Mr. Ballin

And so she had a hard time finding work.

And for the last two years, she'd actually lived in a therapeutic group home.

But it was a little after she had moved in there that she had very fortunately met Charlie.

Now, on paper, Don and Charlie did not seem like they would be good for each other.

Charlie was addicted to heroin, he also didn't have a job, and he was frequently in trouble with the law.

And so when they first got together, people in Don's life worried that Charlie ultimately was just going to pull her down even further into her own problems.

But they did make each other really happy.

And so they spent basically all of their time together, going between each other's apartments and visiting the park and hanging out with their friends.

And for Dawn, this taste of happiness had made her want to make some positive changes in her life.

Now, she still drank alcohol, but she finally got her bipolar disorder diagnosed and properly medicated.

And she was feeling stable for the first time in years.

She was even planning to move out of that group home and into a new apartment soon and hope that, you know, that would give her a chance for a true fresh start.

And because of all these changes, Dawn had planned a get-together with her family to show them how well she was doing.

It was in a few days, and she'd really wanted Charlie to come with her since their relationship, at least in her mind, was a huge reason she'd been so motivated to turn this corner.

Except, despite how much she adored Charlie and really was excited for her life with him, at the current moment as they sat in the park on this Friday, she actually was really mad at him.

So before arriving at the park, Charlie and their friends had done some heroin and some other drugs.

And being under the influence of these substances was making Charlie act like a total jerk.

Dawn had just bought some new hair dye to give herself a new look for this get-together with her family.

And now Charlie, high on drugs, was wasting it by putting it in his beard and his eyebrows as a joke.

And so Don ultimately was really mad, not so much because he was wasting the dye, but because by dyeing your beard and eyebrows and all that, that Charlie was going to look like a total deranged mess when he met her family for the first time in a few days.