I knew things were a bit more serious than my original reckoning when I realized that over half of the skin of my bottom lip had come off in a single piece. Stupid, stupid girl; what in the previous twenty-four hours had failed to convince me that I'd had a major lapse in self-control? Did the insomnia and the twenty-four hours of shakes not serve as warning enough?

Stupid, stupid girl.

Day two of caffeine withdrawal. On the phone last night, in the middle of something that smelled halfway between chastisement and argument, I admitted to the voice on the other end of the phone that I should probably start treating caffeine with the same wary respect that most people give to alcohol.