Matt turned his arm enough to show off his track marks. Neil had spotted them within seconds of meeting Matt for the first time. Matt never tried to hide them. They were scars of a battle he'd fought and won long ago. Neil didn't let his gaze linger on them now but gave a small nod. Matt ran a hand down them and picked up his sandwich.

"Dad liked partying it up with the other rich shits of New York," Matt said, "but his party favors were drugs. He let me—encouraged me, even—to try whatever I wanted so I would fit in. When Mom realized what was going on she took time off from the circuit to get me clean. We thought I was okay until I started here. The juniors we had back then were into some pretty heavy things, and I was tempted. The only way I stayed sober was by hiding from them."

"By camping out on our couch for his entire freshman year," Allison elaborated.

Matt winced, not embarrassed but guilty. "I said I was sorry."
"Whatever," Allison said.

Matt tore his sandwich into shreds as he continued. "Last year the monsters joined our team. It took Andrew all of two weeks to figure out something wasn't right with me, and he took it upon himself to fix things. They invited me out with them to Columbia. When we got there Andrew gave me speedballs."

Neil's stomach bottomed out. "He what?"

"He didn't make me take them," Matt was quick to say. "He just offered them, and I was drunk and stupid and desperate enough to say yes."

"Coach should have kicked him off the team."

"He should have, except Andrew cleared it with Matt's mother first," Dan said, jaw tightening a little in old anger. "She knew Matt was having a hell of a time here and she wanted him to kick the habit for good. Andrew promised he could help, so she gave him her blessing. She flew in for the summer to help walk Matt through withdrawal and asked Coach not to punish Andrew. She even offered to pay Coach for the trouble."

"But—"

"No harm, no foul," Allison said carelessly. When Neil stared at her, she gestured at Matt. "You can't really have an opinion on this because you weren't here then. You didn't see what Matt was like. It was pathetic. He couldn't even look any of us in the face. Look at him now. The monster's methods might have been a little extreme but they worked."

"You're not really okay with this," Neil said to Matt. "What if it backfired? What if you hadn't gotten back up again?"