he says, cheerful as ever.“Oh, great,” I say. Even in this ridiculously downtrodden state, I seem to care about what my drug counselor thinks of me so I don’t want him to know how scared and miserable I feel. I try to smile. “Everyone’s really nice,” I add, even though it’s a bald-faced lie.Tommy just looks at me. “Why don’t you and I take a walk?” he asks.A walk, like anything else right now, sounds absolutely unappealing, but what are my options? To sit here and think about how much I must have fucked up my life to be ensconced in this place with a bunch of losers?“Can I smoke?” I find myself asking.“Absolutely,” he says, as he helps me to my feet. “In fact, I encourage you to.”I grab my Camel Lights and my lighter, slide on a pair of flipflops and follow Tommy outside as he picks up a pebble that was sitting on a picnic table covered with ashtrays and starts walking down the Pledges entryway toward the street.“I’m going to say something and I don’t want you to be offended by it,”
