I cover it all up as though it doesn’t exist. I pray that the world doesn’t find out. I pray that my family knows nothing. I suffer in silence as I pray my husband comes home at night. It is just another day in the life of an addict’s wife. The mask I wear gets tighter every day as I continue to cover up what is really happening. Soon I am consumed with the fear of losing the one person in my life that I feel as though I cannot live without. I am covered in a deep everlasting fog that won’t lift with time. It only gets thicker as the layers of my mask do. I start to breath in the corrosive smoke and it fills my lungs. I begin to choke. Not a deathly choke, but one that comes and leaves with the next breath. I carry on as though it has no effect on me. As though my life is perfect and I have a happy home, a home without fighting and anger, a home without needles and pain, a home without emptiness and darkness. I fear this will be my forever home. I fear this will forever be my lonely battle. I fear that the only way my battle will end, will be in death.