Nothing. An utter non-reaction, because he was hung up on hearing the words
recovering drug addict come out of her mouth, because he hated them, because they were true.
(No one really understood: there were functional addicts and then there were people like him. The only ones who'd ever understood he'd left, crawled away from. He'd severed Alex like a gangrenous limb in a last-ditch effort to save his own life, Alex, his last good friend with those stupid ******** sad eyes and his slow halting sleepy words even when he was off it, and that had been the last time he'd ever felt like anyone really understood. Taym had been full of cold explanations and what Alex finally said was
I'm not pissed at you man I'm just scared for you, and it was less than a year later that Alex must have found out that he'd put a gun in his mouth, the confirmation of all his horrible suspicions and the validation of all his shitty decisions.)
There were two ways to look at a label like
recovering drug addict and one was vile and the other was pathetic: he was stupid or he was sick. One robbed him of excuses and the other of power and both of them robbed him of dignity and he'd never be able to get out from under it. America had wept shaky to be told he was proud of her because she'd felt like it was misplaced pride but he would not, for once in his ******** life, cry.
"I'm going to take a shower," he said finally, getting up.
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