Hopper still isn't sure if what he did would be considered sinking into his grief or avoiding it. In a lot of ways, he thinks he was trying to do both, trying to numb himself to what he couldn't stop feeling and to pretend it didn't exist, but he's here now and he's mostly sober, though the temptation to hunt down pills gets stronger with each passing day.

That's not something he's willing to get into with Lucy, though. Everything he's told her already is more than he would have told most people and he's only said this much because he knows she can understand at least part of what he went through.

"You do what you have to do," he agrees with a nod, then give another faint smile. "And how's that for personal story time with near strangers?" Even people he'd known all his life had barely known anything about Sara and it's true he hadn't given Lucy a lot of details, but for awhile he'd outright lied about Sara's death, unable to face it. He had told people she lived with her mother, somewhere out of state, and he knows just how messed up that is.