First Word

14             Sandra walked off the elevator in a confident stride. Just then Darian came around the other corner away from Merry’s office. She was chewing her fingernails and looked very edgy. She saw Sandra and stopped and waited for her in front of her office.             “Hey, you know, I need some gum. Can I have some gum? Do you have any?” she frenetically shot off these questions.             Sandra stared at her. Her hair had thinned and fallen out so it was scraggily looking. The sores on her face had at least healed and scabbed over since her arrival. But judging by her hyper mood and her shifting eyes, Sandra wondered if she was high. She unlocked her office door and allowed Darian to walk in first. She went to her desk and pulled out a plastic-cup-shaped Orbit mint-gum container. She ...

11             Craig walked into the conference room on the top floor of the rehab center. He had just taken a break and smoked a vape on the outside patio, which was strongly discouraged by the Center. He was stressed and preoccupied today. His wife Sarah had just suffered her fourth miscarriage in one year. When he left for work earlier that day she was sitting on the sofa wrapped in a soft purple blanket and blankly staring at the TV that wasn’t turned on.             Craig was a substance abuse counselor not a bereavement expert. He knew from the literature she was grieving the same way a woman would who lost a live baby. Four deaths though was a lot for his lovely wife to handle – for any woman to handle. When he looked at her she seemed so frail and lost. Her soft blue eyes darkened, her elegant long hands resting in her lap, her light-brown hair ...

7             Darian Masterson was a troubled teenager with a long history of shoplifting. She started doing it when she was 13 and wanted to wear makeup to school. Since her mother was an Evangelical Christian she wasn’t about to let her young daughter smear makeup on her otherwise gorgeous and naturally beautiful face. So Darian got very good at swiping eye shadow, mascara, cover-up, and a sundry of chic lipsticks at the local pharmacy. Having grown up in the neighborhood and become friendly with the counter ladies, nobody suspected the gorgeous blond girl with the incredible developing figure of doing anything wrong. Darian though was also hiding a dark secret – she had begun to turn tricks with her older brother Robby’s friends. Robby was 20 and his friends horny. Being a resourceful entrepreneur and seizing the idea he could pimp his younger and innocent-looking sister out for some pretty good dough, R...