Songbird

Blood in My Mouth

You know that feeling? The one where the entire world slows down all at once? Your heart basically stops, and all of the attention is on you all of a sudden? It's like coughing up blood. You're choking and drowning in your own shame, but it just keeps coming. It's a gross feeling, really, I hated it. I know I asked for this, but I ask for a lot of things that I regret later on.

Maybe my bullshit friends have a point. I just couldn't see it then.

Whatever.

We were sitting in Viv's living room, scattered across couches, chairs, and carpets. Her dad was standing in front of the TV, facing us, listing off everything we needed to clean before his party this weekend. We went to more parties than a coked-up prostitute, and now Dave was throwing one.

Dave was a tall, bald white man, with a white wife beater covered in beer stains, a stark contrast to his daughter, who was 5 foot 2, had beautiful red dyed hair, and was "as Spanish as Speedy Gonzalez," as Ziggy would say. Her mom was Mexican. There were photos hanging around her house of her, Dave, and her mother, but I'd never met her. She died when Viv was a baby. Another contrast between her and her father was his "functional" alcoholism. He always had a beer in his hand, whereas Viv always had some coke dust somewhere on her clothes.

He listed off everything we had to clean. "And if you get all of that done, I'll give you kids drinks at my party," He finished. We all cheered, Scarlett laughed. She doesn't drink, despite knowing her parents would never find out if she did. "As long as you don't tell your parents."

"Oh, I'm calling my mom right now!" Alex joked. Dave chuckled at his comment before clapping his hands twice. We had basically been Pavlov'd by him to stand up whenever he did that. It was funny, really. "And make sure you hide all of the bills and shit in a drawer," He added. "The people don't need to know we're in poverty over here!" We all laughed. He shooed us away and we got to work.

I was feeling a bit sick. Mainly just lightheaded. It had been four days since I'd had anything, and I was really struggling with it. Just one more. As everyone cleaned, I grabbed my bag and rushed off to the bathroom. I had almost made it when Viv grabbed my arm. "I'll be quick," I said.

"Where are you going?" She asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"The bathroom?" I answered, somewhat in the form of a question, hopefully to convince her I wasn't doing anything wrong.

"Not with that." She snatched my bag out of my hand and threw it to Ziggy, who held it above his head so that I couldn't reach.

"C'mon, ViVi, I need that!" I begged, embarrassingly jumping up to try to grab it out of Ziggy's hand.

"There isn't a single fucking thing in that bag that you would need that I don't have," She quipped, crossing her arms. Ziggy did that, too, when he was trying to be stern.

"Ziggy, gimme my fucking bag back."

"Pads and shit are in the bathroom?" Ziggy stared at me with hooded eyes, obviously high. He usually was, though. He stopped doing coke every day and started smoking three bowls an hour. "If you need anything else out of this back you need to fucking stop."

I stood there silently. Everybody else was silent, too. It was embarrassing. "Just one more, please," I begged, finally giving in and admitting it.

"You asked us to help," Alex said, "So we're helping you. Okay? No turning back now, we're helping whether you like it or not."

I groaned and rolled my eyes, throwing my hands up in defeat. "Fuck you guys."

"You'll thank us in three months, by the way," Ziggy laughed, tucking my bag into the deep pockets of his corduroys.