Vicious Cycle Read Free Page B

she’s learning how to live sober.”
    “I don’t have any money,” she said. “My mom … no way she’d ever spend a cent on that.”
    “You don’t need money. Churches and Christian people support the place. It’s a good place. She likes it.”
    “I don’t know. I couldn’t handle all that Christian stuff.”
    He saw pain in her eyes and a desperate need to break free of her chains. Maybe she really didn’t want to be like this. “Just take a step, Jordan. Do it for your baby.”
    She touched her stomach, and for a moment, he thought she might listen.
    She didn’t. Not then.
    But a couple of months later, as her pregnancy began to show and the desperation in her eyes grew more intense, she came to him after algebra. Leaning over his desk, she said, “Can you help me get into that place?”
    He looked up at her. “What place?”
    “That place where your sister is.”
    Lance caught his breath and got up. “Sure. They know me. I can get you in.” He hoped it was true, that they wouldn’t make her wait for a bed the way Emily had had to wait. If they did, she might change her mind. “We could go by there and you could talk to them. I could get my mom to take us today. She’s picking me up after school.”
    That afternoon, he and his mother took Jordan for a tour of New Day. When they told her she could check in without paying a dime, she worked up the courage and agreed. Her mother, who needed treatment herself, had reluctantly signed the papers, probably glad to dump her on someone else.
    Up until now, Lance had considered this one of his great personal accomplishments. He saw Jordan every Saturday when he came to visit Emily, and he’d watched her progress with pride.
    Now she was gone, without a word of warning, without giving him a chance to talk her out of it.
    He stepped to the edge of the water, picked up a rock, and threw it to the center of the pond. It dropped with a plunk, ripples spreading. He thought about Jordan’s few visits from her abusive mother and brother, visits that always left her in tears. Why would she go back to that?
    Emily put her hand on his back. “You okay?”
    “Why did she leave?”
    “I don’t know,” she said. “She didn’t talk to any of us about it. But I don’t think her mom really wanted her to get well.”
    “I know why she left,” someone behind him said.
    Lance turned to see Amanda, one of Emily’s roommates. “Why?”
    “She was fiending for dope, that’s why.”
    He hoped not. She’d begun to care about the baby she was carrying, but using meth while she was pregnant could seriously hurt it. “Do you think she went home?”
    “Probably,” Emily said. “But it’s terrible there. And she’s due any day.”
    Lance had felt the baby kick and had been amazed by the ultrasound picture Jordan carried in her purse. What if she had gone back to drugs?
    “Maybe I could try to call her,” he said. “See if I could talk some sense into her.”
    Emily swept her blonde hair behind her ears and studied him for a minute. “It’s worth a try. Tell her we miss her.”
    “Don’t worry,” he said. “If I find her, I’ll talk her into coming back. I got her here the first time. She listens to me.”

Chapter 4
    B arbara hated working on Saturdays, but that was the day furniture stores made most of their money. She should be grateful just to have a job.
    Last year, she’d had her own interior design business, with an assistant and a construction crew. She’d been among the designers considered to renovate the governor’s mansion. But a crisis with Emily had forced her to prioritize, and she’d wound up losing the opportunity. As a result, she had to lay off her staff and give up her studio. She’d taken this job to keep her head above water while she did design work on the side. Though she still got an occasional client, she hadn’t yet built back her business enough to warrant quitting this job.
    She walked among the dining room tables,