👶🏽 First,

Hinga was accustomed to new beginnings, but this one was the most frictional. If only understanding that relapsing didn’t erase his 11-year progress made him feel any less sucky.

In any case, he learned to assuage his culpability by setting the goal of being sober one day at a time. He didn’t know if he’d stay clean the next time life threw him a major curveball or if he could even make another 11 years. All he could handle was today.

He began his revamped to-do list by combining meetings with therapy, a step he’d disregarded during his first go-around. Significantly, seeing someone opened him up to naming the man he shot. Herbert. Herbert Katam. Hinga wasn’t going to let his mum’s abuser continue imprisoning him from the grave.

Geink Echon released its chokehold on the world, and Hinga and Stevie could return home. They’d spent a year and a half in Scotland and had a fair bit to pack. As he disassembled the couch, Hinga spotted the two little white tablets that had escaped him all that while ago. He smiled knowingly at them — a sight that would’ve puzzled the most open-minded onlooker — and then strolled to the downstairs bathroom.

“Guess we won’t be needing these anymore.”

Tiny twin splashes preceded the cathartic flush.