PROLOGUE
Three months, seven days, six hours, and twenty-two minutes.That's how long it had been.
"One day at a time. Every day counts, every hour, every minute, every second," Bleu whispered as she sat in her car, surrounded by the darkness of night while gripping the steering wheel for dear life. There was urgency in her tone . . . panic . . . fear, because although she was completely alone, she was afraid of herself. Her heart pounded furiously. With the power of thoroughbred horses it beat, causing her shirt to rise and fall with her distressed breaths. She could feel herself weakening as the tears slid down her face. Mascara marred her flushed cheeks. Snot rested on her trembling lip. She needed help. Three months, seven days, six hours, and twenty-three minutes. It was how long she had been clean. She distinctly remembered the last hit she had taken like it was yesterday, and the thought of the euphoric rush it gave her caused her to become aroused. Her nipples hardened and she clenched her thighs because the possibility of feeling that type of high once more was seducing her.
Her knuckles turned white as she held on to the steering wheel with a death grip. She wished that she could glue her hands to it, to stop herself from doing the inevitable. "Please, God, please," she whispered, but she knew there was no use in praying. She had prayed for everything her en-tire life only to end up empty-handed and disappointed. The devil had ahold of her. It was like her soul had been compromised from the moment she had taken her first breath. That was the only explanation for her hard-lived existence. Nothing came easy, and anything good that came to her was quickly taken away. One blast. That was all it would take to end her misery.
She had not thought about getting high in three long months. In fact, a huge celebratory trip had been planned to commemorate the accomplishment. She had done it. She had kicked the vicious drug habit that had taken ahold of her. She had lasted three months, seven days, six hours, and twenty-four minutes, but now it was calling her.
She reached into her bag and pulled out the package. It was eerie how the rock cocaine seemed to sparkle in the Baggie. She poured the small rocks out into her palm and marveled briefly. She licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dry as her body craved the drug. She could feel the hair rising on the back of her neck. It was like a thousand bugs were crawling up her legs, starting at her toes and making their way up her thighs to her spine. She itched, she wanted the hit so bad. With her emotions on 10, she was susceptible to sabotage. Overwhelmed by desire, she turned her purse upside down, causing all of the contents to spill over her front seat. Grabbing the water bottle from her cupholder and a ballpoint pen out of the mess, she was on a hunt for paraphernalia. She rolled down her window and poured most of the water out. She was like a surgeon as she drilled a hole into the side of the bottle. She bit the end of the pen, causing the ink vial to come out, hollowing out the shell of the pen. She had done the routine so many times she had it down to a science. Most crackheads would just hit the rock straight out of the pen, but Bleu liked to think she was above that. That desperate toke would only lead to burnt lips and fingertips and she had her looks to uphold. In the thick of it she had glass pipes, but the poor man's version would work just as well . . . she was chasing the high and it didn't matter at this point how she caught it.
Her eyes searched through the mess on her passenger seat until she found a condom and a cigarette. When she had picked up the habit she told herself that nicotine was the lesser evil compared to what she could have been smoking, but in her heart of hearts she knew that a true addict always kept cigarettes handy. The ash residue from cigarettes was necessary to make a functioning crack pipe. She held the cigarette between both lips while her hands opened the condom. She threw the sticky rubber out of her window and then used the foil wrapper to top off the water bottle. She emptied the ashes onto the top of the foil and then inhaled sharply as she placed a nice-size rock on top of it all. Her eyes were as big as golf balls as she applied the flame. Her long red stiletto nails far fancier than those of any crackhead anyone had ever seen. The rings on her fingers were far too expensive to be on the hand that was hugging the makeshift pipe. This wasn't supposed to be her life; Bleu was supposed to be so much more, but as the tears slid down her face and the smoke accumulated inside the bottle, she couldn't help but think of how this tragedy had begun . . . it all started with just a little Adderall and speed. Who would have thought it would have ever gotten this bad? Three months, seven days, six hours, and twenty-five minutes were all wasted as she wrapped her lips around the hollow pen. . . .
