It burns within them

4.

Xavier

Music surrounds me, the noise thrumming against the house so loudly I can't hear myself think, people surround me, some dancing upon each other, others consuming alcohol, some doing drugs, but all I focus on is her.

I don't know what it is, but she intrigues me. Yes I haven't known her long but since I seen her walking home that day in the rain, In a black oversized hoodie instead of getting bus or taking a car, and just sipping alcohol like no one else existed, I was intrigued.

I think mostly because she disliked my company, that one was pretty obvious.

I watch her now, not even enjoying the party. She sits there at the back with alcohol in a red solo cup, whilst some fucking idiot soccer playing lays out white powder against the glass table for her. I want to go over them and punch him, but Why would I make a scene and for what a girl I just met? Yeah not a fucking chance.

But she is about to do cocaine. A drug so addictive that when your caught up in the high, sometimes it's so hard to get back below.

She looks out of her mind fucking bored, but I watch the way her dark blue eyes brighten when he lays out the cocaine, her tight black body-con dress clinging to her body like it was made for her, a piece of loose black hair fails in front of her eyes before she lowers and she tucks it beneath her ear.

Some random boy near her gives her a random rolled up tightly dollar bill, she takes it off him and positions it over the white substance before she lowers her face onto the table and snorts the white substance up her nose. I didn't realise I was staring so hard until a hand claps on my shoulder and I break out of my daze.

"Hey new kid, who you staring at." this boy named Jack asks, he seems like a nice person, in a few of my classes, he is part of the soccer team as-well, but he isn't like the other douchebags I have encountered so far.

With his curly hair, and brown skin, and freckles littered across his nose, but what suits him the most is his curls they aren't your usual brown or black. They are a subtle ginger colour.

I don't answer him and instead take a sip of punch from my cup, whilst scanning the party, but it seems like I wasn't fast enough, as Jack caught notice of who I was staring at.

"You were eyeing Astrella Fawn Lara. Yeah Good-luck bro." he chuckles whilst taking a sip of his punch.

I narrow my eyes at him and mutter over the Loud music, "What do you mean? Goodluck?"

He chuckles, "That girl is trouble, and a block of ice you won't be able to get through. She used to be the happy girl as-well, always smiling, now she is almost always sad," he says almost in a daze, "sad about what happened though."

I narrow my eyes at him and furrow my brows whilst I tower over him with my 6'3 frame.

"what happe-", I don't even get to finish my sentence when there is people cheering. Me and Jack turn our heads and look over to the direction where the hollers are and begin to walk closer to the Loud bangs of laughter, and what I see shocks me.

It's Astrella snorting more cocaine up her nose like it's water, she then grabs a random flask from the other table, and downs a bottle of whiskey. I feel my fists start to ball when everyone cheers her louder, this is wrong, so fucking wrong.

She doesn't even pay attention to the laughter and cheers hollering her on, it's like she is stuck in her own mind, not paying attention to her surroundings, acting like she doesn't care, but she does I know she fucking does.

When she had a panic attack in my arms, I could tell it was her first one, I'm not stupid I could tell after connecting the dots that the car triggered it. I don't know what triggered her but I took note of how she gripped on to the seat and held her chest like she was on the verge of dying.

But that's what people don't know, it does feel like your on the verge of dying, it will pull you down so far you can't get back up, and when it does pull you down it doesn't let you go, it will hold you under until you fall again, until sweat and fear claw at your insides until the time passes, but the panic will remain.

That's the thing with panic attacks, some people let it consume whilst others pretend it did not even happen, Astrella was both. She let it consume her, she showed me her pain for a split second when she broke in my arms, but then straight after she flipped a switch and walked away like it never happened.

but watching her now and the way she consumes alcohol, nicotine and cigarettes, like it's normal to her and it's all she knows.

I now know what I have to do.