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whats-the-story-tc · 5 years ago

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26th-28th of April, 2020

"The Ones with the Series of Unfortunate Events"

[LONG AS FUCK SORRY]

After what happened on Saturday, I could barely fall asleep at night. I had a splitting headache from all the crying and genuinely felt like shit. Morning came, and I immediately reached for my phone. Nothing from her. It still being quite early, I tried to go back to sleep, and spent a full hour tossing and turning, a head full of thoughts, until I couldn't take it anymore. I turned my phone on and checked the notification bar, only to see a very familiar name and face.

I submitted my essay to her already, way before it was due, so when she actually assigned it in Google Classroom, I just pressed 'Mark as done' and thought I was good to go. V has obviously seen it (two links here). And, even though I didn't submit jackshit this time, she still felt the need to send me a "Thank you :)". I was overjoyed. FINALLY. So, as I explained here already, I had an impulse thought and decided to respond. "And thank YOU for the "task". I had a lot of fun with it. (I mean, the [poet's name] one.) If you're ever curious about anything of this sort, don't keep it to yourself :)" Of course, I regretted it as soon as I sent it. And, of course, I knew I wouldn't get an answer.

I promptly took a full day of rest after that, like I was trying to recover from a bad break-up. I didn't expect to hear from her again the next day.

Monday morning. New notification. Same old love of my life. She assigned us a project we'd already spoken about last week — to reinterpret a monologue from the play I read, the one V really likes, in any shape or form. Painting, video, prose, or, to quote V: "tiktok (not that I know how that works, but it's your choice)". She also said that she wants to keep what we make, maybe even share them with our Geo/Art teacher. I got even mote excited than when she first announced this. I knew I wanted to draw something, to show her a side of me she'd never seen before. I'm starting it on Friday. Doing a bit of painting, too. Wish me luck.

At around 2 PM that same day, Pocketwatch Friend noticed V's reply to her essay and asked me how she should respond to her. Found it quite funny, not gonna lie, knowing my history with replies. And as my friends told me about the responses they got, I realised a fundamental difference. All of them were skimmed over going into detail. They noted them fine, but didn't take the time to explain why they were noteworthy. So basically, they lacked content. Meanwhile the only things she spent paragraphs pointing out about my essay were miniscule stylistic mistakes. This gave me a fair bit of reassurance about what I do. I did enough. I was enough.

Come Tuesday, I was a nervous wreck to say the least. I always am, when it comes to online classes, but especially so when I have class with V. I walked up-and-down in the room, listening to her talk, not daring to say a word. God, I wish I kept to that.

Before I get to the part where y'all laugh at my misery, a teensy bit of prelude. Here I mentioned that the first time I had spoken to V after class, the 11th of October, 2018, we spoke about Hamlet. In short, I was a bit oblivious, and didn't really know how to recognise the Oedipus complex I've seen associated with the play. We were covering the story of Oedipus anyway, so I trotted up to her after class to talk. I remember the afternoon Sun shining really bright that day, and V being very relaxed and fully in her element as she spoke, leaning against my desk (that I wasn't sitting at by then). I went home smiling, unable to get her out of my head after that. It should've been clear from that day.

Now, on to class. There were a lot of good bits, a lot of interesting bits... but I don't want to talk about those now.

Last ten minutes, V asks if there are any questions. "I might just have one." I said, and immediately regretted it, even though I could hear the smile in V's voice as she said "Off you go". Theatre/Literature buffs, I'm sure you'll know the line "Frailty, thy name is woman!" from, you guessed it, Hamlet. Now, in the poem we were talking about, there was a line with the exact same structure, only with different words in the place of frailty and woman. I tried to twist it and see if V made that same association, but luck didn't favour me that day. V had no last clue what I meant when I said the quote was familiar. I tried to explain it to the best of my abilities, though I didn't remember the exact Hamlet quote. Neither did V. "I don't really know Hamlet by heart." "Neither do I!" I tried to counter, but just made it more awkward. Bless her soul, V googled it there and then, but just by me saying it was said to Gertrude, it brought up another play with another Gertrude — coincidentally, the one V stroke up a conversation about with me on the very last day of actual school. Those being the results made V laugh, so at least that's a win from my part. I ended up looking it up myself, trying to remember the quote, and ended up answering my own damn question. "So it was the grammatical structure, then?" V asked, with that very same peace in her voice as last year, and I excitedly replied "Yes!". Conversation over. And even though she genuinely sounded interested, I hated myself for bringing up a totally unnecessary thing. Though I hope that I made V "pull [Hamlet] off the top shelf" after class, as she said she might, were it not for me finding the answer.

I was already feeling horrible. Then, V brought up the assignments mentioned earlier and sounded really excited about it, starting to list what she imagined us doing. "A rewrite of the scene in the play..." and as she was saying my name, I grinned and asked her "Was this an indirect reference?". I needed no further convincing that she, indeed, read what I texted her. But here comes the part I laugh at now, but right then it was horrible. She actually chuckled at my teasing question, and God I wish I remembered what she said. Then I said: "I was actually planning on something else, but..." because I found it an interesting idea, and I have been meaning to do that, too. And that's where it got awkward. V, the usually unfaltering and confident V, was startled. Proper startled that she might have accidentally changed my mind. She started saying "oh, no, I didn't mean it like that, I was just trying to predict things..." and that made me worried, so after the oh no, I immediately started rambling "no, no, of course, I know what you meant, I understand". So there we were, talking over each other, both of us a nervous mess that we may have said something wrong we didn't mean. Right now, I find it absolutely hilarious, because how on Earth did we manage that?? But there and then?

I started crying. Silently, of course, not to worry her even further. (I didn't want to turn my mic off because I was scared it would malfunction again.) But I was so tense, that all my gasoline pool of nerves needed was this little spark of awkward, and it caught flame. I stood there, tears streaming down my cheeks, blaming myself for speaking and thinking I should've just shut up.

Soon after, V told us not to stress about the assignment, because "it's just homework". Everybody's favourite Cynical Twat, who is even worse at social situations than I am, tried to express he was glad to hear that, but did so in a very confusing and sarcastic way that V didn't really understand. "It would be pretty shitty of me" to make us stress, she said. So I dried my tears and jumped in, because she deserved to hear the compliment. "I don't mean to speak for [Cynical Twat], but I think he meant that we're all glad you said that. Not many people do it like that." I told her something along the lines of that. "Oh, okay." she said, disbelief thick in her voice. Hey, V. We bloody love you. It's time you start believing it.

Class ended soon after, and I spent about twenty minutes sobbing and cursing myself. The message from Pocketwatch Friend saying "I can't believe [V] replies to everything" as they were talking about her essay, only made it worse.

That night, I had a conversation with one of my underclassmen I talk to every once in a blue moon. We were discussing school and teachers, and I intentionally didn't bring up V. I waited for her to. Though, okay, I did provoke it a teensy bit, but just slightly. So, we talk about her, and through the things the girl says, I find out that... heh, of course, I'm not the only one she strikes up convos with. Turns out, after a joke, V even winked at her! (Okay, she did that to me once, too, when I stood up for her in class, but that's not the point.) After that, I was carrying the convo on just fine, but inwards, I was spiralling into a great big void of 'You ain't special to her, bitch, the fuck were you thinking'. The girl ended the conversation with "the woman's weird (...) but that's how we love her". Right. Yeah.

Now, two days later at current, I'm back in the room where all the crying went down. Bit surreal, thinking back. I'm sure I won't forget this for quite a while. Will my unlucky strike stop anytime soon? I don't know. We'll see. But I don't think anything could surprise me anymore.

You may take that as a challenge, V.

~ S ♡

[Every story I share here, no matter how specific I get with my wording, depicts actual events from my own life.]

#tc #tcc #teacher crush community #female tc #female teacher crush

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masksandtruths · 7 years ago

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Never Normal: Part One

A/N: This was done for @revwinchester's Y1K Challenge, and in typical "me" fashion, I got a bit long winded. The prompt I chose is towards the end in bold font. This one isn't going to be a series, but there will be a part 2, which will explain a few things, including the story behind the reader's post-it note. Anyway, congrats Rev, and I hope y'all love it!

Summary: When the Winchesters found Y/N the moment after her world fell apart, she never expected they’d be the ones to help her put it back together--but that’s exactly what they did. From friends, to brothers, to the possibility of something more--their lives together were far from normal, which was exactly how she liked it.

Characters: Dean Winchester x Reader (mentioned here, but the majority will be in Part 2 & 3); Sam Winchester; Reader's sibling

Warnings: Swearing, Semi-fluffy, Drinking, Violence, Sibling death, so of course, also a little Angst.

Word Count: 3400-ish

“Okay, I give up. Where the hell do you two turds keep the ketchup in this dimly lit den of testosterone?” you asked, slamming the pantry door closed and throwing your hands up in defeat.

Sam looked up from the pot of green beans he was preparing on the stove and smiled when he saw you standing there in a state of distress over their poorly stocked fridge and cabinets. “Unless Dean has some leftover ketchup packets from the last fast food joint he raided, I’d say you’re out of luck.”

“That’s about par. No coffee creamer either…or fluffy pillows…or chick flicks…definitely no feminine products…and if your hair wasn’t damn near as long as mine, I’d bet my big toe there’d be no conditioner in this joint either,” you joked, playfully tugging a piece of Sam’s long hair as you passed by him on your way to finish setting the table.

When you were done placing the last steaming bowl of food in the center of the table a few minutes later, you took a step back and admired your handiwork. Three real plates accompanied by actual silverware, cloth napkins, and crystal glasses sat on its wooden surface. The rest of the space was filled with heaping bowls of salad, green beans, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes and dinner rolls. It was enough to feed an army, and there was no way all of it was going to get eaten—even though you had a strong feeling Dean would give it his best shot—but it looked exactly like you hoped it would. Like the birthday dinners you used to share with your little sister.

Your breath caught in your throat, and you mentally braced yourself against the wave of crippling pain and overwhelming sense of loss that usually slammed into you seconds after recalling memories of your younger sibling—but it never came. Normally at this point, a sadness like none you’d ever known before would flood your soul, the weight of it knocking the air from your lungs and crushing the already broken heart beating in your chest—but not this time. This time, the simple, happy memory of your little sister didn’t rip open the gaping wound inside of you—the one you’d been struggling to heal since the day you’d found her lifeless body in your kitchen—and leave you in a crying, crumpled mess on the floor. Instead, you felt what you assumed most people felt when they started to come back from that level of emotional trauma—something like a mixture of closure and relief and acceptance.

You allowed yourself to remember the first time you decided to have a fancy dinner in honor of her birthday. Five months prior to that day, you had held her hand in the cemetery as you both cried and said goodbye to your parents for the last time. Afterwards, you had told the few distant family members in attendance that you would become her legal guardian, and she’d be living with you from now on. Maybe it was because you were a full decade older than her, finished with college, and working a full-time job…or maybe it was the way you spoke so matter-of-factly—your words filled with love and determination, but everyone had accepted your declaration without argument or objection.

In the blink of an eye, you went from being a sibling to also being a parent, and you never—not even for one second—doubted or regretted that decision. You found strength in each other as you both grieved and adjusted to your new version of normal—and before you knew it, nearly half a year had passed, and her thirteenth birthday was quickly approaching. You recalled thinking that no kid should have to become a teenager without her parents at her side, so you did what you do best and overcompensated, hoping it would bring her a little bit of happiness on a day that could easily take a turn into a more depressing territory. You talked to a couple of her friends and arranged for them all to go to the movies after volleyball practice that day, giving you a few hours to set everything up.

After you got off work, you rushed to the grocery store, gathering the ingredients to whip up all the foods she loved most in the world, and then spent the evening rushing around the kitchen like a madwoman. Just as you were setting the last piece of your mom and dad’s wedding china on the table, three very excited teenage girls burst through the front door squealing about the Harry Potter movie they had just watched.

“Oh my gosh, sis. You wouldn’t believe how good the last movie is. Seriously, people clapped. We totally have to go back so you can--.”

She stopped midsentence as she took in the scene before her, eyes lighting up when she noticed the bowls of food on the table and the presents purchased by you and her friends stacked all around her chair. “Surprise! Happy 13th birthday, kiddo!” you shouted happily, popping the cork on a bottle of sparkling white grape juice as you did so. She stood there in shock for a brief moment before jumping up and down and shooting straight towards you, nearly knocking you off your feet when she threw her arms around your neck and excitedly told you over and over how much she loved you. A few months later, she did the same thing for your birthday, and just like that, your special birthday dinner tradition was born.

Five years later, the tradition still held, and you watched as she blew out eighteen candles on her cake and chattered happily about her upcoming move to Houston and her acceptance to Rice University’s premedical program. Never in a million years would you have imagined a vampire would rob you of the opportunity to watch her add another candle to her cake, but on one horrible night, in the middle of June, just five weeks shy of her 19th birthday, that’s exactly what happened.

When you found her that evening, the sane part of you knew immediately that she was gone—that the light of your life—your best friend—your baby sister would never open her eyes again. You’d never see her graduate…or become a doctor…or have a family of her own, but you just couldn’t wrap your mind around that right then. So instead, you dropped to your knees and pulled her into your lap, rocking her and stroking her hair like you did when she was a little girl and was sick or had a bad dream. Out of habit, you rested your chin on top her head and quietly started singing the words of her favorite childhood song.

“Dancing bears, painted wings, things I almost remember; And a song someone sings, once upon a December; Someone holds me safe and warm...”

At that point, your voice broke and you held onto her a little tighter, squeezing your eyes shut as you silently willed her chest to rise and your tears not to fall. But when her chest never rose, your tears decided they didn’t have to listen either.

When the monster found you sitting there a short while later and promised you the same fate, you looked him dead in the eyes and calmly told him to get on with it—that it was better than living in a world without her, anyway. You kissed her forehead one last time and took a steadying breath, ready for him to put you out of your misery, but before he could follow through, the Winchesters came barreling into the room, machetes swinging. A normal person probably would have felt relief at narrowly avoiding a date with death, but when the monster’s severed head landed next to you that night, the only thing you felt was regret.

They disposed of his body and later helped you bury hers next to your parents. Some small part of your brain was vaguely aware of the concerned glances aimed in your direction, the hushed whispers shared between them, but you were just too drained and heartbroken to care. They must have sensed the depth of your despair—must have somehow known you couldn’t carry the weight of this agony alone—because when you climbed into the back seat of the Impala with blisters on your hands, your clothes covered in dirt from your sister’s freshly dug grave, they didn’t take you home. Dean just slid into the driver’s seat, stuck the key in the ignition, and drove you straight to their bunker. Later you realized that Sam had stayed behind to gather a few of your personal belongings and pack up some of your clothes so you never had to go back to your house if you didn’t want to—a small kindness for which you were eternally grateful. And so, the most horrible and excruciating healing process of your life began.

Over the next seven months, they taught you all about things most people only imagined in their worst nightmares. They taught you how to fight, how to shoot a gun, how to face those monsters when most folks would run screaming in the opposite direction. They checked on you when you cried out in your sleep. Held you as you kicked and screamed—angry at the universe for stealing away the most precious thing in your life. Carried you out of bars when nothing but drinking yourself into a blind stupor seemed to numb the pain of that loss. Laughed with you when the darkness that had smothered your sense of humor for so long started to fade away and you discovered you finally found things funny again. They helped you heal, and in the process, they became your family. A new one. A different one. But family nonetheless. That’s why, when you’d discovered Dean’s birthday was coming up, you’d suggested having a dinner to celebrate—something that seven months ago, you never would have dreamed you’d feel like doing again.

A smiled played across your lips, happy you were now at a point where you could look back on the memories you made with your sister with fondness instead of excruciating pain. Happy you could start to move forward with your life and begin creating new memories with the two men that helped bring light back into your world. You absentmindedly reached your hand into your pocket and touched the post it note you carried with you everywhere, rubbing your thumb across it affectionately.

“Soup’s on,” Dean announced as he stepped into the kitchen carrying a platter of steaks fresh off the grill in one hand and a beer in the other, effectively jolting you out of your walk down memory lane. “Where do you want me to set these babies, Y/N?”

You pointed towards the one empty place on the table, catching a whiff of their scent as Dean placed them in front of you in the spot you’d chosen. “Holy crap, those smell amazing.”

“You’re telling me. Try being the one cooking them. Took everything I had not to grab mine right off the pit and start going town on it.” He looked over at you as he straightened, a warm smile lighting up his face, causing the little crinkles you loved so much to form around his green eyes. He walked over to you and dropped a quick kiss on the top of your head, which made your stomach to do an embarrassing number somersaults. “Thanks for this, sweetheart. It’s already the best birthday I’ve had in a long time.”

“Sure. No problem. It’s a family tradition,” you answered with a shrug, trying to play it somewhat cool. Shit, why couldn’t you just talk to him the same way you talked to Sam? “Oh, because you don’t want to get naked with Sam, that’s why,” you thought sarcastically, rolling your eyes at your own silliness before walking towards the liquor cabinet. You needed a damn drink. You unscrewed the top on the bottle of bourbon and poured yourself a glass, mixing it with a little coke to help soften the bite of the alcohol.

“Uh huh. You were complaining about living with us earlier, but it has its perks, doesn’t it? We may not have the condiments of your choice, but we’ve got an endless supply of liquor,” Sam teased, throwing a wink in your direction—and like the mature, almost thirty-year old you were, you responded by sticking your tongue out at him.

Dean nearly spit out his beer. “What the hell did you just say? What about condoms and liquor?” he sputtered, his green eyes widened in shock and quickly darting back and forth between you and his younger brother.

Well that was odd. You had initially assumed the choking was due to him thinking Sammy was funny, but the rest of his reaction was just…off. Was that seriously a hint of jealousy you heard in Dean Winchester’s voice? No—couldn’t be—could it?

“Not condoms, you nimrod. Con-di-MENTS,” Sam replied, over exaggerating each syllable of the last word.

“Well excuse me for not speaking moose, asshole,” he bit back, the angry tone of his voice making Sam pull his head back in surprise. Your body, on the other hand, had an entirely different reaction. You knew you were probably reading too much into it, but just imagining there was the slightest chance Dean was acting all grumpy and possessive because he thought you and Sam had been sharing some quality alone time together had you a little…excited. Shit, was it warm in here?

“Dude, chill out. I know your hearing is failing in your old age, but it was just a joke…and no one said anything about condoms.”

For one tense moment, Dean didn’t respond. He just stared at Sam and slowly raised the bottle of beer back up to his lips. Then, just when you started to get really nervous, he let out a small chuckle.

“Geez, you two should see the looks on your faces. Classic.”

You released the breath you didn’t even realize you’d been holding and shook your head. While you were legitimately relieved that WWE Smackdown: Winchester Edition wasn’t about to take place in the kitchen, you couldn’t help but feel a bit of disappointment that all of Dean’s huffiness had simply been another of his jokes. That’s what you got for letting your imagination run wild.

“In all fairness, you have been known to get hangry a time or two, Dean. Thought maybe your growling stomach got the best of you again.”

“Me? Hangry? Never.”

“You want to run that by me again?”

“I didn’t stutter, and your ears don’t flap, darlin’.”

“Whatever you say,” you snorted. “Since it’s your birthday, I’m not going to argue with you. Now can we please eat?”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

“You first, birthday boy. Dig in,” you order, swinging your hand forward to smack him on the ass.

“Alright, now,” he warned, quickly reaching behind him to capture your hand before you could pull away. You giggled. Yes, giggled—there was no other way to describe the sound that fell from your lips. Jesus H Christ, you had to pull yourself together.

“I thought the birthday spanking was supposed to be served during dessert,” Dean joked, releasing your hand, affectionately bumping the underside of your chin with one finger, and flashing you a crooked smile. Lord have mercy—now he just wasn’t fighting fair. It felt as though every drop of blood in your body suddenly made a beeline for your face, overheating your cheeks and turning them as red as the ketchup you’d been searching for earlier.

“For an old man, your brain is still pretty imaginative,” you finally managed to quip back. “Now, get your mind out of the gutter and enjoy the food Sammy and I slaved over all afternoon.”

“Umm, if I remember correctly, I cooked the steaks—which is kind of the most important part of the meal.”

You cocked your hip out and crossed your arms, directing a pointed glance at the long row of bowls filled with sides lining the kitchen table. “Okay,” you sighed dramatically. “You are right. I guess I’ll go ahead and dump all these out…and get rid of the pecan pie that is baking to perfection in the oven as we speak.” You managed to take exactly one step towards the oven before Dean blocked your path. So predictable, you think, a smile lighting up your face as you look up at the older Winchester.

“You take one more step towards that pie, and I’ll throw you down and hog tie you, Y/N. I’m not even playing.”

“You sure know how to make a girl’s heart go pitter patter, Dean. But how about we save that little fantasy for dessert, too?” Before you even realized what your body was doing, you took a step towards him then slowly reached up and gently tugged the middle of his shirt, batting your long eyelashes and rolling your bottom lip between your teeth as you did so.

You noticed how the playful look vanished from his green eyes, quickly replaced by something a little darker and a lot hotter. How his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard and then stiffened his spine like he might be anticipating something. How his tongue flicked out and slowly ran across his full lips. For a split second, you were proud, and also more than a little shocked, that your flirtations seemed to have some sort of effect on him. But then you caught yourself and realized that was exactly how a normal girl would react, and you refused to fall into that normal girl category. Normal just wasn’t your thing, never really had been, but after…after everything, you developed this freakishly strong aversion to anything to falling within that realm. Your thoughts once again drifted to the note tucked safely away in your pocket.

So instead of following through or allowing yourself to imagine where things might go if you kept up your little performance, you simply grinned at him and spouted off the line he’d used on you a few moments ago, “You should see the look on your face. Classic.”

Your heart was still racing as you walked straight for your mixed drink, picked it up and downed it in a few big gulps.

Dean’s eyes were still fixed on your back, watching as you poured yourself another one. The sound of Sam’s chair dragging across the floor as he settled into his spot at the dinner table finally broke him out of his little trance. He gave his head a quick shake and cleared his throat before stepping forward to take his seat as well. When you finished mixing your cocktail, you sat down too, and Dean immediately rubbed his hands together excitedly and dug in.

Appreciative groans echoed around the table as everyone took their first bites of the meal. “I swear I could die happy right now,” Dean mumbled through a mouth full of ribeye. “Thanks for springing for the good steaks, Y/N. Totally worth it.”

“Yep," you agreed, "the only thing that would make them better is ketchup.”

“That’s what you wanted to the ketchup for?” Sam asked incredulously, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah,” you shrugged. “We always ate them with ketchup.” You glanced to your left and saw Dean had quit chewing and was now sitting dead still and staring at you like you had just sprouted a second head.

“Ketchup? On a steak? But why?”

“Because it’s good, you big cry baby. What’s so wrong with that?”

“Well for starters, it’s just downright un-American, that’s what. But second of all, I cook a damn good steak, and I know for a fact they don’t need any friggin’ ketchup to make them edible.”

“It’s not an insult to your cooking skills, Emeril. I just like what I like—and in this case, it’s ketchup…on my steak.”

“You’re not normal, you know that, right?”

A smile tugged at your lips as you leaned towards him, looking him straight in the eyes, and asked, “And when have I ever striven to be normal, Dean?”

He made a show of considering your question, pursing his lips, squinting one eye and looking up towards the ceiling, brow furrowed in concentration. “I’ve got nothing. Guess that means you are a freak.”

“Yep, just like the rest of my family,” you chuckled, leaning back and pointing at Sam and Dean. “But I've got to admit, if I have to eat ketchup-less steak, there’s no one alive I’d rather eat it with than you two idjits.”

Read Part 2 ->

Tags: @dancingalone21 @wheresthekillswitch @trexrambling @escabell @hannahindie @pinknerdpanda @revwinchester @atc74 @goldenolaf25 @-lovepeacenhope- @messy-buns-and-shotguns @avc212 @shutupiminlooove @kathaswings @nostalgic-uncertainty @arryn-nyxx @deanssweetheart23 @sofreddie @michellethetvaddict @roxyspearing @akshi8278 @horsegirly99

#rewritingrev #deanxreader #dean x reader #dean winchester #dean x y/n #Sam Winchester #spn fanfic #supernatural fanfiction #reader insert #dean x you #angst #never normal

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ecotone99 · 5 years ago

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[RF] La Fin Du Monde

I opened my first bottle around noon, a Canadian beer called La Fin Du Monde. It was a Belgian Trippel brewed with fruit and spices. It was thick and strong and sweet. I was hungover, and when I originally climbed out of bed around 10, I knew I wouldn't last very long. I chugged water, desperate, and I felt sick. I didn't feel nauseated from the alcohol. I just felt like my sinuses were stuffed with cotton and wasabi. I coughed deep and ejected black and green and red specks into the white bathroom sink. I coughed again and it was just red this time, small globs of blood immersed in spit.

I ate a banana and a bagel with some cream cheese, and that's when I felt good to start drinking again. It was beautiful outside, so I went onto the back veranda, lit up a cigarette, and cried a little bit. I didn't even smoke, but my friend from college, Charlize, had given me these cigarettes she rolled herself. She was an exchange student from Paris, and her mother would send her these cute packages with stuff she couldn't get here, bags of tobacco and canisters of this Nestle instant coffee I had never seen before, all kinds of European bullshit. She even had little filters for the cigarettes, and that was cute too. The tobacco smelled and tasted great, not the chemical shit you buy in stores here. I'm not saying France is perfect, but they know how to smoke. I was in love with Charlize back then. Well, I thought I was, which is really the same thing, so I had been saving these cigarettes, trying to hold onto some sentimental idea. I didn't want to lose her or lose what that time was for me, sitting in her apartment that her dad paid for, drinking and smoking cigarettes with her just because she had them. Today, though, I didn't want to care about that or anything else.

The feeling hit me hard, instantly high, and I took another sip of my beer. It was too cold outside, even with the sun, but I felt like I needed to experience it a little bit. I hit the cigarette and stared blankly at the canal. Patches of what I think is called burhead or hyacinth or something like that (I'm not a god damn scientist) floated along, sometimes in massive clusters. Every so often you'd seen an egret, which is really just a type of heron, standing on one of these patches. As one sailed past, the wind was blowing so hard against him that it looked like a supermodel posing in front of a huge fan, feathers flapping crazily, his neck an S curled tightly into itself, bracing himself for whatever was to come. He was just accepting it, and I felt like him. He sailed on.

By 1 or 2 pm I was pretty drunk, trying to pace myself and failing because I didn't eat enough, and the alcohol was hitting me harder than it should have. I drank a lot, but to be fair, La Fin Du Monde is a 9% ABV monster of a beer, exactly what I needed on a day like this. By 3 I had collapsed onto my bed and fallen back asleep. I woke up again with a pounding headache. I ate a bunch of Ibuprofen and drank some water. Droplets fell through my beard and I wiped them away and dried my hands on my black pants.

I went back into my room, sat at my computer, and opened a bottle of Pinot Noir. I poured a glass and watched a bit of a Drake interview. My phone started ringing, so I threw it in the general direction of my closet. Deciding I needed to eat, I put on a tattered pair of Nikes and left my apartment. The building I lived in was small and smelled like mildew, which was very common for the houses uptown, but this place was a fucking dump. The hallway smelled like weed and cigarettes. I could hear my neighbors carrying out some unclear stage of their daily routine: fight, fuck, fight, discuss a breakup, then go to bed. I tried not to listen, but I always waited to catch a bit of dialogue before I actually walked down the stairs. “You're a fucking asshole, Justin! I knew you were fucking that bitch!”

“Fuck you, Tina! You were the one eating my brother's ass a month ago! I love you! Why can't we make this work?”

“The only thing that works around here is me, cocksucker!” This was enough for me, so I shook my head, disappointed, sad, hungover, and continued out of the building.

I walked down the street to the bar where I spent a lot of my time. For being such a beautiful part of the city, I didn't feel beautiful. It was interesting around here because it had a lot of history, a lot of money and a lot of misery, a lot of darkness. You'd walk past what were basically mansions and see beggars right on the corner. There was one guy that stood around the corners of the main street playing an old saxophone, playing really well, and no one gave him any money. He just wandered, yelling and playing. I always wondered if he wrote the songs. I walked past him like everyone else. I reached into my pocket for my phone, already aggravated that I left it at home. Home, a shitty apartment in a part of the city I could barely afford because I wanted to feel good about myself. What a fucking joke.

This bar had food, honestly decent shit, but it was overpriced, so you had to be really drunk or really hungry to pay for it. I fit both categories, so I scanned the menu: the standard burger, pulled pork, a cheese plate (how fucking pretentious), etc. I ordered a glass of Jameson before deciding on a quesadilla with added chicken and cheese. You had to order your food at a separate section than the actual bar, so I walked over, ordered nervously, and made my way to a table in the corner, the table I always sat at. I sat there, hunched over like an animal, my face buried in my left palm, eyes closed, almost all the way until I got my food. I took small sips and tried my best to save the Jameson for after my meal, and I did well. I earned my drink. That was the rule.

When my food and my Jameson was gone, I figured I should get something else. I walked to the bar and grabbed one of their clipboard menus, flipping the pages as if I gave a fuck. I ordered a beer, black shit, a snifter filled to the brim with oil, because I really liked to drink that around this time of year. Something about cold weather made me want to fill my body with syrupy beer and cry.

The bar had an upstairs area and a back patio, so when it was nice out, there was no one inside, and I loved that. The walkway to both of those areas, as well as the bathrooms, was to my right, so while I waited at the bar, I couldn't help but look at the people passing through. I eyed a tall, thin, dark skinned girl as she came into the building from the back patio area and I didn't think I had ever seen anything like it. I was lying to myself because I immediately recognized her. She had these long legs and her dark, curly hair was pulled back. Her skin was smooth and her lips were full and I couldn't believe it. I knew her because she was a waitress at a vegan restaurant close by, but I could never speak. I wouldn't approach a girl at her job. I probably wouldn't approach a girl without a proper introduction anyway. And she was too beautiful for me. I used to tell my friend that I usually ate at the restaurant with, “This is the girl, man. This is the exact girl I'm attracted to.” She wore red lipstick at work, but she didn't have any makeup on today, just her glasses, and I saw her go into the bathroom. I shook my head and buried my face into both hands this time.

I started to regret leaving my phone, so I closed out and made my way back to the apartment. My roommate was home now. I fucking hated him. He was too cool, way too fucking cool, and his girlfriend was a stupid bitch. I heard her talking about some bullshit as soon as I walked in the front door and I couldn't help but say, out loud, “Jesus Christ.” They came out shortly after.

“Hey, man. What's going on? You off today?”

“Yeah so I'm getting trashed.” Actually, I quit, but I didn't tell anyone.

“What happened last night? You good?” Like he gave a fuck. What a dickhead.

“Yeah, man. It just didn't go anywhere. But it's all good.” I was already pouring a glass of wine from the bottle I opened before I left. “Y'all want some?” Of course his girl did. I'm pretty sure drinking other people's shit was one of her best traits. Actually, she was a little better when she got good and drunk, only if it was because she started focusing on what was in front of her and not what she saw on Instagram that morning, she was better, and I started to like her then. It's easier to talk to people when everyone starts drinking. That's not some grand observation; it's real life. When your inhibitions are lowered and you are lowered, you talk a bit more, and for a girl like this, she probably thought a bit more too. “Y'all off today too?”

“Finally! I'm sick of that job. They treat me like a dog.” Alright, I didn't hate him. His girl nodded, pouring herself another glass already. This fucking bitch, I thought, but I didn't say anything. I had enough to go around. I always do.

“They always do.”

“So what happened with that girl, anyway?” Last night I met up with this girl. She was younger than me, but she was cool. Crazy, probably, but cool enough. She knew some weird shit. She had her own personality. I always feel like people are recycled, some amalgamation of shit they found online or whatever. Again, that's not some grand observation, but this was a time in life when people could borrow or steal or buy personalities off the internet, and you could always tell when they did. It's not inherently wrong to find new things and get into them. I think that's what every curious person does, isn't it? But the explosion of social media came at a cost, and it made me sick. This girl knew some real shit, though. She was crazy, but she had her own desires and needs and her interests were her own. I didn't have to like whatever she liked to appreciate that. Well, anyway, really, we had met before through mutual friends, and I thought she was interesting, and I thought she was interested, but on this day, I didn't feel that anymore.

“I don't know. I don't think she was feeling it. Nothing bad happened, but I could tell she wasn't interested in pushing it any further. That's fine, you know? I get it. I probably just won't talk to her. We had a good time, regardless.” I poured another glass because I felt bad about it.

“Well, fuck it. Can I have some of that wine actually?”

“Yeah, man, of course.” Alright, I loved him. He was a good roommate and a good friend. And more importantly, he was right. Fuck it. I just wish I believed that.

Our other roommates, a young married couple, came home shortly after that, and we hung out for a while. As the day began to wind down, I began to wonder what else I could get into.

I got a text from an old friend, a friend from when I was a teenager, who I had been hanging out with again recently. He wanted to know what I had planned, and it was perfect timing, so I invited him over. He made it pretty clear in our texts that he didn't plan on drinking, but I already was, so I made sure he understood that. I didn't want him to feel obligated to drink or uncomfortable about how much I had already been drinking, but he didn't seem to care at all. I needed to sleep again before he got to the house, so I collapsed again, and I woke up to my phone vibrating: it was a text from him saying he was close.

I got up, and my cat was running all over. He had a daily routine where he took a shit and he started running around the house. Then he would just drop down and start yelling at me. I just lit a stick of incense and waited.

When Tucker got to the house, we sat down in my room. I was at the computer, and he sat in a dining chair opposite me, and we spent a long time talking.

For context, I should explain that he had a long and ultimately tumultuous relationship with a girl who I had later become friends with, nothing serious, but her fixation on him long after their breakup made me sick and I couldn't be there for her. To make matters worse, her new boyfriend looked exactly like my friend but sicker and uglier, and I hated him on principle. He's got this smart, cool girl because he looks like an ex. What a fucker! That's cheating, and there should be some kind of punishment. I guess his life was the punishment because they got arrested.

“It's crazy, like, she came to me basically trying to discuss you. I can be a friend but I don't want to talk about you every day. She thought she had a man on the inside. I was literally receiving paragraphs about you, pretty much daily, and it got to be ridiculous. It wasn't a friendship. It wasn't anything.”

“Yeah, she really needs to move on. She's got this attachment that she obviously never let go of. It's weird. We broke up years ago at this point. She keeps dating dudes that look like me.”

“That is fucking weird.” I took a sip of my wine before I continued, “I tried my best to encourage her to move forward and work through her pain in a positive way. Everyone goes through shit, and I understand that relationships, especially when you're so young, can feel really intense and traumatic, but you have to draw the line somewhere. I'm not sure she even wants to move on. Well, I'm sure she doesn't because she didn't listen to me. It's this insane fixation, and I started to realize she just wanted me to dump her shit on and to suck information out of. That sucks. It started to bother me a lot. So one day I quit replying to her and that was basically that.”

“She paired up with my ex, which I genuinely think says more about them than it says about anything I'm capable of doing to them.” He was right. People have to want to grow, and these girls obviously didn't. That's why I quit talking to her to begin with. “What's crazy is that one night I was out with Therese (the most recent girlfriend) and Winona (the one from years ago) threw a fucking beer bottle at us. We were walking back to my car, holding hands, and she just emerged from behind two cars, screaming all this shit. Therese didn't even realize who she was until I explained it. And now they're best friends. Someone showed me Therese's Instagram recently, and she looks like she's having a breakdown. I really don't believe that can all be put on me. People are still responsible for themselves.”

We spent a lot of time talking about sobriety and depression and the lifestyle we didn't mean to slip into. Tucker told me he spent 8 months sober last year and that he felt amazing. I recounted back in 2015, when we worked at a pizza place together, that I quit drinking for probably the same amount of time, if not a little longer.

“I don't know if I can even do that again.”

“Me neither.” As of late, I had been thinking very seriously about getting sober, possibly for good, but I failed today. I really failed today. Tucker worked at a clinic where he saw addicts every day. He was Tucker the Psychology Fucker, and he wanted to help people. He could and he did, though. I had known Tucker for at least 11 years, probably close to 12, and he had a pretty huge influence on who I grew up to be. A lot of our humor, musical interests, etc. guided me when he wasn't around. It was interesting that, although we spent years apart at a time, we were dealing with almost exactly the same problems. We couldn't stop, but it did make me feel good that we had the same mindset about trying. I think developing the ability to admit your faults is basically the only way you'll ever actually be able to change and grow into someone better. At least we were there. We were trying, even if I knew I wasn't trying hard enough.

“I'm talking to people about their substance abuse problems at work every day, then I leave the job and spend my afternoons in a dingy neighborhood bar full of sad old men. It's fucked up.” Maybe that was the best way, though. It's worse when people don't know what the hell they're talking about and then try to tell you what's best. How could they know? It's insulting. Those people needed someone like Tucker, someone who really lived the shit too. Absolutely no addict wants to listen to some Christian kid with an ego he hides behind his button downs and overpriced slacks. They need a guy who looked and talked and felt like them, someone who was suffering but maintaining in a way they hadn't learned how to yet.

Tucker told me about his new girl, who he seemed really excited about, and I liked to hear that. It was genuine. He posted some shit on his Instagram story about her, and I brought that up. He said people were telling him he should take it down, but I respected that he was learning to be so comfortable about his feelings and expressing them. If it was too much for the girl, maybe she wasn't right for him. And maybe she felt the same way. People are just fucking insecure.

“So what are you trying to get into tonight?” I wasn't sure, but I did have one idea.

“I know a guy that's playing at the techno spot downtown, right next to Democracy. Another friend wanted me to go. I didn't know if you would be into it, but I really wanted to go, even just to show my face. I think it'll be fun”

“Yeah, we should go. Hector works at that pizza place next door, actually. I'm going to call him. I think he usually gets off around 9.” Hector was in a band with Tucker, and I figured expanding the group could definitely lead us to a good time.

“I think the show starts at 11, so we have time.” Hector said he wanted to go home and shower and everything, so it worked out perfectly.

After we made our plans, we sat for a minute, and Tucker said dryly, “I guess I might need something to drink.”

“Do you want some of this wine? There's also half of a bottle of Evan Williams that my roommate's girl left here on New Year's Eve if you would prefer that.”

“Yeah, that's more my speed,” he said with a confident nod, referring to the whiskey. I went to the kitchen, grabbed that bottle and a glass, and brought it to him. I expected him to take a couple of shots, but he effortlessly drank the rest of what was in the bottle. For his first glass, he didn't pour a shot. He filled the glass to the brim, drank it quickly, and poured another. When the whiskey was gone, he poured himself the last of what was in the wine bottle. I wanted more to drink, so I got some tequila and took a few shots of that before asking my roommate for one of his beers. Tucker and I tried our best to calculate how the night might play out, maintaining even then, that we intended to be home in a few hours. We sincerely believed that we didn't want to get too crazy or do anything too serious.

And soon enough, we were on our way downtown.

We drove and parked separately then met up on the street. As we passed some bar that I had never been to, Tucker began telling me a story about a guy from a band we loved and bonded over when we were kids. I still remembered the text he sent me when he met him. I couldn't believe it. One of our musical heroes. Tucker was with Therese at the time, and they were walking by this same spot when they heard someone singing a familiar song, so they looked in the open French doors, only to see that a drunk, fattened, depressed, and arguably the most famous member of that band was actually the one playing it on an acoustic guitar on a small stage where it seemed as though no one knew him. Tucker bought him a beer, talked to him for a while about his love for the city and the band that meant so much to us, and then the guy just left in an Uber. What blew me away, and I think Tucker would agree, is that someone we used to idolize was right here, doing the same shit as us, in a lot of ways feeling exactly the same as we did tonight.

We stood on the sidewalk for a little while, bothering passersby, for whatever reason. Tucker stopped someone who was blatantly not famous and asked them if they were a rapper. The guy said no, and Tucker kept a straight face while telling him he thought he was someone else. I went along with it, but when he walked away we started cackling like children. I saw a group of beautiful girls standing and talking in front of the club we were going to, and I immediately realized one of them was the same girl from the bar earlier, from the restaurant I loved. I didn't say anything, just looked at her for a minute then put my head down, still hoping I might see her inside.

Tucker revealed a bottle of Tito's that was about halfway empty. “We have to finish this. I can't bring it inside.”

“Oh no way, man. I hate vodka.” I was serious, but we proceeded to finish the bottle in huge, sickening swigs anyway. On the way to the entrance, I saw the guy who I knew that was playing, and we talked a while, then finally went in.

The front door opened into a small foyer that was completely black inside, nothing visible but strobes coming from a doorway across the room, and I followed Tucker through. The club was small and rectangular with the DJ setup on the left hand side, large subwoofers on the right, and the bar at the far end. We made our way through the crowd to go get some beers. I guess the vodka still wasn't enough because I was ready for more, not even considering how much I drank throughout the day.

On the dance floor, everything came together. I hadn't felt that good in a long time, and I was drunk enough to not give a fuck and just dance. It was great. There was a fog machine that released huge thick clouds every so often, and in those moments, you couldn't see anything but the lasers in front of you. You couldn't even see the people next to you. You just felt the pounding kick drums from the subs behind you. I was sipping my can of beer in one hand, never stopping dancing, and I could see Tucker jumping around like a maniac. It struck me as funny because I wasn't sure he would even be into it, and here he was having more fun than the dickheads that looked like they came here all the time. A few times, I lost my balance, but when I fell back I was caught by these black leather couches lining the wall. I didn't even realize they were there. The very first time I collapsed and fell right into the empty seat. It happened a couple more times, the safety net I needed. I'd sit for a minute, look around the room to get a sense of what the fuck was happening, and that moment was all I needed to get back up and go again. I could see that Tucker was having the time of his life. What had we gotten ourselves into?

I saw a skinny guy in the corner wearing a bucket hat and a massive long-sleeved t-shirt and tight pants, just dancing alone, clearly tripping because he was also having a full conversation, but he wasn't talking to anyone. He was just yelling over the music and bouncing around. As the room started to crowd up, he just kept dancing in between everyone. I saw him pull a flip phone out of his pocket and answer a call, all while jumping up and down in between crowds of people who were obviously together. He didn't give a fuck. At one point the strobes exposed the details of his face to reveal a massive scar across his jawline and huge, dilated pupils set into white contacts. All this was exhausting, so I made my way back to the bar, got another Holy Roller, this local IPA, and I rolled my holy ass back to the dance floor. I felt amazing. I danced like this alone in my room but never in public, and I was actually proud of myself for not caring.

It was around this point that I realized all those pretty girls I had seen enter the club before weren't anywhere to be found. How could they vanish like that? The club was small enough that you could keep track of who was coming and going, and there weren't very many people in there to begin with. I didn't even see them when I walked in, so my chance at talking to that girl was fucked. Tucker brought it up to me too. He was like, “There must be something we don't know.” He was right again, and that's when shit got funny.

Hector showed up, and I heard Tucker asking him, “So where's the blow?”

“You said you had it!” He did, but that was the joke. Hector was the way to it. When they were on the phone earlier, I heard Tucker tell him he had blow and wanted him to come out, then he turned to me and whispered that Hector could always find it.

Then Tucker grabbed me, “Rosa's here!” We just started laughing. Rosa was Winona's sister. After all that shit we were talking about earlier, Winona's fucking sister is just in the same place as us. Why would that even happen?

And sure enough, I was following Hector, Tucker, Rosa, and her friend that I didn't recognize to the stock room of the club because the blow had at some point materialized.

Rosa was to my left, and when she leaned against me, she got a little bit of lipstick on my white shirt and I pretended to be mad.

The last time I saw her was devastating. I tried to push it out of my mind, but it resurfaced seeing her again. I was out one night at this vaguely gay karaoke spot, so fucked, already gone too deep. A friend showed up at random with her, and around 2 am the group I came with was going home, so he invited me to go back to Rosa's house with them and smoke some weed. I didn't want to, but I went with them. At the time, Rosa was sharing an apartment with Winona, who was out of town with the fucker that needed to be punished, after I had already cut contact with her, so at least that problem was out of the way. We sat in the living room, passing around this weed that I didn't even want to smoke. I was maxed out and I kept going. Like clockwork, this intense, horrible anxiety came on as soon as I got high. Smoking weed in social situations makes me want to kill myself, especially when I'm so drunk. Then I had to take a shit. Rosa was in the kitchen, so I'm not sure if she heard me, but I stood up and said, “I have to take a huge shit.” I went into the bathroom and released a sloppy mess into this poor girl's toilet. I felt ashamed, so I just walked out. My friend had driven me there, but I wasn't thinking about that at all. I started walking down the street, then I started running, and I couldn't stop. I turned some corners and just kept going. I realized I didn't even know where I was. She lived in a shitty neighborhood in a part of the city I'm not familiar with, and to this day I have no idea where I was. My friend started calling me, asking me if I was okay, and I lied. I told him I was on my way back, that I thought I was going to throw up and went outside. That part was true, but I didn't throw up. I was just walking. I tried to retrace my steps. I had no idea where I was or where I was going and I couldn't even remember which way I came from. Somehow I made it back. I saw my friend's car. I still didn't know which house it was, but I guess my subconscious saved me that night. I picked a door and went in. I went up the stairs and sat down on the couch like nothing happened. I could tell they were concerned but it didn't matter now.

Anyway, I was leaning against some stacked cases of beer in the stock room, and for some reason, I slipped my hand in, grabbed a can, and stuck it in my pocket. I hated stealing, especially from a place I liked and respected. Stealing was shitty, especially when I was buying beer from the bar to begin with. I was being sucked into something else, another dimension, sinking deeper. I watched these fucking scoundrels arrange their lines of Caucasia on a cardboard box. I shook my head at the offer, as I always had when blow was presented. The look in their eyes made me think of the old Disney characters from the '90s. You know Walt Disney was fucking miserable by the way he drew those eyes. I had never done blow before and wasn't very interested in trying it, but when Rosa leaned right up against me, holding a key up to my left nostril with a little bump, I couldn't help but snort deep. Jesus fuck. I started thinking maybe we should have been professional fisherman in Alaska, catching salmon, fighting salmon on the open water. I liked the idea of being out on a boat with nothing but cigarettes and bottles of liquor, me and the boys, battling. The taste in the back of my throat brought on a sense of regret, excitement, and self hatred. I was engulfed now, and it didn't matter. I thought of the tall, dark skinned girl with her curly hair pulled back and the way the light reflected off her glasses, the way her sweater and high waisted jeans and boots seemed to be painted onto her slender figure, and I buried my face in my hands again.

I followed the pirates, our pitiful, happenstance crew, through the club. We sailed through the night, red and purple and green and blue strobes flashing through thick clouds of sweet smelling fog from the machine I couldn't seem to locate.

At some point someone handed me a tall can of Guinness and it was only then that I realized I stole a beer from inside. I didn't even like to steal. I held both cans in front of me, staring at them, trying to make sense of everything. I couldn't. Then things got serious. Tucker had this wild look in his eyes like he saw a ghost. He said he wanted to talk to Rosa about cutting ties. From what we had talked about earlier, it was clear that he had been thinking that the only way for Winona to move on was to distance himself entirely. He told her he knew he probably would never see her again and he said she seemed to understand. He came back, explained what they talked about, and we decided to head to another bar.

We walked to Hector's car, then he started driving us to our next destination. We parked up and started walking to the bar. Two guys stopped us, saying we seemed 'cool,' but I know we fucking didn't, and we were all blackout drunk. One guy kept asking us if we fucked with 'the boy,' and I didn't know what the hell that meant, but Tucker did. He had a serious look, saying, “No, no, we don't fuck with the Boy.” The context of their conversation made me realize that the Boy was heroin, but these two guys were persistent anyway. We probably did look like dope heads, but we were just three idiots.

“How do you feel about putting people on that shit? Does it ever bother you?” Tucker asked, interested in opening a genuine dialogue about the situation we were in.

His rationale was completely fucked. He literally just said, “Hey, I take care of my people, man.” His fat friend disappeared into a bar at some point and returned with a white styrofoam go-box filled with food: a messy hot dog, chips, etc. He was just diving in while they tried to sell us any drugs we'd buy. Something about that was hilarious to me, but it was disgusting too. For some reason I took the guy's number, and he nudged me to give me something. He did it again, and I realized I had two bags in my pocket when we left. Tucker had one too. Drug guys always do that sampling shit. They don't care. They want you to come back, but I didn't even do these drugs, really. For all they knew I was a cop. I wasn't, though.

I clutched the bags tight in my pocket because there were cops everywhere. Shit, for all I knew, those fuckers were cops, and we were about to get slammed. Not me, though, I would run and dump this shit in a heartbeat. I don't care. I'd rather piss off a cop than get caught with drugs I didn't even want.

When we got far enough, Tucker made a good point. “Wait, let me see what he gave you. I bet one of those bags is brown.” It made sense, too. Why would he give me two bags anyway? Sure enough, I opened my palm, and showed them the two bags: one white, one brown. Tucker grabbed the brown one and threw it over a fence into this courtyard, and we just all started laughing. That's fucked. I guess I looked like the heroin addict. Or maybe whatever I said led that guy to believe I was down. Down to do whatever, down to try. I just liked agreeing with strangers on the street. I always thought that if real life was an RPG I'd have a really high speech skill. I'm not strong, and I'm probably not wise enough to do any magic. I'm a bitch, so I could probably sneak around, and I could talk my way out of anything. I knew that for sure. When the time came, I'd probably fucking run. I'd like to believe I'd fight. Everyone would like to believe that, but I've always known deep down that I would run. In medieval times I'd have to be an archer because I'm way too skinny to swing an axe. Maybe a sword and shield or something, but face to face combat was reserved for real men and I never felt like one. I'd be a bard, writing songs and gambling and trying to fuck a hard man's woman while he was at war and drinking wine, manipulating people into thinking I'm someone better. I wasn't, though.

After that, these two weirdos started following us. I think they wanted to sell us drugs too but they were a lot worse at it. They were just trying to make conversation. It was a guy and a woman who said they were just friends, which was a pointless lie, and they never overtly offered any drugs. The woman seemed pretty desperate. I kept telling the guy his dreads were really nice. He probably thought I was gay, but I was just drunk and thought it was funny to compliment him like that. He seemed aggravated with the woman, probably because she kept pursuing us, but it didn't matter. At one point we broke away from them, then they found us again. Maybe they were just trying to rob us, but it was really hard to tell.

As we approached the new location, an old building with a shitty interior and bad music and bad lighting, there she was. Rosa walked up with her little friend whose name I still didn't know, and Tucker seemed both shocked and defeated. How did she even get here? He kept asking who invited her, but I definitely didn't, so I knew it was Hector. It didn't matter, I guess, but it was weird as fuck. Our stay at this bar didn't last long because once Rosa and her little guy realized we had two more grams of blow, they changed their tune.

We made our away to this park and sat on these stone benches surrounding some plants, and the five of us were back at it. I said no again this time, but Rosa made sure I got my bump just like before. I tasted the taste again. I didn't regret it but I felt like a genuine asshole.

And just like that, we were off to Rosa's apartment. I worried a bit about how far I was getting away from my car, but it's not like I could drive anywhere at this point anyway. To be fair, neither could Hector. He just did it anyway.

My mind flashed back to the last time I had been where she lived, and I pushed it away. We went through the shotgun all the way to the back where the kitchen was and sat down. They started breaking up the rest of the blow on an old dirty decadent handheld mirror, singing songs I didn't know, and I was done now. I was really done. I was exhausted. I had experienced too much. My excitement was gone. Tucker took the words out of my mouth as he just openly said, “I'm fucking depressed.”

Rosa divided the blow into five lines, but I turned mine down, for real this time, and she didn't care one way or another anymore. She seemed to be in a bit of a bad mood. She wasn't wearing a bra, and I kept looking at her titties, her nipples through her shirt when she wasn't looking. She probably noticed, but I was too fucked up too tell one way or another. That instinct took me over. I kept looking at her legs, thinking I wanted to just grab a thigh and a tit and kiss her on the neck. That filled me with shame and I didn't speak much for the rest of the night.

Then I realized it wasn't night at all. It was somehow past 6 am. We left my house around 11, I think. What happened? How did it turn out like this?

We made our way back through the house, I looked at the bed in one of the rooms as I passed through, and I felt the heat of this old piece of shit fire starter in the first room. It felt great but I couldn't believe people used these without worrying it might all burn away at any second.

Hector drove Tucker back to his car, then drove me back to mine, and it was daytime now. The city was awake once again, the sun had come up, and I drove home pondering everything. I listened to Drake and thought about Tucker and Hector and Rosa and my shame and the techno. I wished I stayed longer and danced longer, but the darkness sucked me in like when you flush a nice, healthy shit. I had a text from one of my roommates asking if I went to jail and if I was okay and all this other shit. I didn't go to jail, so I lied and said I was fine. I pulled my car up onto the grass, next to a tree and went inside. Even my cats looked disappointed.

I collapsed and sunk into my bed once more, the finality of everything really setting in, now. I felt too much and I thought too little and I knew I wouldn't recover from this for a very long time.

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