday, they had felt like a wild beast writhing with hunger. For the first time in her life, she’d understood why people jumped from bridges, and when she’d found herself thinking about the bridge over the river downtown, she’d gone to the liquor cabinet and poured a glass of vodka.

Within minutes, she was crying. And then laughing. And then binging some inane show on her laptop. She’d woken up Monday morning still in her clothes, the laptop dead beside her.

And she’d thought—thank you, God. Thank you for vodka.

By the end of senior year, she’d been caught four times with alcohol at school. Expelled. Her college acceptance revoked.

And still, she thought—thank you, God. Thank you for vodka.