Worlds Apart

Chapter Eleven

My head had gone through all sorts of trials since I'd come to this desert town. So many that I wouldn't be able to count, especially right now.

At the moment it was exceptionally fuzzy.

And staring up at the endless starry night wasn't helping matters.

I still hadn't got used to the sight.

Yeah... definitely not helping matters.

Feeling the bottle being pressed against the back of my head, I had to shake myself slightly, reminding myself that I wasn't the only person underneath the never ending sky. Oh man, I was even more narcissistic when I was drunk. How was that even possible?

Taking the time to look at what I was doing because I didn't trust my instincts at the moment, I gripped the thick bottle with my tingling hand. It was hard enough to handle a bottle that was this shape at regular times, who on earth thought it was a good idea to make gin container like this? It simply was not practical.

However as I did that, I found my gaze distracted again at the sight of the long legs stretched out along the dusty desert ground beside me. And I followed the gaze up to where he was lying back, propped up by his elbows. I traced my eyes over the Bob Dylan shirt and dark leather jacket that was so beat up in places that it was turning grey instead of black and had to have a bandana tied around the elbow to hide the hole. I continued looking upwards until I was faced with Cam under the night sky again, his eyebrows furrowed in thought as he stared out across the barren landscape with the star and moonlight making him once again seem like an illusion, all darkness and light in the same person.

I still hadn't gotten used to that sight either.

Since I had been passed the bottle of gin, I knew it was his turn to ask a question, so I took full advantage and drowned my thoughts with a gulp, looking away. "We should have got cups again," I observed thoughtfully as I wiped my mouth.

Had I been sober, I would have realized that since I no longer made a face or disgusted sound when I drank the gin straight that it was probably time to stop.

Then again, there was a reason I wasn't sober.

"Cups are for the weak, darling," he observed. I could feel his eyes burning into the side of my face, but I didn't look back at him, scared that my drunken mind would be easily entranced. "Why did you leave school?"

Chewing on the side of my mouth, I considered his question, though not for long. "The band wanted to tour outside our state, and I'd already been missing days on end to travel all around the state to gigs as it was. There wasn't really that much of a choice, at least not for me, I knew what I wanted. I hated high school, all the kids there hated me, I hated the teachers, hated that atmosphere, but I loved my band."

Giving a sarcastic little laugh, I rubbed my hand over my face, forgetting about my earlier convictions and looked at him. "My mother was so angry with me when I told her," I remembered, "She said if I dropped out of high school I had no home with her. So that night I packed some clothes, my guitars and my equipment and went to Lizzy's where she lived with her parents. They were wonderful people, a little bit out there – they'd lived on a hippy commune when she was younger – but they put me up for month until we left."

"When did you get back in touch with your mum?" he asked, his dark eyes searching my face.

"It took a year, but she finally understood that I didn't want to live any other way. We played a show in Detroit and she came to see us, the first time she'd ever bothered watching. She didn't like it, in fact she still thinks I should finish high school, but she deals with it."