By Paul Germano

He desperately wants to stop, but he can’t. “Just one more time, then I’m done for good.” He’s uttered those good intentions so many times that he’s lost count. But he’s meant it every single time he said it.

He doesn’t say it anymore.

That lowlife Cobra put an end to any hopes and dreams that still lingered in his troubled mind. Cobra screwed him over good, real good, screwed him over to save his own sorry ass. Maybe he would have done the exact same thing if he were in Cobra’s shoes. But he likes to think better of himself, likes to think he would’ve never gone down that dark road of betrayal.

His brother warned him. “Stay away from that scumbag. He’s bad news. He’ll throw you under the bus in the blink of an eye, won’t even lose a damn night’s sleep over it.”

He laughed in his brother’s face. “Me and Cobra, we’re tighter than tight. There’s nothing to worry about. Cobra knows I’ve got his back and I know for a fact that I can trust him completely.”

Cobra and trust, it sounds so stupid now when he plays those words over and over in his mind. But he believed it back then, convinced himself it was true.

“There’s a silver lining in this tragically horrible mess,” his ex said to him in a cold, harsh voice. “You can’t do it when you’re stuck in prison. You’ll finally be able to kick the habit once and for all.”

Turns out she was wrong. It’s on the inside too. It’s not exactly easy to come by. But it’s obtainable if an inmate is willing, which he is, to go that extra mile. The quality, if you can even call it that, is lousy at best, nowhere near as good as it was on the outside.

Worst of all, the price he has to pay for it now is so much higher and far more degrading than he could have ever possibly imagined.

But he keeps telling himself, as humiliating as it is, it’s still far better than living without it.