Three days clean.
That morning, he actually smiled when he looked in the mirror.
Not because he looked good.
Because he looked… honest.
There was still darkness under his eyes, sure. But they were open. Awake. His own.
He had done the pushups — six this time. He had sat for his two minutes of stillness, palms on his thighs, breath steady. It had hurt. But in a good way. In a new way.
He had started to believe — maybe this time, he could actually win.
---
The day felt like it was rooting for him.
Physics made sense. His pen flowed. Even his thoughts felt sharper, less foggy. There was space in his mind now — like something that had been choking him had loosened.
He even wrote something in his notebook he never thought he'd write:
> "Proud of myself."
Just those three words. But they stayed in his head like a song.
He didn't want to waste the day.
Didn't even want to open YouTube.
Didn't even want to…
…
But he did.
---
He told himself it was "just a break."
Ten minutes. Maybe a short TED talk.
Then it happened — that familiar, numb curiosity.
He didn't even type anything. Just scrolled.
And there it was.
A thumbnail. A curve. A shadow. The bait.
He paused. The air felt thinner.
"Not again."
He clicked it anyway.
One link led to another. One thought led to surrender.
---
It was over in minutes.
Fast. Frantic. Mechanical.
The moment it ended — everything collapsed.
He stared at his hand like it wasn't his.
His heart wasn't racing. It was sinking.
> "Why?"
The question kept echoing inside his skull like someone had shouted in an empty room.
He sat on the floor, pants still tangled at his knees, eyes glazed.
No moaning.
No porn music.
Just a dead, flat silence.
That silence broke him more than the act ever did.
---
> "I had three good days."
"Three."
"I was winning."
"I felt good — clean — I was walking toward something. So why… did I just burn it down?"
His throat tightened. His chest wasn't heavy — it was hollow.
He didn't cry.
He just sat there — the kind of stillness that comes after crying, when even the grief is too tired to scream.
There was a moment — just one — when he wanted to punch the wall. Break something. Bleed.
But he didn't.
He just looked at the notebook on the desk. The one that said "Proud of myself."
It looked like a joke now.
---
He opened it anyway.
He turned to a blank page, gripped the pen too hard, and wrote without thinking:
> "I hate that I did this.
I hate that I wanted to.
I felt strong this morning. I felt free. And now I feel like a sick animal again.
I knew this was wrong. I saw the trap. I walked into it anyway.
What's broken in me?"
He stopped.
His fingers trembled. His face stayed stone.
He sat there for five minutes, just staring at the words.
Then, slowly, he wrote again:
> "I don't want to keep living like this.
But I don't know who I am without it."
"What if the man I'm becoming… scares me?"
"What if I don't think I deserve him?"
That sentence sat on the page like a wound.
---
He didn't make a vow.
Didn't delete all the apps.
Didn't beat his chest.
He just whispered, quietly:
> "This isn't the end of me."
And for the first time in a long t
ime, he believed it.
Barely.
But it was there.
Hope, under all that guilt.
Not confidence — but the stubborn will to try again.
And that mattered.
---
To be continued in
Chapter 27: What the Hell is Going On?