Gary stepped outside the clinic and paused, letting the door close behind him with a soft, final click.

The street looked exactly the same as it had when he’d arrived. Same cars. Same pavement. Same indifferent sky. And yet something about it felt different now, as though the world had quietly adjusted while he wasn’t looking.

His jaw was numb, still tingling slightly, but the pain that had dominated his thoughts for days was gone. Not cured. Not erased. Just handled. Managed. Put back in its place. Gary touched his face carefully, half-expecting the ache to flare back up in protest, but it didn’t.

He let out a slow breath.

For the first time in a long while, he didn’t feel like he was running away from something. He wasn’t improvising or joking his way past consequences. He’d shown up. He’d stayed. He’d done the thing.

That realisation settled heavier than the treatment itself.

Gary pulled his phone from his pocket and looked at the follow-up appointment card again, reading it properly this time instead of treating it like an abstract concept. A future commitment. Another step. Proof that this wasn’t a one-off burst of bravery but the start of something ongoing.

He typed out a message, deleted it, then typed it again.

Out. Alive. Slightly wiser.

The reply came a moment later.

I knew you’d manage.

Gary smiled to himself as he started walking, feeling tired in a good way. The earned kind. The kind that came from doing something difficult instead of avoiding it.

This wasn’t a grand ending. There was still more to do. More appointments. More chances to mess it up.

But for once, Gary felt like he might actually keep going.

Continue treatment and see where this leads → Page 81

Drift back toward old habits slowly → Page 76