"Well, that's a choice you must make, which do you want more, me or drugs? You can't have both." He watched as she played with the ring. "Go ahead, take it off if you think it traps you, but leave it here if you do. I'll not have it sold for drugs. " Robert went back upstairs, and started a shower. He had to work that morning. He had used all his vacation time to care for her and get her off of drugs, and now he had to return to the mines. He climbed into the shower, bitter tears running down his face and mixing with the shower water at the thought that she might return to California and drugs after all they had been through.
As he stood in the warm water, his thoughts went back to their days in highschool before she had left him, and the joy they had shared. He had almost had her back, but now tragically it seemed she would be snatched from him by a phone call. Clearly here dedication to him had been shallower than he had thought, and the pull of the drugs much stronger than he could have ever imagined.