In Chap­ter 3, JB finds him­self in the throes of addic­tion, strug­gling against iso­la­tion, regret, and an unful­filled need for redemp­tion. The sto­ry unfolds over the Fourth of July week­end, a time when cel­e­bra­tion and free­dom dom­i­nate the city, yet for JB, it serves as a stark con­trast to his own impris­on­ment with­in his habits and self-destruc­tion. While his friends dis­perse to var­i­ous destinations—Malcolm head­ing to Ham­burg, Jude trav­el­ing to Copen­hagen, Willem escap­ing to the land­scapes of Cappadocia—JB remains behind, caught in a per­son­al bat­tle he can­not seem to win.

The absence of his friends only mag­ni­fies the weight of his soli­tude, a silence that makes the city feel more aban­doned than ever. Though he tells him­self that stay­ing behind was a choice, a state­ment of defi­ance, deep down he knows it was some­thing else—a res­ig­na­tion, a qui­et admis­sion that his strug­gles have kept him anchored in place while the rest of the world moves on. As he roams through the emp­ty streets, his mind swings between moments of clar­i­ty and spi­rals of self-doubt, the desire to change war­ring with the temp­ta­tion of old habits.

JB’s jour­ney through addic­tion is not just about the sub­stances he clings to but about the deep­er wounds he has nev­er addressed. He refus­es to call him­self an addict, insist­ing that he is in con­trol, yet every deci­sion he makes tells a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. His body bears the con­se­quences of his choices—his ener­gy drained, his art suf­fer­ing, his rela­tion­ships crum­bling beneath the weight of his denial. Even as he con­vinces him­self that he can stop when­ev­er he wants, the pull of depen­den­cy is too strong, wrap­ping around him like an unshak­able force.

The suf­fo­cat­ing sum­mer heat in New York mir­rors the suf­fo­ca­tion he feels with­in him­self, press­ing down on him, mak­ing every breath feel heav­ier. The city, once a place of inspi­ra­tion and con­nec­tion, now feels emp­ty, its streets void of the laugh­ter and pres­ence of those who once kept him teth­ered to real­i­ty. He hates the humid­i­ty, the still­ness, the way the sun beats down mer­ci­less­ly, but he stays any­way, unable to artic­u­late why. Per­haps it is an attempt to prove to him­self that he can sur­vive this alone, or per­haps he sim­ply does not know how to leave.

In the midst of his strug­gle, his thoughts fre­quent­ly drift to his friends, par­tic­u­lar­ly Jude, whose pres­ence in his life has always been com­plex and unwa­ver­ing. There are mem­o­ries that bring com­fort, but also ones that sting with regret—times when he failed Jude, when he failed all of them, when his addic­tion pushed them away. His friend­ships are frayed but not yet bro­ken, though he won­ders how much longer they will remain intact before he los­es them com­plete­ly.

Deter­mined to regain con­trol, JB resolves to stay clean, at least for this week­end, as if prov­ing his strength to him­self and his absent friends will make a dif­fer­ence. Yet the temp­ta­tion is relent­less, the lone­li­ness press­ing in on him, suf­fo­cat­ing him in ways he refus­es to acknowl­edge. He paces his stu­dio, the space that once fueled his artis­tic pas­sion now feel­ing more like a cage, a reflec­tion of his inter­nal tur­moil. He wants to believe that he has the willpow­er to endure this, but every sec­ond feels like an unbear­able weight.

His down­ward spi­ral reach­es a break­ing point when his friends unex­pect­ed­ly arrive, attempt­ing to pull him back from the brink. Their inter­ven­tion is meant to be an act of love, but JB, defen­sive and full of self-loathing, lash­es out, his des­per­a­tion man­i­fest­ing as anger. The con­fronta­tion is heat­ed, raw, filled with words he imme­di­ate­ly regrets but can­not take back. In push­ing them away, he feels an instant sense of loss, a sharp aware­ness that he may have just sev­ered the last life­line keep­ing him afloat.

The night ends with JB in a hos­pi­tal, restrained and lost in his own mind, grap­pling with the weight of what he has done. His body is heal­ing, but his thoughts remain frag­ment­ed, cycling through flash­es of the past, visions of the future, and the suf­fo­cat­ing uncer­tain­ty of whether redemp­tion is even pos­si­ble. He has spent so long con­vinc­ing him­self that he doesn’t need help, but in this moment, strapped to a hos­pi­tal bed, star­ing at the ceil­ing, he begins to won­der if accept­ing it is the only way for­ward.

This chap­ter delves into the depths of addic­tion, cap­tur­ing the pro­found lone­li­ness and psy­cho­log­i­cal war­fare that comes with it. JB’s fight is not just about sub­stance abuse—it is about self-worth, about the bat­tle between want­i­ng to be saved and believ­ing he is beyond sav­ing. His jour­ney is a painful but nec­es­sary con­fronta­tion with the truth, a por­trait of a man on the edge, torn between the seduc­tive pull of destruc­tion and the frag­ile hope of redemp­tion.