26. Life in Free Fall

After a four-day NyQuil bender, finding a kind of calm.

I spent the next four days lost to a NyQuil bender and arrived at my appointment with Atlas the following Tuesday, unshowered and in my pajamas. I stunk of fear and had smears of McDonald’s nuggets and powdered donut dust across my sweatshirt. Unaware of the week’s events, Atlas was on high alert as he welcomed me to his office with a hug.

It had only be…