Free Military Romance Navy SEAL: Dangerous Affliction (Alpha Male Bad Boy Urban Romance) by Snow Rush-Sinclair

Chapter 1 – Alleyways
     
    I find it strange how often I wake up places without remembering how I get there. Pressing memories to the back of my mind has taken far too long. I had hoped that once I returned to the United States, I could have a few drinks and forget about my problems. I guess that is probably the hope for most people like myself, but I could never say for sure. Honestly, I have never met anybody like me. I don't think I have, anyway.
    Living on the streets is cold so I'm glad that I have the perfect remedy in my hand every day. Sometimes I wonder if that's how all of us start. I'll see dope fiends in the alleyway and I'll be glad as hell that I'm not them, but I can't help but ask myself if I could be. I don't know if I'm better than them. I guess legal or not, all intoxication is the same. On the inside, we aren't any different. We are just as different as the rest of society. Everyone frowns at us as they walk by, refusing to put a few pennies in our cup. I just wonder if they know everything that I've done for them. I wonder if they know that I protected them from evil by doing evil myself. I wonder if they'd call me a hero or if they'd see me like I see myself. I wonder if they'd call me a murderer. That's what I'd call me. I wonder if they'd even care. I wonder if it even matters. Right now, I'm not much of anything. I'm just another addict.
    The alleyway shines like a beacon for the hopeless every night. That is what I look for in my haze of despair and substance abuse when I go home. I am not sure I can really call it a home, but it's home to me. I don't know anything else. I have not known anything else for five years. I wish that I did. I wish that I could find a woman that would put up with me. I wish that I could have a kid and take care of them the way that I'm supposed to at my age. I never thought I would be the type to want a house in the suburbs somewhere, and I'm not sure if that is what I want, but it does seem like a hell of an improvement from this. I missed that train, though. Instead, here I am, looking for an alleyway again. That's just where my life had gone.
    All of my friends, for lack of a better term, were huddled around a burning trashcan. I wish I could say that it was some sort of social gathering, but really they were all just trying to stay warm. The fire was not very bright, which made me a little nervous. Since none of us have a job and all of us spend what money we do have on one of two things, lighter fluid isn't exactly the first on the list.
    “Ay, Rome!” Christmas called as I walked into the alleyway.
    We called him Christmas because he overdosed on Christmas and made his mother drive six hours just to tell her to do you-know-what to herself. She was so pissed off that she stopped paying for his motel and that is when he joined our brigade of self loathing in the alley. He never really told us his name. It wouldn't ever matter to us, anyway. If any one of us gets clean, it's not like we're ever going to talk to or even think about the poor bastard ever again. I think that's the sickest part about addiction. We're all just self-centered, sick people fueling each others' disease.
    As I walked towards the guys, I took a drag from my cigarette and averted my gaze. I couldn't look them in the eyes because I knew what they wanted but I couldn't give it to them. I had it in my pocket, but I couldn't even bring myself to save my friends from hypothermia, just because I thought I needed it more than they did. They were staring at me, shivering, waiting for me to dump it on the fire. They knew it was going to be a fight. I never asked them to throw their junk out for me, so why should I do it for them? I already saved their country so they could sit in the streets and put a needle in their arm or a pipe in their mouth. Why should I save their lives again? It never did anything for me before.
    Drunk and annoyed, I ran the other way. They called after me, screaming that they