Alice is drowning, but it's not something she likes to admit, even to herself. She's stuck in a whirlwind of bad habits and bad influences. But on the night of a crazy outing, she meets Erik, who teaches her a little something about the meaning of l...
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The granite cement vibrates with beats underneath my bare feet, and my toes shrivel in a desperate search for warmth. I've been out here for a while now, sipping on my lukewarm beer and snorting lines of coke whenever I found enough stability to cut another line.
It wasn't particularly nice out, in fact, it was a chilly night and I was shivering in my let-it-all-hang-out getup. I don't know why I'm out here, but it was the only place I could find that let me think clearly without people breathing down my neck and grabbing at my ass. I don't know why I'm here to begin with. I should've never come. I take another whisk of my beer, finishing it off with a single gulp, but it's not nearly enough to get me through the rest of the night.
So, I sit up and pour the white powder onto the glass table from the mini ziplock bag, preparing myself to take an even bigger hit than before. I needed it.
The crickets chirp like a chorus in this stranger's backyard, and the music continues to blare wildly from within the home. I would've made my way home by now, but honestly, I don't even know where I am. But, I didn't care, as long as I could forget about everything up until this moment. So I begin slicing up the powder, doing my best to work my way through it and do it right. London usually always did it for me. He pestered me about my unsteady hand and persistent clumsiness—an easy scapegoat after he's lost his temper.
"You're doing it all wrong." A voice disrupts my intense concentration and I whip my head to the side to see a dark, bulky figure hiding in the shadows. He brings a little orange flame to his invisible lips, it flickers, and then smoke billows into the air. I stare, intrigued, waiting for the man to display his face within the moonlight, but he stays put, taking another hit drastically slow.
"And you are?" I ask impatiently, craning my neck to see if I could recognize anything about him, but it was too dark to depict any features. "Well, since you asked so nicely," he sarcastically remarks, then takes an elegant step out of the shadows, a blunt still lathered between his pink lips, "Erik." He does a limp bow with a wide smirk, then saunters his way over to me, plopping himself uninvitedly into the lawn chair across from me. He then tugs the Target gift card from my hand that I'd been using and perfectly distributes a line for him and myself.
"Cheers," he grins then bends over, snorting the whole line in one swift inhale. Talk about real skill. He runs his finger under his nose in an attempt to clear the white dust but instead just smears it, and I giggle, staring at him with innocent doe-eyes. I didn't know him, but I felt strangely interested in the new confrontation. Or maybe that was just the drugs and alcohol talking. Either way, this was an attractive man giving me attention, and I was reveling in it. "Come on," he encourages lightly, "your turn."
I take the cue and plug one nostril with my finger, then snort the line skillfully, trying my best to impress. When I'm finished, I wipe the excess from underneath my nose and impatiently stare at Erik for approval. He nods with a slim smile, another drag being taken before holding the pearled blunt to me, "now this." No problem. I retrieve the blunt from his thick cuticles and then bring it to my lips, inhaling deeply. When I exhale, my throat quenches and I splutter with coughs, holding my chest. Erik laughs and plucks the blunt from my fingers, taking a drag like it's merely oxygen. I continue to cough until I get it out of my system, then curiously gaze at the relaxed man before me, "that stuffs really strong. Where'd you get it?" I wanted to know because I had to get myself a stash full of that. My lungs burned, but it felt just right. That was what I needed for the long night ahead of me.
Erik throws me a sly smile and puts his pointer finger to his lips, whispering tauntingly, "it's a secret." He takes another long drag and then disposes of the thick smoke in clouds of rings, leaning back comfortably in his chair. If only I could be that relaxed and careless. I dreamed to be. While other people had goals to be millionaires or own their own companies, I just wanted to be happy with my state of mind. I guess drugs weren't the most effective approach, but it was all I had.
I examine the peculiar man carefully, admiring the little things other people probably didn't notice - like the vein that pulsed on his neck whenever he took a hit. Or the tiny scar on his right cheek. His long lashes closed in bliss as he tilted his head back, held the blunt between his teeth, and hummed. And when he raised his right hand to remove the blunt from his lips, I spotted a tattoo on his ring finger. The letter 'K' with a diamond right below it and I recognized the font, "King? King of Diamonds?"
"King of everything, sweetheart," he intervenes, correcting me, and dragging my attention back to his daunting eyes. I nod numbly, sucking in my bottom lip uncertainly. Should I really be sitting in an abandoned backyard with a complete stranger —who is delusional and thinks he's some kind of King—and be snorting lines and hitting a joint with him? No. But here I stay.
The crickets still chirp and music still rumbles, like a never-ending loop becoming my derogative lullaby. It was insanely calming. I close my eyes and lean back, breathing in the toxic scent of chlorine, pot, freshly mowed grass, and a hint of cologne drifting from the man beside me; and the unsettling combination of it all oddly doesn't make me puke. It was a mix of pure euphoria that I was letting take over my system. "Alright, sweetheart," a chair squeaks and Erik stands in front of me, blowing the smoke from his plump lips into the night air, "time for me to get back in there. See you round."
He leaves, but not before I get one last hit from his magnificent joint. I let the smoke soil my lungs completely before I let it loose, savoring it. Erik is gone. Lost in the crowd of rowdy, desperate teens who are looking to find themselves in all the wrong places, but who was I to talk, I'm just like them. A lost soul looking for a reason to keep on keeping on. But I'd found that thing, and I lost it tonight. It escaped my pleading fingertips and now I was left with nothing but my broken heart and another line of coke.
