She did a line in the bathroom. "SHIT!" She lifted her head off the back of the toilet she was kneeling on. She wiped her nose and brushed her self off, slid back the latch to the stall and slowly swung it open to reveal the mirror. She stepped up to the sink, both hands on the counter and leaned over to the mirror slowly turning side to side slightly as she checked her face. Free of any residue. No one was in the bathroom thank god. She sniffed hard one more time and walked out of the bathroom.

             She had a problem, she knew it. but it got her through the day. She was incensed, obsessed, recklace and didn't know how bad. This was her new norm. it got worse and worse since she began but it always became the new norm. Always. Just the normalization of her using more and more as each week turned over into the next. As gradual as it was she didn't notice. She tried not thinking about it. When she did she used more. She had an endless supply. Nobody knew.   

               She had a stash in her purse. A stash in her laptop bag. A stash hidden in her filing cabinet locked up. A stash in her car, and plenty at home. She kept buying it and always bought more than she'd ever need. Shit, she'd need tubs in the basement at this rate. She used and used. She was so god damn productive.

        It began when a guy at a holiday party offered her some. She fell in love and he introduced her to his dealer, then he got fired. Boom. Magic. No one knew her secret. But things were getting out of hand. Very out of hand.  

            As productivity and focus grew, so did her responsibilities, therefore, so did her habit, which lead to better work and longer work and more efficient work, the endless cycle. She was in charge of people now. She was a boss, supervisor, team leader. Her complexion suffered so she wore expensive makeup. Instead of a cube, she moved to an office with a door she could lock. A desk to hide behind and drawers, cabinets and bookshelves to hide things. Her sniffles seemed like a quirk or common itch now. A mere tick. 

                   It began as a bump on the back of the toilet each day, leading to two breaks for a bump in the bathroom, leading to two bumps each visit. Leading to taking it in her office from a vile, leading to straight up doing lines right on her desk. She'd blow lines up, and head to meetings. Then, it began as an addiction and itch that needed to be scratched while she WALKED to the meetings. Then, as she walked ANYWHERE. She got good at piling as much as she could pack into tiny viles she bought online in bulk and popping their caps off in her pocket with notes and papers and folders and laptop in hand and with the other, single-handedly popping the top and pretending to scratch her nose as she inhaled the contents. She was excellent at this. A pro if you will. She'd get it all in one breath in from a single nostril and nobody knew. 

        She was excellent at making sure, without mirror or reflection that nothing was up her nose and she looked perfect walking in the minute the meeting started and commanding with great force and ability the whole meeting without falter and returning to her desk to grab 3 or 4 more pre-filled viles. All while carrying and inhaling a few on her way to and from anywhere. She would go so far as to inhale on the way to the bathroom, where her sole prupose for going was to do a few lines off the back of the pearlescent white porcelean. Whilie finishing her major binge, she'd inhale on the short walk back to her desk, where there she would prep and inhale more viles, more lines, more viles, more lines. 

           It became a game to her, a challenge. She would attempt in even more dangerous and obvious situations where she would call a meeting one-on-one with someone at her desk and freely inhale without any knowledge from the other that she was in fact, inhaling cocaine through one of her left or right nostrils. It was fun to her. A real adrenaline rush. The cocaine mixed with this rush heightened the experience and this need and the risk grew and nobody suspected.

                 7 months from her first bump to the present, she was taking inordinate amounts. All which she kept undetected and clean. her life now revolved around cocaine. The only reason she kept her position was because without it, there would be. no. cocaine. None. It fed her addiction. So she was the best at her job. Hell, they were looking at promoting her to the same position at a new startup off-shoot of the company that was growing exponentially because of her tireless effort in the field in California. She was intrigued by the idea. She toyed with it. As long as she had her stuff. 

           Then one day, she headed to the bathroom for her daily ritual. It was more of a boredom thing at this point. She went 4-5 times a day and would spend 10-15 there. She inhaled as she did on the way to the bathroom and got in the stall and locked the door behind her. As she did, she noticed her hand. It had a drop of blood on it. She then noticed it was her nose. She had a meeting in 20 and her nose was now bleeding. No problem. She reached for the toilet paper. 

       "Holy shit." It was all over her hand again. She whipped the paper so it spun out and out and out. She held a giant mess of it to her nose and in seconds it was soaked dripping. Frantically she spun some more out, now holding her head up, staring at the ceiling. In a matter of a minute or so she had gone through a roll and a half of toilet paper. Still not enough. She was bleeding out now. Things were foggy. 10 minutes to the meeting. She rushed out and stole a roll of paper towels that were sitting there on the counter not yet installed into the machine. She rushed back in and locked the stall, no one in the bathroom yet. 

            She did the same to no avail. Her head up, piles of toilet paper and paper towels now drenched on the floor in the stall, spilling out to the bathroom floor underneath. She was in trouble. "fuck." She heard someone coming in so she frantically knelt down to scoop up all the bloody towels and brush them back into her space. Blood all over her hands, her feet, the towels, the toilet. She got back up and it was much too fast. She fainted, busted her head on the back of the toilet seat, and died. She lied there for over 2 hours before anyone found her. 

                 She had leaked out her nose and promptly died. She didn't die from hitting her head, or bleeding out, or fainting. It was the cocaine. All that cocaine. When they found her, it had all crusted up around her. The towels sticking to the tile and the porcelain and her clothes. It had leaked some more out of her and it was all discolored near her face. All over her face and her blouse and even in her hair. She was a hot mess. A dead hot mess. 

                   Her children were devastated. When her poor husband was invited to go through her office. He found all the cocaine. Mountains of it. Piles and piles. There was more cocaine in her desk drawers than folders and papers and books. Blood was on the floor there too, blood was in the hall outside the door. Viles were scattered empty all over the office floor and in the trash and around the trash. It was a fucking mess. She was dead. There was more cocaine in her than life. Than her blood. Her autopsy report stated no one they had ever seen had ever had even remotely close to the amount of cocaine in their system than her. It was an incredibly heroic amount. She shouldn't of lived as long as she did. The thread was bare and torn. It was inevitable. 

       But nobody knew.