Clarity - Nicole Dykes

PROLOGUE

7 years ago

“It was a dream,” I gasp into the night air. “It was a dream.”

I try to catch my breath.

It. Was. A. Dream.

I can’t breathe. I can’t fucking breathe.

I sink down to the sidewalk, the cement digging into my knees, clawing at my collar as I try to catch my breath.

I want it to be a dream, but the sickening feeling inside tells me it wasn’t just a nightmare.

It was my life. My reality. My bleak existence.

I look back at the rundown apartment building I've been staying in, stealing shit and hustling with my friend Sean to get rent money even though we’re both still in high school.

I had to get out of there. I’m not even safe in my own bed, no matter where the bed is located.

And now, I can’t fucking breathe.

I need a fix. I need to go numb and not remember. Because when I remember, I can’t breathe. I can’t function.

I reach into the pocket of my sweats, pulling out the cellphone I lifted from some yuppie who didn’t need it.

I should call Sean or Quinn.

Fuck. Quinn. She hates when I use. Maybe I could get lost in her, but the high doesn’t last nearly as long as the drugs.

No. I can’t call her. I’ve hurt her enough. She’s my best friend and my occasional girlfriend. We all grew up together. Sean, Quinn, me . . . and Logan, but that fucker left us behind for a better life.

A better man would be happy for him, but I’m not. I hate him. I despise him for becoming what we all hate. The rich and privileged. Above the law. They can buy their way out of anything. They can have anything they want. And now my best friend since long before we reached puberty is living with them.

I call my dealer, giving him my location and hang up. I sit on the cement, feeling the hardness and the cold. I’m only wearing a thin t-shirt in November, but I don’t care about the cold. I grew up in the cold. I was raised in black numbness.

I don’t want to think about waking up in my bed covered in sweat only moments ago. I don’t want to think about how badly my body needs a hit. I can’t think about a better time because there wasn’t one.

I just want it all to stop.

I wake up and stretch my arms which are tired from hours of lifting and punching the bag at the gym last night after my shift at the tattoo studio.

It’s a good tired, one I like.

I push the covers off and stand up, looking around my studio apartment located above the tattoo shop where I work. I’m grateful for this place, but I need my boss, Chris, to start accepting rent from me. I’ve been working for him for well over a year, and that’s when he said he would start taking my rent check.

And although when he took me in, I was fresh out of rehab and broke as fuck, I've saved a decent amount now. But the guy loves to baby me, which pisses me off because I know he doesn’t treat anyone else like that.

Technically, Chris Adamson is one of the privileged. He grew up in a wealthy family. But he made his own way, started a little tattoo shop that grew. And the man has talent. I’m lucky to have learned from the best.

I see my phone—one I bought and pay for with my paycheck—and swipe to see a text from Sean.

Your ass better be at the fuckin’ party.

I grunt after I read it. Text back a quick “K” that I know will piss him off and toss it to the bed. Of course I'm going to be there.

My best friend. The man who never left my side since we were little kids is moving all the way to New York City tomorrow. Fucking traitor.

But he’s a photographer, a true artist who has the opportunity to be great. And I will not hold him back.

I take a quick shower, get dressed, and go down the shop just as Chris is unlocking it. He smiles when he sees me. “Always the first one here.”

I shrug my bulky shoulders. “I live upstairs.”

He starts his normal routine of getting the shop ready for customers, and I go to my station. I just want to be left alone. That’s what I always want and what I try my best to portray to all my co-workers, but