Sheff recalls the family’s excitement when Nic returns from college for summer vacation. Jasper and Daisy, Sheff’s children, are overjoyed to have their half-brother back, especially when Nic makes up stories for them. The narrative then jumps forward. It is midnight and Sheff is worrying about Nic’s insomnia but manages to “push away [his] suspicions” (5), noting that it will soon be Nic’s “one hundred and fiftieth day without methamphetamine” (6). 

After highlighting Nic’s engagement with his recovery from addiction, the narrative jumps forward again. Sheff is again “wide awake in bed, feeling more and more uneasy” (8). Nic returns home at two-thirty in the morning. Sheff confronts him, asking, “‘Are you high?’” but Nic insists, “‘Jesus. No.’” (9) and becomes angry. In the morning, Sheff can tell that Nic was lying by the way “[h]is jaw gyrates and his eyes are darting opals” (10). Eventually, Nic admits that “‘I’ve been using since I came home. I was using the whole semester’” (10). 

Sheff recalls how he was “frantic to help Nic” and how this “mixed with my guilt and worry, consumed me” (12). As a professional writer, he “wrote to try and make some sense of what was happening” (12), eventually publishing an article about the family’s experiences in the New York Times Magazine.