And it’s not like Cassie had to settle, either. No, we made our bed together, but she sleeps in it more soundly than I. Grew into this life with its limitations like a rose through a cracked sidewalk, while I grind my teeth and stew with resentment and ponder the what-ifs and fantasize alternate scenarios like I deserve them more than her. She doesn’t even fault me for the night Rox had his accident, although she could. He fell during my shift. And there’s no way it would have happened had I not been obliterated. I know that inside my heart, even if I’m not able to admit it. Hell, she’s capable of making more money using her talents than I am with my crap tunes, but she’s never once pressed that issue. We’d have a better life if she worked and I stayed home, but I know – we both know – I’m not capable of doing it. It’s a sacrifice I’m not willing to make.

So maybe this is what I deserve. Maybe this is karma baring its jagged fangs. Worse happens to people less deserving than me, that’s for sure. Rox did nothing to deserve me as his father. The stumbling dummy in these photos with a beer in his hand and dick in the mouth of some strange woman who had helped set him up.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” I said to Al.

If there’s one thing addicts do better than anyone else, aside from stretch out benders, it’s lie. Al knows this. Expects it, actually.

“Looks pretty cut and dried to me, Jess. What am I missing?”

“What you’re missing,” I said, realizing how ridiculous this would sound, “is the part where I was chased off the road by a couple of hillbilly twins, and where my life was threatened unless I did what you see here. I didn’t send those texts, Al. I don’t even have my phone.”

“Not sure I see a gun pointed at your head, there,” Al said.

“No, it’s wasn’t like that,” I said. “But the threat was there, trust me.”

Had it been, though? Had I ever really had my life threatened? Everything, it seemed, had been an illusion of sorts. Except for these damn pictures. Even these, though, were the result of my own actions, and hadn’t been explicitly coerced. In fact, hadn’t I enjoyed being at that bar once I’d accepted my fate?

Al nodded, took the empty glass from my hands. “Coffee?” he said.

“Time is it?”

Al checked his watch. “Bit after five a.m.”

“Jesus, okay.” I said. My most concise prayer.