Craig listened as the woman explained how things worked here, tried to nod in all the right places, but her words were losing meaning in certain places. He felt edgy and nervous and almost angry, like a pre-anger that just simmered below his consciousness. What it boiled down to was he had to do what they wanted when they wanted him to do it.

'You want to just keep doing cocaine?' his own voice asked in his head. And no, he supposed he didn't. He couldn't just keep doing it, spending all that money on it and always worrying about having it and burning out his sinuses and having a heart attack. He couldn't do that.

He'd had more freedom than he had ever had in Vancouver, writing his music and playing the shows. When he had lived with Albert, God he couldn't do anything. He'd been so young and Albert was so controlling. It was better with Joey but there were still all these rules, and high school, every second of the day governed by those stupid bells. He had been so tired of the 'go here and do this now' life and when he was free of it at last what did he do? Fuck it up.

"I'll show you your room," the woman said, and he followed her down a hall to a dorm type room, more dorm like than hospital like. He'd sort of kept picturing this place like the hospital, even imagined the same room he'd had. It was nothing like that.

"Well, I'll let you settle in," she said, and left, shutting the door softly behind her.

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Joey was ready to go, all the administrator's questions answered, every loose end neatly tied in a bow. The day was still heartbreakingly blue.

"Can I see him before I go?" Joey said, shrugging into his lightweight jacket. The woman shook her head.

"No, I'm sorry. He'll call in a few days when he can but right now he can't see anyone,"

Joey blinked, surprised by how hurt he felt, but he supposed if that's the way they did things…

"Alright then," he said, and walked slowly out.

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He wanted to do cocaine. Coke. One nice line. Jesus, what was wrong with him? Craig punched his leg in frustration, wincing as the muscle knotted under his fist. He thought of Ellie cutting herself, slashing at her white skin with razor blades and protractor points and scissors. He's always thought that behavior was strange and creepy and he really didn't understand it. Why would you want to hurt yourself? He'd been hurt enough, all those beatings, that he couldn't imagine cutting himself. The hurtful things he did, like the drugs, had a pleasurable positive side. Where was the pleasure in slashing at your own body with sharp objects? Endorphins, maybe. The body's response to physical pain, the releasing of natural pain killers, maybe. And he knew about that from when his father had hurt him, how he'd felt afterward, almost high through the glaze of pain. But that was nothing to seek out, that wasn't a feeling he would attempt to create. Ellie, boy. He shook his head.

He laid on the bed, there was nothing to do right now. There wasn't much to do here. Meals. Therapy. Groups. The physical detoxing from cocaine wasn't that bad, he didn't even get any nice pharmacuticals to ease the fall.

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Driving again, his hands steady on the wheel. Joey thought about what Caitlin had said. Rehab might not be a permanent solution, probably wouldn't be.

'Life was not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced,' Some random quote from a half remembered philosophy class in college or something printed on the back of a beer bottle, who knew, and it didn't help him anyway. Life was a series of problems to be solved, or at least dealt with. Caitlin being in L.A. even though he was still in love with her and may always be, Craig and his drug use, Angie and whatever problems she'd throw at him.

He drove on, the road unwinding before him, and for just a moment he tried to put it all out of his head, some Zen exercise in relaxation. Just put it all out of his head and focus only on what was in front of him, the blue/gray road, the trees blending into a single green line, the song on the radio. R.E.M., he was quite sure. Losing my religion.