I am beside myself—uncomprehending, terrified. Nothing in my life has prepared me for the incapacitating worry when I don’t know where he is. I imagine Nic on the streets of San Francisco, like a wild animal, wounded and desperate. Like some off-the-deep-end anesthesiologist presiding over his own brain surgery, Nic trying to manage the flow of drugs in order to achieve a high, which rapidly and necessarily becomes less about euphoria and more about avoiding the hell of withdrawal.
