After about a week of doing that, I realized I should have been checking the mail more often. I only remembered because my mail man knocked on my door one afternoon to tell me he couldn’t fit anything else in the box because it was already stuffed full and handed me another unmarked manila envelope.

“Couldn’t fit this in. You should check your mail ma’am.”

I started opening the envelope before the mail man could even scurry away from the frightening sight I’m sure I was.

A pile of photos fell at my feet once I ripped open the envelope.

I bent down and picked up the first photo I could get my hands on and saw Josh staring back at me, shirtless, in a poorly-lit room with his torso covered in purple and puke yellow bruises. I wanted to puke, but flipped through the rest of the pictures. They were all the same – Josh – just in his underwear displaying signs of abuse. I had to put the photos down on my kitchen counter and walked away before I got through all of them.

A retreat to my bedroom and a shutting off the lights and official shutting out of the real world was my last move. I pulled my ratty comforter over my head and let the booze still rushing through my blood drift me off to sleep in the middle of a sunny day.

I’m not sure how long I was out, but it was pitch black all around when I finally woke. The clock in the corner of the room told me 3 a.m. and the icy chill which filled every empty space of my bedroom told me I never turned the heat on. I looked over to my nightstand and saw a little frost on the glass of ice water which had been sitting there for weeks collecting dust.

The room spun for a moment before I collected my head and turned my senses on full blast for the first time in a long time. I must have actually slept off a little bit of the booze and the world was suddenly a cold, harsh and painful place which made my head feel like it was stuck in a vice.

I allowed a few seconds to pass to try and take everything in and about three seconds into my “warming up phase,” I heard footsteps from just outside of my bedroom door.

I flashed my eyes over to the door, open just a little crack and saw a shadow cut through the little sliver of light the crack let in. My arm ripped over to that nightstand where I knew my gun rested and knocked that neglected glass cup of water onto the hardwood floor where it shattered.

A good, hard blink reset my senses and allowed the world to re-focus in front of me. I started at that little crack again and saw nothing. Stayed silent with my hand resting next to the gun inside the painted wood of my nightstand and heard nothing. All was silent. There was nothing in the house as far as my human body could tell. I was just going crazy and I was just incredibly hung over. That was my biggest concern at the moment.

My human body did what it could to help with the situation by pulling my hand away from the nightstand and to my mouth where it tried to stop a heaping load of liquid barf from erupting from my lips. I felt the vomit stream out from my hands and all over my torso before the power of the hangover took me over again, I laid back onto my bed and fell asleep.

The world was just coming to life the next time I woke. I could feel a hint of warmth trickle through the little open slats in the blinds of my bedroom which faced the backyard. A few more hours sober, I felt a little more control over my body, but could still feel the powerful stranglehold of an aching headache and bubbling stomach torturing my body. It was going to be very hard to get out of bed.

That little bit of light from the rising sun helped me roll over in bed, in the direction which led to the bathroom. I was pretty sure I hadn’t gone to the bathroom in almost 24 hours and it felt like the entire lower half of my torso was going to explode.