It didn't arrive as a choice.

  It arrived as an answer to a problem Samantha had already named.

  "You're fading in meetings," she said one afternoon, tone light, almost affectionate. "People notice when the edge dulls."

  Michael rubbed his temples. He hadn't slept. Weed no longer carried him through the night the way it once had; it softened the fall but never the landing. Mornings came with a pressure behind his eyes and a sense that time was slipping through his fingers.

  "I'm managing," he replied.

  Samantha tilted her head, studying him. "You don't have to manage alone."

  Later—much later—she produced a small white line on the glass table between them, as if it had been there all along.

  "Just for focus," she said. "You don't need much."

  He stared at it. The room felt too clean. Too bright.

  "I don't—" he began.

  She smiled. "You trust me, don't you?"

  He did. Or thought he did. Or needed to.

  The effect was immediate. The fog lifted, sharpness flooding back in with almost frightening clarity. Words aligned. Decisions snapped into place. The world stopped slipping.

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  For an hour, he felt like himself again.

  Then it demanded more.

  Cocaine made London bearable in a way nothing else had.

  It turned meetings into performances he could win. It quieted the part of his mind that whispered he didn't belong. It allowed him to move through rooms with an energy people mistook for confidence.

  But it came with a cost he pretended not to see.

  Crashes hit hard. Silence roared. His hands shook when the edge wore off. Sleep vanished entirely, replaced by pacing and thoughts that ran in circles until dawn.

  Whitby noticed before Willow did.

  When Michael returned north one weekend, he looked wrong. Wired. Too alert. His smile arrived a fraction of a second too late, as though summoned.

  "You're burning too hot," his grandfather said quietly, watching him stir a cup of tea he never drank.

  Michael shrugged. "Just tired."

  Willow said nothing. She watched him eat too fast, talk too much, restlessly shifting in his chair. When he stood, his balance wavered for a heartbeat before he corrected it.

  That night, he didn't sleep at Field of Waves.

  He paced the small room until sunrise.

  The next morning, he left before anyone woke.

  London closed in.

  Samantha began to control the rhythm—when he worked, when he rested, when he used. She framed it as care.

  "You need structure," she said. "I'm just helping you stay at your best."

  He believed her because the alternative—that he was losing control—felt unbearable.

  Willow's messages went unanswered longer now. When he did reply, the warmth was gone, replaced by clipped phrases and apologies that sounded rehearsed.

  She felt the change like a tide pulling away from shore.

  And still, she kept the fire lit.

  Willow's Diary

  He came back sharper—and somehow further away.

  Like a blade polished too often,

  losing the strength it once had.

  I don't know how to reach him through this.

  So I won't shout.

  I'll wait where he knows the sound of my voice.

  Poem — White Noise

  The world speaks louder

  when the quiet hurts.

  But sharpness isn't clarity,

  and speed isn't strength.

  If you forget the difference,

  I will remember it for you.