I'm not sure what to do or where to go. For what feels like hours, I wander the hospital, allowing the twisting halls to consume me, hoping that I might stay lost forever. As I walk, I allow the deepest and darkest memories of my past to haunt me. They fill every inch of my body, weighing me down with their horror.

There is no point in holding back these memories anymore. The best thing I can do is allow them to flow freely so they can be a constant reminder of why I have to leave. While the scenes of my most brutal moments towards Nik play out in my mind I tell myself, you've always been bad for him - you will never be good for him.

It has been a long time since I have allowed myself to be fully consumed by these memories; I am surprised by how vivid they are. I can hear the malice in my voice as I tell Nik that I hate him and that I wish he would die. I cringe as the words "cut yourself deeper next time" echoes in my head. The images of his crushed face burn behind my eyes as if he is standing right in front of me. But in reality, Nik will never stand in front of me again. He can't. I can't allow it, not if I truly love him.

And there is no doubt in my mind that I do truly love him. Nik and I have grown into different people these past five years apart. I am no longer the girl who would beat him down with my words and my manipulation and he is not the guy who would stand there and take it. He is strong, stronger than I ever could have imagined. I love this Nik and I want him to continue being strong, but I am a weakness to him.

The thought of leaving causes my insides twist painfully, as if they are about to tear themselves from my body so they can remain here. I know it is not just Nik I will leave behind; It's Jennie, it's my new friends, and it's this beautiful city. I've always known I would leave this place, but as the days go on, the thought of leaving feels more and more wrong. While I hadn't said it out loud to anybody, I was thinking about staying for good. Now, I will leave early. It kills me but I know I have to.

Somehow, I find myself back in the hallway that leads to the waiting room I had left my friends in. Early dawn light is streaming in through the windows and I am not surprised to find Becca and Jennie, sprawled out across the waiting room chairs fast asleep. I'm sure I feel bad for leaving them here to wait for me, but I can't feel that over top of everything else.

I'm not sure where Hayden and Nik's parents are. Maybe they are with Nik now. It's probably best if I wake my friends so that we can leave this place. Leave these people to heal from the disaster that is Hurricane Haven. A bubble of laughter escapes my lips at the thought, Hurricane Haven. It is the perfect depiction of what I am.

The sound of my laughter stirs Jennie, with confused eyes she sits up, wincing as she massages her neck. Her eyes meet mine and it's as if she is looking at the most pathetic sight she has ever seen. "Where have you been?"

"Just trying to lose myself." I mumble through the laughter. "Did you know I'm a hurricane?" the laughter grows in my stomach, bursting from my mouth uncontrollably.

"Haven, you haven't slept. We should get you home." Jennie rubs my back soothingly but I pull away from her touch. What makes her think I deserve comfort right now?

"Your right, I need to go home."

I shake Becca's shoulder roughly; She jumps awake looking alarmed and then when her eyes focus in on me she looks relieved. Throwing her arms around me, she sighs and mumbles comforting words into my hair but I don't absorb them. I refuse.

"Come on, we're going." I state flatly. My friends stand, stretching and working out the kinks in their bodies from sleeping on the hard plastic chairs. I should have slept here so I could be in physical discomfort.

"You don't want to wait so you can see him?" Becca asks.

"No, I don't think that's a good idea."

Jennie and Becca exchange a look but they follow me down the hallway. With every step I take my chest tightens and my heart thumps against my rib cage. On the outside I wear a mask to hide the fact that I am waging an internal battle against my head and my heart. Leave or stay.

But I know deep down that Nik's mother is right. I love Nik more than I ever could have imagined, and that's exactly why I need to leave and never look back. So I give myself one moment just before we turn the corner. I stop and look down the hall, into the waiting room and stare at the double doors.

Somewhere beyond those doors Nik lies in a hospital bed. Awake or unconscious I don't know and I don't deserve to know. I tell myself if he comes through those doors before I count to five, then I should stay.

I begin the count inside my head, never blinking or averting my gaze from that door. With every second my heart races faster, my palms sweat and then the number five rings in my head and I expel a breath I didn't know I was holding.

"Haven?" I feel Becca's familiar touch on my shoulder and I know I have to do this now. I have to go.

I whisper a final goodbye before tearing my eyes from those double doors. As I round the corner into another sterile hallway, I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans and urge myself not to look back.

The morning air is cool on my skin as I step through the automatic doors. I breathe in and for the first time in hours I am not greeted by the smell of antiseptic. Instead, I smell the city. The sweet and pungent smell of greenery and soil, mixed with the salty tang of the ocean.

As I blindly follow Becca and Jennie to the parking lot, I can feel the tears burn in the back of my eyes. I set myself with the goal of at least making it into the car before letting the tears fall. We're just about there, and I can feel the liquid building up in my eyes, blurring my vision, but Jennie and Becca stop and when I look up we are face to face with Cal and Jessica.

"Did you get to see him?" Jessica asks me kindly.

I shake my head, afraid if I speak then I will fall apart again.

"What did Hayden tell you?" Cal asks, and he too speaks to me with such kindness it makes me want to slap him. I do not deserve kindness.

"He wouldn't say much," Becca volunteers, "just that Nik had a drug overdose and that it wasn't the first time."

Cal scoffs and runs his hands through his hair in frustration. "Of course, now he keeps his mouth shut."

"Nik's mom told me some stuff." I croak out in a dry voice.

All eyes turn to me but I don't offer anymore than that. The thought of having to say the word out loud, heroin, and seeing Becca and Jennies reaction to it is more than I can handle.

"You don't wanna listen to her," Cal steps towards me, to comfort me I am sure, and I step back. "Hey," he holds his hands up to show me he means no harm, "Nik and I, we went through this together. If you want to know what he really went through, and not from somebody as biased as his mom, then I can tell you whatever you want to know."

I feel my eyes widen at his words. Cal and Nik went through it together? Then that means that Cal was a heroin addict too? I rake my eyes over him and I just can't see it. Then again, I didn't see it with Nik either. But this explains Cal's explosive behaviour last night, no wonder he wanted Hayden to keep his mouth shut.

"I want to know." The words can't escape my mouth fast enough.

"Then come on, we should go for a drive." Cal moves towards me again, this time I don't step back and I allow him to put his arm over my shoulder and guide me to his car. Jessica comes to my other side, intertwines our fingers and offers me a warm smile. We are not close, not by any means, but I can now see something that we have in common. We are both in love with addicts, and if there is anyone I need to be around, it's her.

"Is Nik going to be upset with you?" I question Cal.

"No. I know he would prefer you to hear this from me over anyone else."

Cal, Jessica, and I drive through the early morning traffic heading downtown. I had encouraged Jennie and Becca to go home and get some rest. After sleeping on those hard plastic chairs in the waiting room, they deserved it. Plus, I need to hear what Cal has to say, not them.

I feel slightly awkward sitting in the front seat of Cal's SUV. Jessica volunteered to sit in the back and didn't really give me the option to decline. She sits in the middle seat with her hands clasped in her lap, her dark hair hanging in a straight sheet. Every time my eyes dart to the rear-view mirror, I see her reflection there, a small smile resting on her face.

"Have you been down East Hastings since you've been here Haven?" Cal questions me as he expertly navigates the Vancouver streets.

"No." I have to clear my throat to get the word to come out properly. Jessica reaches down by her feet and then resurfaces, a water bottle in hand. She offers it to me, and I take a slow, careful drink, soothing my dry throat. "The Hutchs told me about it, they said I shouldn't go down there if I can avoid it."

"They were right to tell you that." Cal replies grimly. "I spent four years living on Hastings, I've seen some crazy shit. Everyone down there is high or looking to get high. This is where I met Nik."

Cal turns right, I look up and see a road sign that reads "E Hastings" and when I look around me I feel as if they have transported me to another world. Cal slows the car, allowing me to take it all in.

The sidewalks are lined with tents, umbrellas, garbage, shopping carts overflowing with random items, tarps draped over fences to create shelters, and people. People everywhere. Awake looking dishevelled and dirty and sickly thin. Sleeping in doorways, on piles of dirty blankets, standing up or slouched against a brick wall.

My stomach rolls at the thought of Nik being here. The Nik that left me, that fourteen-year-old teenager, was not so destroyed that he would have sought refuge here. There's no way. So what happened after he left? What caused him to end up here?

"It's not pretty." Cal comments after seeing my wide eyes and mouth hanging open. "I won't bore you with the details of how I ended up here, but I was living on Hastings for about two years before I met Nik." I try to listen to his words, but I can't tear my eyes away from this woman.

Her dark hair is matted around her head and she looks so skinny I'm not sure how she is standing upright. She leans in the doorway of a boarded up shop, a piece of fabric tied around her arm and a needle in her hand. I turn in my seat to watch her as Cal continues driving. I just catch her plunge the needle into her arm before she is out of my sight.

How is this happening? How are there people shooting up on the street without a care in the world?

"He fell into the same crowd as me, we bought from the same guy. You probably remember meeting a guy named Joey, don't you?"

This snaps me to attention. "Yes." I breathe.

"Joey is a real piece of shit. He deals everything and is always pushing people to try new shit. It's his way of keeping in business. People get hooked on the hard shit and then they keep coming back." Cal shakes his head at the memories I am sure are rolling through his mind. "Nik didn't stand a chance."

My heart sinks and I feel so unbelievably stupid. No wonder Nik got so weird after we ran into him that night after dinner. I remember looking at him afterwards, and I saw so many emotions on his face, one of them, longing. I feel sick as I think about what could have happened if I didn't invite Nik up that night.

And then I recall the night I watched Joey get beat to a pulp by Hayden and Chase. I can see it so clearly now, he was dealing on the street corner that night. What I still don't know is why Hayden and Chase had beat him up, although I can make an educated guess.

"I know Hayden and Chase attacked Joey a few nights ago. Was it because..." I pause, unwilling to say my thoughts out loud. "Was it because Nik bought drugs from him again?"

"They thought they were stopping Joey from selling to Nik, but nobody knew that he already had." Cal says patiently. We seemed to have reached the end of the horrible conditions on Hastings. The crowds of people have thinned, and fewer business have bars on their windows.

"It started with pain pills, at least that's what he told me. He broke his hand or something and when his prescriptions ran out he started buying oxys from Joey. Of course, Joey did what Joey does, and he convinced Nik to try H." Cal pauses, clearing his throat and flicking his eyes to the rear-view mirror, I had almost forgotten that Jessica was back there. "I mean heroin." He clarifies and I watch her nod in approval. "And from there, we sort of just fell down the rabbit-hole. I guess, I was already pretty far down but Nik fell hard and fast."

"He was one of the lucky ones though. He still had parents who gave a shit about him, and once they figured out what was going on they tried to help him. I would listen to him go on and on about how much he hated them and how much he wished they would just let him die in peace. But drugs aren't free, not once your dealer has you hooked, anyway. So he would put up with them just long enough to get some cash, and then he was right back out there with me.

"We used together almost every single day for two years straight before he went to his first rehab. It took four overdoses and one psychiatric hold before he agreed to go. I think he stayed in the program for two months and then he landed right back here. He OD'd that first night back and again a week later."

Cal pauses and a solemn look overtakes his face. "Watching him like that switched something inside of me. Nik was like my brother, we always had each other's backs out there and I was watching him kill himself while I was killing myself too. I knew I had to do something. It took a few months for me to figure it all out in my fucked up head but I came up with a plan.

"I knew where his parents lived, Nik and I had raided their house more than once when we were desperate for cash, so I showed up on their doorstep. I told them who I was, and that I needed help and that Nik needed it too. I convinced them to put us both through rehab and a few weeks later I got Nik on board. They shipped us off together and six months later, they transferred us into an outpatient program. We did that for another six months, both of us fucked up a few times but we finished it and then we were left to fend for ourselves.

"We did good though. We got each other through it, we still keep each other in check and I've been sober for a year and a half. Sober from heroin anyway, I still drink because that's never been my problem. And until last night, Nik had been sober for almost a year, again only from heroin."

"That's not what his mom said." I whisper. "She told me he'd been sober for over a year."

"Nik's mom doesn't know everything, Haven." Jessica pipes up from the backseat. "He doesn't trust his parents; If they knew he had relapsed, they would have sent him away again."

My mind reels with all of this information. I still feel so reluctant to believe any of it because when I think of Nik, I just can't picture him with a needle in his hand. But parts of the story make sense; Nik broke his hand after his parents told him they were shipping him off. He told me that much on the beach the first day we met up.

Everything about Joey makes sense too; He gave me the creeps from the moment I laid eyes on him. The way he hung around that street corner and dug around in his too many pockets for something, it's obvious that he is a drug dealer.

Nik's mom told me that he went to rehab twice and overdosed six times. So if those parts of the story are true, then the rest must be true too. No matter how badly I wish it wasn't true, it is.

"Haven, I know you're probably feeling overwhelmed right now, but it's a good thing that you know all of this now. The next step is to move past all of this so you two can continue to be happy together." Jessica offers me a reassuring smile, but I cringe away from her. She recoils too, alarmed by the look I flash her. A look that asks, are you insane?"

"You don't honestly think that I can stay with him, do you?" I spit out, looking back and forth between Cal and Jessica. They both stare at me dumbfounded and I realize they probably think I am disgusted by Nik's past and his struggles. That's not it at all. I'm still disgusted in myself.

"Haven, Nik made a mistake don't hold that against..."

"No, you don't understand." I shout. "I'm not good for him and I never will be. He deserves a shot at real happiness, and how can that happen when I ruin everything. I ruined him back in junior high and I've just done it again. This never would have happened if I didn't come back into his life, you guys realize that right?"

"I strongly disagree." Cal interjects, but I continue angrily.

"If Nik never met me, he never would have been tormented and played with. He never would have cut his wrists or had suicidal thoughts, and he wouldn't have been forced to move away. He never would have broken his hand and gotten hooked on oxys. Which means, if Nik had never met me he never would have gotten addicted to heroin. This is my fault." I spit out the last words as if they are poison in my mouth. I'm vaguely aware of the hot tears rolling down my cheeks but I don't care if they see me cry and it's not as if I could stop them now that they have started.

"Haven," Jessica touches my shoulder but I jerk away.

"Dont." I glower at her and she looks hurt. Regret fills me instantly and I lighten my stare. "Listen, I am glad that you two can make this work and that you can be open with each other. But you didn't create Cal's problems, and I created Niks. And right now he is in the hospital because of me. He overdosed because of me and I can't let that happen again."

The SUV is filled with a silence that nobody seems willing to break. When we pass my Starbucks, I realize that Cal is driving me back home, back to the Hutchs, I correct myself. The tears stream faster and a choked feeling overcomes me as my silent tears turn into wrenching sobs.

This isn't my home. That isn't my Starbucks.

Jessica delicately places a hand on my shoulder, and this time I don't pull away. I allow her to comfort me until Cal pulls to a stop outside the Hutchs condo. With one hand on the door handle, I mumble a final sentence to my new friends, whom I never plan on seeing again. "Take care of him for me."