The hallway was beige and too quiet. At the end of the hall, he stopped in front of a door. White paint chipped at the corners.

  “This is you,” he waited, just a beat. “Listen, Frankie. You don’t owe me anything,” he paused again. “But if you decide to stay, you might discover you owe yourself something.”

  I didn’t answer and he left.

  The door opened on monastic chic, twin beds with faded quilts, one desk with a succulent on it. Minimalist, but not in the way Gwyneth sells it I did a slow circle, cataloguing the tragedy of it all. Watching the light hit the wall. Listening for the sound of someone else’s story bleeding through the drywall, and waiting for whoever was about to be my roommate. I would need a good roommate for my comeback. No matter what they tell you, rock bottom is never a solo act.

  I slipped into the bathroom. Always check your make-up before you perform. That’s day-one actor shit. The fluorescents overhead made me look like a ghost with good bone structure. I smudged my eyeliner just a little more, enough to pass as damage, not dysfunction. The goal was soulful but photogenic. Sad, but like, sellable.

  I tilted my face.

  Lowered my chin.

  Practiced the exhale. Not the sigh. The exhale.

  That’s where the money is.

  “I’ve changed,” I whispered.

  It was a line from Sunset Falls season eight, right after Brielle came out of the coma and discovered her twin sister had married her fiancé and inherited her cat. A terrible line. But I’d delivered it beautifully. I remembered the studio lights, the silence before the cue, the way I lifted my chin just enough to catch the shadow of betrayal on my cheekbone.

  Now?

  I said it again.

  “I’ve changed.”

  No camera. No cue.

  The bathroom mirror was lit from the sides. It caught everything, the mascara, the unevenness in my skin I used to pay people to blur, the way my eyes looked when no one else was in the room. Just my own eyes in the mirror, refusing to blink.

  I practiced another expression. It was the one I’d used on Sunset Falls, Season 11, Episode 83: Brielle discovers the affair but chooses silence.

  It was weary. But wise. Like I’d been through hell and come back with better cheekbones. I tried it once. Didn’t like the angle. Tried it again. Tilted my chin a few degrees left.

  There.

  Better.

  I brushed my teeth. Watched myself do it. I held the gaze like it might blink first. My mouth foamed.

  I spit. Rinsed. Patted my face dry with a towel that smelled like lavender and bleach. Then I looked myself in the eye and said it again, silently, just with the shape of my mouth. “I’ve changed.”

  Frankie Travers doesn’t cry. She rebrands.

  The cigarette burned steady in my fingers. I had to wedge my thumbnail under the latch and shove until it gave. My hand found the motion before my brain found the reason.

  "Is that a Virginia Slim?" The voice was gravel over gasoline. "Jesus. You relapse like it’s 1994."

  She wore combat boots, unlaced, a Sonic Youth shirt clinging to her like, and a nest of red-brown static hair. She stood in the doorway like she lived there and I didn’t.

  “If you’re gonna smoke,” she added, hauling herself onto her bed, “at least do it behind the dryer in the laundry room. Camera’s busted. Plus, it smells like bleach—masks everything. You’re welcome."

  She flopped back onto the quilt and closed her eyes.

  “And you better not let Marla catch you,” she added without looking. “She says smoking ‘compromise the vibrational integrity.’ Which is ironic, considering hers has a body count.”

  Her voice had the texture of a floor after a bar fight.

  I turned, halfway through my inhale, and offered the kind of smile that used to get me out of parking tickets. “I’m—”

  “Frankie Travers. Yeah. I remember you.” She didn’t say it like a fan. She said it like a surgeon identifying the tumor. She rolled onto one elbow. “My mom used to hate watch Sunset Falls while doing vodka squats.”

  I blinked.

  “She said you cried pretty but your slap acting was bullshit.”

  I smiled the way I used to smile at red carpet interviewers who mispronounced my name.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Well,” I said lightly, “your mom had taste. And possibly unresolved anger issues.”

  She shrugged.

  “Don’t we all.” She closed her eyes again. “Just don’t talk to me in the bathroom. And don’t go near the top drawer.”

  “Got it,” I said. “No small talk in the john, and the top drawer is sacred.”

  “And try not to talk in your sleep,” she said, eyes still closed.

  “I don’t like being reminded that people dream.”

  We sat in silence. The kind of silence that two animals share when they’re not sure yet if they’re going to fight or sleep near each other.

  Then without turning, “Why’d you come?”

  “Research,” I said. “Closure. Material. Probably shame.”

  She nodded.

  “Everyone’s either here to be forgiven or to be seen. You don’t seem like the forgiveness type.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “Lights out’s at ten,” she said. “They say it’s for routine, but it’s really just to keep us from getting ideas after dark.”

  “Ideas?”

  “Screwing, screaming, stealing, slicing, smoking. Pick your trauma response.”

  I sat on the matress. It was firm. Too firm, like they thought softness could be a gateway drug. I kicked my boots off with less grace than I intended, and they thudded against the wall.

  Trix didn’t flinch.

  Outside, the sun was bleeding out—just that long, pink fade over the hills that made you nostalgic for things you hadn’t known. Somewhere, someone was ringing a chime. Gentle, insistent, the kind of sound meant to suggest serenity but mostly just reminded me of spa commercials and guilt.

  Then Trix said, quieter:

  “Don’t give them what they want too fast.”

  I looked over.

  She still wasn’t looking at me.

  Just the ceiling. Or something beyond it.

  “And what do they want?” I asked.

  She considered it.

  “I don’t know.” She smiled without turning her head. “I think, a story they can sell back to you with better lighting.”

  I wrote that line down in my head and filed it away under Chapter Seven: The Cult of Curated Collapse.

  Trix fell asleep. One minute staring at the ceiling, the next curled into a ball with her shirt half off one shoulder.. Across from me, a corkboard was pinned with affirmations.

  You Are Here. You Are Whole. You Are Becoming.

  I’d been here less than four hours and already hated all three of those things.

  Rock Bottom Is a Myth Invented by Sober People

  (Excerpt, Draft One)

  You don’t remember the first lie.

  You remember the applause that followed.

  You don’t remember the last pill.

  You remember what it helped you forget.

  You don’t remember hitting bottom because you never stopped falling.

  You just got better at describing the descent.

  You don’t believe in surrender.

  You believe in spin.

  You don’t get clean.

  You get quiet.

  And then you hate the silence.

  I read the last sentence.

  “You don’t get clean. You get quiet. And then you hate the silence.”

  It looked real enough to sell. That was the only requirement.

  Trix was snoring through her teeth, curled fetal with one hand curled around a lighter she hadn’t used since lights-out. The air smelled like off-brand fabric softener and nicotine denial. I sat cross-legged on the scratchy bedspread, typing on the burner phone I’d nested inside my devotional like a degenerate nun.

  The memoir was supposed to start at the bottom. Rock bottom. Chapter One: Collapse With Good Lighting. But the real bottom was slippery, and I’d learned early that structure was more important than truth. Truth was a mood. Structure sold books.

  The working title: Still Pretty: The Story of My Survival (Even If You Didn’t Ask for It).

  I’d written twenty versions of the prologue. All of them started with a version of “I never thought I’d be here.”

  Bullshit. I absolutely thought I’d be here. I’d packed for it. I’d scheduled the breakdown around my cycle and two podcast tapings.

  The second version started with the arrest. The third started with Cass. The fourth with a bathroom floor and a dry heave and a man I only remembered because he left his watch on the soap dish.

  But this one? This one was the one I’d write for real. Or real enough to fool the editors.

  I shifted, cracked my neck..

  Dear reader, I write, then erased it. Too condescending. Too blog.

  I tried again.

  Maybe you’re reading this because you saw the video. Maybe you’re wondering if I’m really like that. The answer is yes. And no. And sometimes only when it hurts enough to make good content.

  From the other bed, Trix stirred. She mumbled something about goats and betrayal, then settled. I slid the phone under my pillow. The succulent on the desk had curled toward the window like it didn’t trust the dark.

  I didn’t sleep.

  Instead, I rehearsed my entrance for group.

  Three seconds late.

  Eyes red, but not wet.

  Posture apologetic with a hint of bravado.

  I’d tell the truth. Just not all of it.

  I’d tell it beautifully.

  That would be enough.

  It always had been.

  I woke up with the kind of dry mouth usually reserved for hangovers or Vicodin. Light knifed through the blinds like it had a personal vendetta. The quilt had migrated to the floor sometime in the night, and my pillow smelled faintly like lavender dryer sheets. Across the room, Trix was sitting upright, legs folded pretzel-style, flicking a lighter on and off like it owed her money.

  “Morning, sunshine,” she said without looking.

  “Was it?” I croaked.

  She stopped clicking the lighter long enough to point at the bulletin board by the door. Someone had pinned a laminated schedule to it, probably with the same sterile optimism they use to decorate pediatric oncology wards.

  Sunshadow Wellness Daily Rhythm

  Mindful Movement – 7:30 AM

  Breakfast – 8:00 AM (Organic, Plant-Based, Seasonal)

  Group Session – 9:30 AM

  Individual Therapy – Slotted

  Healing Through Creativity – 11:00 AM

  Lunch – 12:30 PM

  Gratitude Circle – 2:00 PM

  DBT Skills or Guided Journaling – 4:00 PM

  Dinner – 6:00 PM

  Evening Reflection – 8:00 PM

  It looked less like a treatment plan and more like the itinerary of a cult that hadn’t quite decided if it was wellness or multi-level marketing.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Late enough to miss the quinoa muffins but early enough for group,” Trix said. She was braiding her hair with what looked like dental floss. “They’ll come looking if you don’t show.”

  I sat up slowly. My body felt like it had been rented out to someone heavier and angrier overnight. “You don’t go to group?”

  “No. They gave me a pass.”

  I blinked. “For therapeutic reasons?”

  “Nope. I’m allergic to public vulnerability.” She yawned, sharp and casual. “Also, I broke someone’s nose last week.”

  She stood and shoved her feet into the same unlaced combat boots from last night. One of them squeaked.

  “Group’s in the solarium. Plants, sunlight, forced intimacy. You'll hate it.” She opened the door and paused, hand on the frame.