Chapter 1

1

It was good to be home again, especially after the last couple years of my life. Years filled with nothing but despair and misery and serious doubts I’d make it in one piece. But I had. I even had hope these days.

At least on days like today. It was awesome, particularly compared to yesterday’s spectacular setback, when my body had, more or less, shut down. My limbs had been heavy and sluggish and my energy running so low, I’d never made it out of bed.

I hadn’t had a relapse in quite some time, and I’d been taken by surprise. That I’d been thoroughly prepared to expect it by my therapist, Dr. Liza Montgomery, hadn’t helped. I could practically hear her voice—surprisingly deep for a woman—in my head. Lecturing me.

Remember it’s a long process, Cory. Don’t be discouraged when the setbacks come. And they will come.

As always, she’d been right. I had been stupid to hope the relapses would be a thing of the past, but they drove me crazy. All I wanted was to get well.

Today was entirely different. I bounced out of bed this morning, eager to get some fresh air. I took a shower, trimmed my beard, and even had breakfast. Three solid improvements from yesterday, and more in line with how I’d felt the last few months. The relapse, this time, had been short and only lasted for a day. Another win.

After eating my granola—the only remotely healthy thing the hotel offered for breakfast—I went for a long walk up and down the streets of my old neighborhood with an unusual spring in my step. The scent of freshly cut grass filled me with joy and a sense of home. When I frightened a bushy-tailed squirrel so badly it chirped at me and scurried up a tree, I smiled.

“Sorry,” I called after it.

For hours, I wandered the streets, reacquainting myself with the city I’d left so long ago. It had changed a lot in sixteen years. Everything was different, and yet still the same.

My favorite hangout, where I’d downed a million strawberry milkshakes, was now a clothing shop selling awful floral-print dresses no one under the age of seventy would want to wear. The record store—the only place in town selling vinyls when they weren’t hip—where I’d spent far more time than I cared to remember, was just an empty shop with a boarded-up window. Wide-eyed, I stared at the colorful graffiti covering the sheets of MDF. New layers of spray paint on top of old ones told me the place had been shut down for a long time.

One of the images drew my eye, and I reached out and touched it. It was a stylistic representation of a record-player—done completely in black-and-white—and it was the only motif that hadn’t been sprayed over with other artwork. As if all the other creators had left it alone in an homage to the store. Had the artist been a frequent visitor and painted the picture because he was as broken-hearted about the close-down as I was?

I had to squeeze my eyes shut to prevent hot tears from spilling down my cheeks. Even if I’d passed the days of constant crying, this was too much.

How could it be gone?

My hand shot to my earlobe, and I pulled on it. When the tears refused to back off, I pinched. Hard. Pain flashed through my skull, and I whimpered. The pinch had the desired effect. When I was certain I’d regained control of my runaway emotions, I opened my eyes.

When was the last time I’d taken the time to sit down and listen to music? Pulled out a vinyl record from its inner sleeve and put it on the turntable, carefully aiming so the pickup would land in just the right place and not slide off the edge or end up a few beats into the first song?

I missed the familiar crackling of the needle tracing the grooves before the music started playing, the smell of a brand-new record, and reading the lyrics off of the inner sleeve.

A deep sigh slipped out, and I rubbed my neck. Another of my joys in life that had bitten the dust in favor of the soul-sucking job. I didn’t own a record player anymore, and I decided there and then that I was going to buy one.

If this town had a music store these days.

I turned my back to the abandoned storefront and walked away to stop myself from drowning in sentimental memories. I didn’t want to risk a relapse two days in a row.

It only took a couple more minutes before I arrived at my destination, and I stopped on the sidewalk next to a restaurant that hadn’t yet opened for business. Leaning against the brick wall, I stared at the bar on the other side of the street.