Chapter 3

When will you realize for you this is now normal?

Fear, anxiety, they ran his life now. He did what he could without leaving the sanctuary of his apartment, all too aware of the cruelty one person could deal upon another. There were days when he fought with himself, wanting to reclaim the man he used to be, to live his life again. To participate in the world instead of watching it through his window. But his own insecurities took hold and most often sent him right back behind closed and dead bolted doors.

Yet, away to the group meetings you go every week. Why? How? What makes that one day different from all the others? It can’t be the people. You don’t even know their names. He knew their stories. From the man whose wife was taken from him because some college guy decided he was sober enough to drive, to the lady who found her son had taken his own life, his answer to the bullies in his life.

Leo gripped a fistful of blanket.

And there you go, a way out.