Glorified high ✓

V

I loved my life in the big city, vibrant, rejuvenating, friendly. It was full of the unknown, still, after half a year living there, I was continuously discovering new places, new streets to wander. I loved that strangers didn't know my name, and would never care to know it. I loved that I could make a fool out of myself once in a while - fall down drunk, get into a bar fight, fuck a girl I don't know, without the threat of gossip that a small town would imminently bring.

What I loved most about my life in the city was you.

We spend all the time together, retreating into our own world from which others were excluded. I had to find a part-time job to support my growing use of mood enhancers and regular weekend escapades and I still managed to go to some classes at the University, although less and less. But apart from that you were the person I gravitated towards, you were that sun in the center of the galaxy and I was the tiny Earth that orbited around you. Not in the way that I followed you like a puppy and wanted your attention, it was rather opposite, but in a way that I just loved your presence and how it made me feel, that codependency that somehow happened overnight, that feeling of having a best friend that understands your moods without saying the words. You could give me comfort without actually doing anything, with just being. You often seemed like the world's best-kept secret that everyone wanted to know but somehow you chose me to be the one to discover it.

And I liked to think then that I knew the real you. I generally pride myself in being a good judge of character and I don't trust people straight away. I was wary of a lot of people I met in those times, especially in an environment where drugs and alcohol were the number one focus. Sometimes I would hear stories about you, mentions of your name in a strange context and it would make me wonder. Do I really know you? You never spoke much about your family, but neither did I. There was nothing to tell, they were quite boring and so was my life before. Plus, being those typical guys, you and I never really went too deep in conversation about serious topics. The only thing you said about your parents is that they lived in the rich part of town and that some families are happier being apart. I knew they bought you that apartment you lived in that was only a ten-minute walk from the university and a quick bus drive from my place. I knew they rarely called you and when they did, you never picked up.

So knowing little about your past didn't bother me much after all because I got your present. I've gotten to learn that you regularly visit a local candy shop and what flavours you choose in your pick'n'mix or the fact that you can fall asleep literally anywhere in any position when tired. I've gotten to know that you always wanted to own a cat and name it Bob Marley and that you're allergic to kiwi. I've gotten to see the traces of sorrow I sometimes caught in your gaze or secret kindness you showed to strangers that needed help. I've gotten to see how you flirt with pretty girls that rarely refused your advances and I've gotten to see you sad and depressed when after a few days of hard partying your endorphins were all used up and your brain needed time to retrieve all those good chemicals that were spent.

I never regretted taking that poison for the first time. It brought me closer to you. Even though you were often high it wasn't you who made me take the drugs, the only time you actually asked me to take them was that day I met you. But it was kind of inevitable and expected that I would cave in. My first time snorting cocaine wasn't even with you, I was just at my apartment and my roommate was getting ready for an exam that he needed to study for the whole night and that was his way of staying awake. Coinsedaly I was in the same problem, just finished a double shift at the greasy restaurant where I washed dishes for petty cash, and failing exams one after the other, I had to pass that upcoming exam and I only had one night. So I took it. The sweet nasal burn hit me just right and I felt fucking good after it. Omnipotent. I studied and I passed and at the next party, I took a line again.

You haven't said a word after you saw me with a rolled paper snorting it amateurishly in the small toilet stall of a club with two other friends of ours. Your sinister eyes gazed all over my face as you ignored the conversation that was going on. When we all took our turn and started leaving the facilities that rarely anyone there used for their primary purpose you grabbed my arm and pulled me back inside, letting the other two leave. You were still quiet, I got to learn that you did that when you had a million thoughts running in your head.

I waited and waited, you looked at my mouth and in one millisecond a scary, unholy, thought raced through my brain, but it went away as quickly as it came as you swiped your thumb over the skin under my nose where the excess powder remained. I swallowed hard, the way your finger brushed my upper lip made my skin crawl. I put that down to cocaine that just began the journey through my bloodstream. Much later I would find out that it wasn't just cocaine. Or was it?

Maybe that's the saddest truth? At times I wasn't sure with you where the line between real and artificially induced feelings was. Like the drugs made me feel the music and the music made me want to do more drugs. Was that the case with you? It's scientifically proven that ecstasy really does unleash a love hormone - is that what made me fall for you?

We went back into the crowd. You grabbed my chin in a possessive kind of way, firm and persuasive, and wordlessly without breaking the eye contact slipped a finger in my mouth. I let you. As you discreetly put a pill on my tongue and then swallowed one yourself, I knew I was done for. I wanted it. All of it.

Your brow arched - a silent question if that's what I wanted. You weren't smiling but your mouth held promises. I could see that in every solemn line and curve of your lips - if I was going to take drugs you would make sure I got the full experience - that skin melting, skin tickling high that demolishes every worry in my life leaving me no choice but to accept the fact that I would never be happier then at that moment. The floating feeling felt so good. Drifting, tripping out, feeling so fuzzy and good, enjoying the shade of light, thinking in a new way. All my insecurities just dissolved away in the cloud of goodness and euphoria. And as multicoloured lights caressed our faces we were floating in psychedelic space, together, connected by music.

When you looked at me I smiled. You smiled back. Our eyes sparkled in recognition of each other's highs, of reality what we'll become and I knew then that you and I are made from the same star - our souls knew each other since the beginning of the universe.