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The door closes and that scent surrounds me, suffocates me, takes me back to a different time, what feels like a different life . Numbly, I stare out the window at the spot Finn vacated. I wait for him to reappear even though I know he won’t.

In my peripheral, I see Ricky reach into the backseat, something dangling from his fingertips.

A flask, I recognize when I turn to face him.

Without a word, I take it.

I clutch that flask like a baby with a fucking rattle.

I don’t open it. I don’t drink from it. I just hold it so tightly, my fingers hurt. Listen to the sloshing of its contents as I follow the modern interpretation of fucking Cerberus into a bar I don’t even know the name of. Except they’re not guarding hell—they’re leading me into it.

I know the drill. I know to hide that damn flask while I take a seat, while Ricky takes the one beside me, too close to me.

I know that when Vic and Ethan sidle to the bar, they won’t order alcohol.

I know it’s soda in the four, tall glasses they drop on the sticky table just like I know I’m supposed to stealthily dole out whatever their liquor of choice is.

When I take too long, Ricky clucks his tongue and steals the flask and does it for me.

As clear liquid turns green, my nose wrinkles. Chartreuse? “Seriously?”

“Snob,” Vic snips her favorite insult, and I’d throw her abysmal taste of alcohol in her face if I wasn’t suddenly so distracted by someone wafting it in mine.

“You know you want it,” Ricky croons, pouting like a little fuck when I bat him away.

“I told you.” I swallow, my tongue heavy and reluctant. “I don’t drink anymore.”

“C’mon. You know no one expects you to stay sober.”

It kills me, it fucking splits me wide open, that he can so blatantly, casually voice one of my deepest, most terrifying insecurities. “Shut up.”

“No one thinks you can do it.”

Bang . He hits another nail on the head. “ Shut up. ”

“No one wants you to stay sober.”

I flinch, but I can’t escape the words that bury deep beneath my skin, growing roots that burrow through my bones. I can’t stop my resolve from crumbling, I try so fucking hard, I grip what little I have with both hands and desperately try to piece it all back together, I fail.

It’s too fucking hard .

I’m so fucking tired .

I’ll just have one , I promise myself. I’ll sip it slowly. Make it last the hour .

Except that’s not how it works. That’s never been how it works, and it doesn’t miraculously change now, as the herbal liquor that’s the same shade as the chip I was supposed to get tomorrow, the chip I almost earned, burns a path down my throat.

Belatedly, I remember how unfair sobriety is.

How finding it takes some giant intervention, some horrific accident, some great, big slap across the face.

How keeping it is such a strenuous task, how it takes everything in you, it takes everything out of you.

Yet losing it is nothing. It’s so… unspectacular.

It’s so easy. It’s so fucking simple, decimating months of effort in a single second. With a single drink.

With another drink because it’s never just one.

It’s never slow.

It was never going to be an hour, and it isn’t.

And the worst part?

It feels so fucking good.

I see Caroline’s dad.

Not actually. He’s not really here. Or at least I don’t think he is. I’m pretty sure the surly figure in the corner, staring me down, is a figment of my imagination. A hallucination.

A drunken, malevolent reminder that I am nothing good.

I finish another glass of wine. I don’t feel good anymore.

That rush of relief I felt when inebriation first sunk its claws into my consciousness, made everything feel fizzy and light and effortless, is gone.

In its place, there’s… nothing. A hole. An empty chasm that I don’t know how to fill, if not with more alcohol.

I glance at the corner again. At the man who may or may not be there—who isn’t there anymore, I realize with a frown. He left.

I should leave too. I need to leave. I think I try to leave, I think I tell my limbs to, but the limbs of someone else stop me.

And even though I’m drunk enough to not have full control over my body, I’m drunk enough to hallucinate other people’s deadbeat fathers, I am not so intoxicated that I can’t muster up a snarl for the unfortunately very real ex lurking too close.

Also too drunk. Too right as he slurs, “You know you don’t belong here. ”

I do know that. I do not belong here . But Ricky isn’t talking about this bar. “And how would you know that?”

“Because I know you.”

I laugh. Cackle like a damn witch. Sloppily slap my fucking knee at the hilarity, the audacity .

“You think I don’t?” Ricky fumes. “You think that pussy-ass cowboy knows you better?”

Suddenly, impossibly, every ounce of alcohol in my veins is neutralized. “Don’t talk about him.”

“Fine. I win anyway.” At my confused glare, Ricky grins. “You’re here with me, aren’t you?”

“Because you threatened me, asshole.”

“Threatened?” He scoffs. “ Please . You’ve never done anything you didn’t wanna do a day in your fuckin’ life, Charlotte . You’re here because you wanna be here.”

That’s not true. That can’t be true. “You’re delusional.”

“Am I?” A smirk sharpening his mouth, he leans in, too damn close for comfort. “You missed me, babe. I know you did. Just admit it.”

I try to move away, but there’s nowhere to go. Nothing but a wall against my back. No one around to help me. “Back off.”

He doesn’t. He does the very opposite.

And I don’t do a single thing to stop it.