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Inside: I feel nothing.

Because though I have no addiction, I recognize it for what it is: a ruthless sonofabitch that takes no prisoners and holds no punches, strangling the light out of anything good. An eclipse lasting for generations. And while I don’t disagree that one person can impact seven, I’ve never seen it do anything positive. Every ripple caused by addiction leads to a tsunami that ends in a hellscape.

When people call warm praises and congratulations, I speak over them.

“Do you think it will last?” I ask, silencing the sea of addicts. Mel looks at me from her position at the front of the room, taking a sip from her cup. “Or do you think the next time you notice she’s gone you’ll uncork a bottle?”

“Scotty,” she says, tilting her head slightly. “I notice she’s gone every damn second of my life.” Before I can say another word, she looks to the rest of the room. “Who would like to share next?”

I patiently wait for the woman with a food addiction to share her problems with hiding snacks before I begin offering my suggestions.

Even in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the August air is thicker than the backside of a swampy ball sack. Outside the church, rolling hills form the backdrop as the rest of Ledger’s Ledgers fan out across the parking lot to their vehicles. As many people as vices. Drugs, alcohol, sex, food, shopping . . . it’s a world I’d never know to believe in if I didn’t grow up knee-deep in a cesspool of it. There aren’t enough people in the town of Ledger, North Carolina to have addiction-specific meetings like AA, so Mel made up her own six months ago, playing off the town’s slogan ofLife on the Ledge.The addicts, no matter the vice, come together the second Sunday of each month to form an underground congregation of the damned.

“You have to stop doing that, Scotty,” Mel says, taking a drag of her cigarette as she stands next to the LL sign in her usual attire of blue jeans and a Blue Ridge Blooms Nursery T-shirt. The lines on her upper lip curve toward the cylinder in her mouth like a mountain road until she blows the smoke in the opposite direction of where I stand. “You can’t interrogate everyone like a damn cop when they share. It’s hard enough to give problems a voice, you can’t make it worse.”

I pin her with an annoyed look. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

She chuckles, smoke puffing out of her mouth like a dragon. “I know that, but they don’t. You don’t share and your questions come off as judgmental.”

I make a disagreeing grunt but say nothing.

“And you try to convince everyone that it’s up to others to fix their problems.”

I scoff. “And?”

She rolls her eyes. “And it’s not. When you have a problem like this, nobody else can fix it. Nobody else can care more than you or it won’t work.”

This is the biggest pile of bullshit I’ve ever heard of, but I don’t argue. She won’t listen.

“Why do you keep coming to these meetings? I didn’t know your parents, but I’ve heard stories. You’re nothing like them.” She raises her eyebrows. “Or your brother—the good kid who made bad choices.”

Her cigarette crackles with her next drag.

I do not tell her that because of all those people she listed I’m more fucked than any person who sits in that depressing basement. Instead: “Moral support.”

She scoffs, dropping her cigarette and stamping it out with the potting-soil-covered toe of her tennis shoe. “You’re full of shit, Scotty,” she says, waving toward a police car pulling slowly into the parking lot, friendly smile overtaking her face.

When the car stops next to us, I physically pinch my lips together with my teeth to contain the feral growl that begs to come out.

Ford Callahan. Yet another reason my life is the way it is. Only back in town nine months from whatever circle of hell he went to reign over for the last twenty years, I’ve interacted with him once, avoiding him ever since. As much as I’ve worked to ignore him—giving a wide berth to every parking lot I see his truck parked in—just knowing he’s in the same town as me has afflicted my body like a flesh-eating virus. His proximity makes me itch.

“Officer,” Mel says warmly.Gag.“Good to see you today. You know Scotty?”

“Mel.” He smiles slightly—the ease of it hitting me like a sledgehammer—then turns his head toward me. “I do. Scotty.”

His elbow is casually propped on the open window of the car and his aviator sunglasses hide what I know to be bright blue eyes. In the warm afternoon light, hair that I knew to be the darkest brown two decades ago is now subtly dashed with salt. In another ten or fifteen years, he’ll be considered a silver fox. I want to gouge his eyes out, scalp him, and feed his bits to the buzzards.

“Don’t be modest,Officer,” I say, turning to Mel. “I’ve had Ford’s dick in my mouth.”

Ford lets out a choked snort while Mel pinches the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut with a sharp exhale.

“Then I guess you know she only speaks in razor blades,” she says to Ford.

He chuckles—bastard—the sound making me seethe as he looks up at me. In the lenses of his sunglasses, my own reflection scowls at me.

“Don’t worry, Mel,” he says, smirk tugging at his lips and making a dimple dent in the scruff of his jaw. “I’m well aware. And fluent.” His chin dips—slowly. Like he’s looking me over. The notion makes my blood boil so hot with rage I’m surprised it doesn’t singe my cutoff jean shorts and loose-fitting shirt right off my skin. I fold my arms across my chest; he shifts his attention back to her. “Just wanted to check in. You good?”

She smiles genuinely, slight laugh in her voice when she speaks. “I’m good, Ford. Stop worrying about me. Six months sober today.”