I use people. Not in a malicious way, but in the way an addict abuses their substance of choice. People are my vice—men specifically. I crave the emotional high they give me with a unique and reckless disregard for my own well-being—eagerly floating into an unsustainable euphoria, knowing full well that after every high comes an equal, if not more powerful, plummet into a devastating abyss. But like every junkie, I crawl willingly back into the arms of my demons.

Oh, the price we pay to feel loved. We’d all sell our souls to the devil himself for that. Perhaps I have already.

They say that acknowledging that you have a problem is one of the first steps to recovery. Well, in that case, my name is Charleston Smith, and I have a f***ing problem.