During

I collapse onto the rough, carpeted floor, salty tears staining my pale face, my mind in a whirl of scattered images and confused thoughts. I can’t comprehend what just happened. The world around me is surreal, the past hours a blur of color. This can’t be happening. I felt the hole I’d been trying so hard to fill engulf me.

My old life is over.

Snapshots from my past flash before my eyes, like I’m dying, but in a random chaotic fashion. I am overwhelmed with bittersweet memories and feelings, both good and bad.

Out of the corner of my obstructed vision I see a figure kneel down beside me. He puts a hand on my shoulder and takes an exaggerated breath in through his nose and slowly releases it out through his mouth, as if to show me, in a lightly humorous way, how to calm down and get myself together. The stranger tells me his name is Cade. He says rehab isn’t so bad, and to take it a day at a time, and eventually it’ll get better. He says I’m full of poison, and as it leaves my body things will become clearer to me.

It’s his last day at The Camp Recovery Center and it is my first day. And although he’s trying to comfort me, every word that comes out of his mouth strikes me in the stomach like an ax, and with each blow the wound grows. I feel a black pit expand inside me, and as I catch my breath, it overwhelms me.

My heart is in my stomach.

I become hyper-aware to my surroundings. Every little movement and sound I follow with my eyes and ears, analyzing the structure and pathway down to the very particle.

I feel like I am in a dream.

This doesn’t feel real. I want my past back, I ache for the presence of those close to me, and for the warm breeze, and the little, dented, dirt-covered Hyundai that had been such a big part of my life. But it’s all just memories now. My world feels so unstable as if my very being and all the atoms that make me up could fall apart at any moment.

He hands me something. I open my hand and watch in slow motion as a little turquoise stone drops into my palm. “It’s called Sleeping Beauty,” he says. “The old Native American man, who you might have seen around here earlier, gave it to me on my first day.” His words flow and spiral before me. Cade says, “I had a lot of trouble sleeping my first few nights here. This is supposed to help you sleep and ward off nightmares. I know you’ll be okay, no worries, this isn’t forever.”

I don’t believe it for a second. It keeps hitting me that I am here, and that what I am leaving behind has promised not to be there when I get back.

More than anything I want to sleep.

Cade pats me gently on the back and rises to his feet, and walks off, out the door. And I’m still here, sitting on the floor, my possessions scattered around me, hugging my bony knees in against my chest.

This can’t be real.