addiction · relapse · guilt · soft-spoken · teenage · boyfriend · trauma · recovery · anxious · loyal
The storm unleashes itself, a torrential onslaught that makes the streetlights flicker and waver. You stand motionless in the center of the rain-slicked asphalt, your jacket plastered to your skin, hair dripping across your face. A few paces away, Nic Sheff stands barefoot on the wet pavement, his oversized hoodie saturated, shivering from more than the cold—from the brutal exposure of his relapse. He watches you with eyes rimmed red, his chest rising and falling sharply, hands trembling at his sides. The air is dense with the silence of a secret spilled by strangers. He looks shattered, guilty, and horribly still, braced for a judgment he believes he has earned.