I woke up to afternoon sunlight, a raging headache, and about 15 unread text messages and missed calls. It took me a moment to grasp that I had slept almost a full 24 hours, instead of the nap I had planned when the bonfire of my shit paintings died down and I dragged myself back inside.

My muscles were screaming, and it felt like I had been run over by a truck, and then the truck backed up, ran me over again, and then went forward and ran me over a third time. Whatever heroin I had found in my glass emergency jar was far from pure, and it left my insides raw, like I had just drunk corrosive battery acid.

I rolled over onto my back with a groan and shakily scrolled through my phone. Mostly missed calls and texts from Sage, and a few from Hunter and my sister, but my thumb instantly hovered to the string of texts from AJ, my heart thumping hard against my already aching ribs.

AJ RICARDI [12:32 pm]: Hey you weren't at group therapy this morning

AJ RICARDI [12:32 pm]: Everything okay?

AJ RICARDI [1:02 pm]: Kai I'm worried what's going on?

AJ RICARDI [1:23 pm] I'm coming over

After realizing it was now 1:30, and one of the voices that faintly carried through the house did not belong to my mom or my sister, I dropped my phone on my face in a panic.

AJ. In my house. 24 hours after I had just crawled back into the hole she dug me out of. I wondered if it was possible to wring my own neck.

My bones ached as I lugged myself out of bed, stumbling around my room still in my underwear, desperate to get my shit together. I grabbed an old cutoff shirt in my bottom dresser drawer and a somewhat clean pair of sweatpants. I tiptoed through the upstairs hallway to the bathroom and locked the door behind me. I forced myself to throw up, even though nothing but water and a horrible animal-like sound came out of my mouth, ran a wet comb through my knotted mess of hair, and brushed my teeth. I still looked like roadkill, but it was still more put together than I'd been in two days.

It was fucked up in and of itself that I knew my withdrawal cycle, but I still had to hope I had just slept through the storm, and that another surge wasn't on its way up.

I barely had one foot out the bathroom door when a body flung itself into mine, skyrocketing my heart rate even more. Her hair still smelled faintly of coconut and vanilla and sunshine as she wrapped her arms around my neck and nuzzled her face into my chest. I wasn't sure if it was the initial shock, or the fact that her body fit into mine so perfectly, but my knees buckled, and I almost took us down straight to the hallway floor.

"Sorry," AJ breathed out and quickly let go of me. For the briefest moment her cool demeanor flustered, and her freckles darkened as her cheeks tinged red, but it was all gone as fast as it came. "You weren't at group this morning, and then you didn't answer your phone so...I got worried."

"I just overslept," I shrugged.

As usual she saw right through me, but when she spoke, her tone was soft, and almost unrecognizable. Her eyes glistened with an emotion I had yet to see in her - some twisted combination of fear and disdain. "Don't lie to me."

"Look," I sighed out. "Let's not do this in the hallway, okay? I can also guarantee you my sister is eavesdropping."

AJ nodded and followed me into my room, shutting the door behind us. She immediately kicked her shoes off and sat back on my bed with her legs crossed, like she had been there a thousand times. Like she belonged there. I stood across the room and leaned against my desk while she studied me and my messy hair, my bloodshot eyes, and my faded track marks. I shifted uncomfortably under her stare, and I wished I had thrown on a sweatshirt instead.

"Are you okay?"

Her question was like a shock to my system. No what's wrong with you or you fucked up again. The sincerity of it all pulled the truth out of me without even trying.

"No," I choked out. "I'm not. I uh..."

"Just say it," she kept her voice soft. "It's easier after you just come right out with it."

"Okay." I took a deep breath, desperate to steady the thundering of my heart. "I relapsed, okay? Real fucking bad."

"What happened?"

My nose was running like a faucet, and I balled my hands into fists to keep myself from itching at my skin like there were bugs laying their eggs under it. "I don't know, okay? Dr. Weiss said some stupid shit about how I'm addicted to love and toxic relationships and it just really made me feel like all of this is fucking pointless. An addict is an addict is an addict. So I caved, because I'm a fucking addict."

"But you shouldn't let that define you." AJ's tone was so nonchalant, and the way she kept her cool even though I was about to rip my hair out made me just want to curl up next to her and sleep for an eternity. "You're also a painter. You're a pretty impressive botanist. And you're a decent person without really having to try. But it's like you try to be bad."

I groaned. "Because what else does anyone expect from me?"

"Doesn't matter what anyone else expects." She was back to being sharp as a knife, but a faint smile pulled at her lips. "What do you expect from yourself?"

Sharp as a knife, stabbing me with her words. "I...I don't know."

"Well, until you figure that out, next time you feel like this, just call me."

I scoffed. "So what, every time I'm on the edge of a cliff, I'm just supposed to call you, you'll snap your fingers and do some witchcraft and all of a sudden I'm fine?"

She laughed at me. "No, not like that. You don't even have to call me. You can call your mom for crying out loud. Talk about nothing, like the weather and what you ate for lunch. It's just about getting you out of that damaging headspace. Eventually, you just learn how to do that on your own."

It made enough sense, but saying it and actually doing it were on different ends of the spectrum for me. But she made me want to try.

"Okay," I nodded.

"Good." She smiled at me again, and fucking hell I'd do anything for her if it got her to smile at me like that.

In a desperate attempt to fill the silence, the words just came tumbling out of me. "You wanna watch a movie?"

She pulled her knees into her chest and gave me another playful smile. "Depends. What do you have?"

Knees shaking, I walked over to my dresser where my little TV was perched up on and pulled the top drawer open, where all my DVDs were stacked. "I got everything."

"Who still has DVDs?" she laughed. "You're in the wrong decade."

"I know," I shrugged. "But these are all movies I like, and my Xbox can play them, so why mess with a system I know works? I guess I'm a little old school."

"Can't argue with that logic."

I ran my finger over the boxes until I found what I was looking for. "I'm kind of just in a hack and slash mood. You like horror movies?"

She nodded. "I hope since you're so old school we're talking real horror movies, not any of that new crap they're making now."

"Only the classics, I swear." I put my hand to my chest, and even though my head was spinning from standing too long, I sucked it up. "I got Friday the 13th, The Shining, Nightmare on Elm Street-"

"Oh my god I haven't seen Nightmare on Elm Street in forever. That's the one, for sure."

I loaded the DVD into my Xbox, then walked back to join her on the bed, slowly lowering myself next to her and doing everything I could not to touch her. If I did, I'd probably spontaneously combust.

"I never understand why people run so slow in these movies." She waved her hand at the TV. "If it was me, I'd be hauling ass."

I chuckled. "Then I guess you'd be the one that lives in the end, huh?"

She threw a smirk my way. "Don't be a smartass."

She was engrossed in the movie, but I watched her like she was the real cinematic masterpiece. The way she'd scrunch her nose up or bite her lip when the movie got intense, and the way the changing lights from the movie would flicker in her eyes, I just couldn't pull myself away. Finally she turned to look at me, but I was too in deep now. I was drowning in her.

"What?" she asked with a quick chuckle.

I shook my head, feeling my face flush. "Nothing. It's nothing."

"Are you sure you're okay?" she asked, brushing her fingers ever so slightly over mine, sending a shock through my nerves.

"Never better," I answered.

It was slow at first. Our hands touched, then our shoulders, then the tips of our noses, and I could taste the minty gum on her breath. I hesitated, but she didn't, and the feeling of her lips brushing against mine made fireworks go off in my chest. It wasn't like I hadn't kissed other girls, but I had never wanted to kiss anyone the way I wanted to kiss AJ.

The next thing I knew her fingers were tangled in my hair and my hands grazed the sliver of exposed skin between her shorts and her t-shirt. I rolled over onto my back and pulled her on top of me, and the way her thighs straddled my hips made me so delirious I forgot my own name.

That was at least until she pulled away, whispering it against my lips.

"Kai..."

"Yeah?" I could barely breathe. I had the sun in my hands.

"Kai? Kai!"

She shook my shoulder, and it took a few moments and a few heavy breaths for me to realize I was back in my spot on the bed, Nightmare on Elm Street still playing in the background, and AJ sitting beside me, that fleeting look of concern flashing across her eyes.

"Are you okay? You totally zonked out there for a minute."

Sweat trickled down the back of my neck, and I still couldn't catch my breath. I groaned and shook my head. "I'm alright. I guess I'm just still withdrawing. I'm really okay though."

AJ shimmied herself off the bed and gently guided my shoulder down into the pillow. "I'm gonna go, okay? You should rest."

"Don't," I mumbled, too bent out of shape to care how desperate I sounded.

But she still smiled at me. "I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"

The room went dark, and the movie still played in the background. They say dope sick dreams are the worst, but I couldn't believe I had to come back to reality after that one.