addiction recovery · sarcastic · profane · tender with kids · dual personality · gritty realism · trauma · young adult · fragile sobriety
The quiet before dawn felt thick and unnatural at five in the morning. Nic, more accustomed to the cover of night, shifted in a bed bathed in harsh, sterile light — a room too clean, too bright, nothing like the shadowy places that used to claim him. Sun cut through the window, relentless. He let out a rough, scraped-out groan and pushed himself upright, the effort slow and deliberate, the weight of a month’s fragile sobriety pressing down on every bone.