And I continue to feel like I'm living in a dream.

I can’t read a damn train schedule. I fumble around the station with my things, rushing to make the 11 a.m. out of Chicago to Milwaukee, only to realize there isn’t an 11 a.m. In fact, there isn’t a train for two hours so it looks like I’m going to need to kill time. First instinct: get coffee. Second move: start reading in the most beautiful location in proximity—the Great Hall of Chicago’s Union Station. I decide to check my internet feed quickly when I notice that Natalie’s status from just moments ago announces her arrival in Chicago, so I call her. Not only are we in transit through the same city, but we’re both at Union Station. I run outside to find her getting her nicotine fix with her latest boy toy, so unfortunately named, Hubert. I almost don’t recognize her along the river walkway. She’s dressed the same as always, the latest rebel fashion, but she's thin, much thinner than Nat had ever been. Her hair looks great, a reddish brown, with natural waves and a swoop bang. I just can't get over how tiny she is.

 She’s been out of rehab for about a week now, and we’ve been in contact since. As of the 9^th, she’d been a month clean of dope. Within 2 minutes of me sitting beside her, she exchanges a few words over the phone. Key words—$20 bucks a bag, dubs, pick-up, good shit. I knew it. I should’ve fucking known better. In Chicago to see her Hubey?? It's more like a flock to the heroin epicenter of the U.S. because she can't lay off the dope. Most people don’t know this, but heroin has never been such a problem—it’s the new hip thing to do in the Chicago suburbs. It’s already taken lives around me, I had to watch a friend seizure over a Skype conversation from an overdose, and now, my best friend since our awkward middle school years, can’t get clean. I’ve never heard a heroin success story, and I know very few people who’ve made it out of addiction successfully. Do I begin disconnecting myself from the emotional attachment I have to her? Or do I become proactive? I want to expose this very serious problem for exactly what it is: a destroyer of families, friendships, a person’s happiness, and ultimately their life. If anything happened to Natalie, I’d absolutely die.

Now I sit and wait for the train. Maybe I’ll get another coffee. I don’t really have the stomach for food right now.