Beautiful Boy: Chapter 23 Summary & Analysis

Nic calls again, explaining that he knows that David found out the truth about what happened. He says he’s sorry for lying and that he didn’t want to worry David. David sits in the living room when he spies a pile of newspapers that he doesn’t recognize. On top is a flyer from Nic’s favorite record store. The papers aren’t Karen’s, and immediately they jump to the conclusion that Nic broke in. But they soon realize that the newspapers belonged to a friend who visited the previous weekend.

David looks at his desk and puts away a recent photograph of Nic when he was in recovery. Then, David hears a song Jasper wrote as he edits it in Garage Band in another room—it is haunting and beautiful. David tells Jasper that there are places they can go for kids with siblings or parents who have addictions. Jasper agrees to try.

The next day, David thinks about Nic. He is momentarily stunned by the thought that Nic could die. He realizes that he would miss having Nic in his life, but then he has a further realization: he misses it now. He has not had Nic whenever Nic is on drugs. He knows that he will always love Nic, but that Nic on drugs is only a ghost of his sober self.

David returns to statistics of rates for rehab of meth addicts. He hopes the most meaningful statistic is this one: that more than half of the people who enter rehab are sober 10 years out, even if they’ve had relapses. Nic leaves another message for David, saying that he and Z. went too far and now plan to get sober. David doesn’t believe it. All he can do is hope that Nic has some kind of “near miss”—something dramatic enough to make him return to treatment, but not enough to kill him.