Normally we would smoke a little, but I can’t, haven’t since last spring—golf clap for my five months of sobriety—so we have to try and remember how to be together without any help. It’s awkward. We’ve forgotten. Even though we’ve done this so many times since what happened in March, we still can’t remember how it was Before.

Micah should have come that day.

He wasn’t there because I told him not to be—I knew he’d rather be anywhere else. He’d looked so relieved when I said it was okay not to come. Smiled. I wanted him to come anyway, to, like, be there for me, but the only guy who came through the door was this dad-aged dude wearing a polo shirt, and that made me think about how Dad offered to come, which was actually really sweet, but I was like, this isn’t Take Your Daughter to Abortion Day, you know? Mom kept trying to feed me Life Savers, those wintergreen ones, until I told her the name was kind of ironic, wasn’t it (lifesavers, get it?), and then she stopped.

Micah looks down at me. “Could we have a drink? Or is that against the rules?”

Yes, it’s against the rules. And he knows it, or at least he should know it. I start to say yes, but you go ahead, I’m cool like I have been since April, but Jesus, I’ve been so good. And a drink is not a pill, and the pills are the problem, the main problem, right? One drink is not the same as one pill. I’m good now, I am. Before, I never could have gone five months without a diamond. I could hardly go five hours without one. Before.

And the thought of doing this—spending the night, a whole night, with Micah and not being a drag like I know I am: I need help. Just a little something.

I bite my lip. Nod. “A drink would be nice.”

“You’re sure? I’m not, like, fucking with your serenity or whatever?”

Some tatted-up college guy who came to speak at group used that phrase once, and I dig it.

“I’m sure. Yeah. Totally. It’s not, you know, Percs.”

Just one little blue pill, one teensy-tiny Percocet, and I’d be fine.

Micah reaches under the bed and grabs a bottle of Popov, which is like drinking Windex, and we drink it straight because the only thing in his fridge is a suspicious-smelling carton of chocolate milk. When we’re done, he sets the bottle on the desk behind us. We will need it later, I think.

The relief is almost instant. Not being me anymore.

It is so warm.

And then I realize: I am no longer sober.

“Hey.” Micah rests a hand on my arm. “You good?”