Cole was woken up by the sound of his alarm blaring into his sleep, increasing his throbbing headache. He immediately slapped his alarm clock quiet as he tried to remember what had happened the previous night.
After his mother left to open the club, everything else had been a blur. He knew he took some coke, or as he called it, ‘pusher’, because it gave him the push he needed to help him write. But did he?
He leaned over to where his laptop had fallen on the ground and picked it up. He had written two short stories and had added a few pages to his novel.
His stories were not exactly Pulitzer worthy, those weren’t even his best, he had written better. But in recent times with the writer’s block he was facing, he was going to take what he could get. But in all honesty, he wasn’t disappointed in them either.
The ideas were amazing but his tenses, his grammar, everything about the writing had just been a mess. The work had been so unprofessional and untidy that it made him laugh. Cole had always been particular about his writing and everything involved, he never made mistakes like these.
He hadn’t heard his mother come in but he knew that she was already asleep in her room. At that instant, he remembered getting out of his room to make a sandwich because he had been starving but that was pretty much all that he remembered.
He quickly got up from his bed to check if he had locked his door when he re-entered his room. He had.
Without preamble, he quickly put away what was left of the bottle of vodka and cleared all evidence of illegal substance in his room.
After stashing the remaining ‘pusher’ under his seat, Cole took along warm shower before he was sure he looked like a normal human being again. Although, anything was better than the way he had looked when he woke up that morning.
He grabbed an apple from the fruit tray on the dining table as he left the house, the feeling that plagued him every morning took its toll on him…right on time too.
Every morning, he felt guilty. He knew he was better than what he was doing. So maybe writing was not for him, he had had good run with it but the race was finally over. It was just hard for him to accept that he was no longer in control.
He knew he wasn’t an addict or overdosing, he just took a little bit every night, enough to get fucked out of his mind but not to the point of stupidity. Some nights he only drank, no substance abuse got involved. He was pushing his creativity to the brink, besides, writers were notorious for their alcoholism and drug abuse, so in a way he was living up to expectations.
Cole shook his head as he walked the cold street to school. Why was he trying to justify his actions? It was meant to feel right and simple, not complicated and guilt-ridden.
“What’s up man?” a voice called from behind him.He spun around to see who it was. It was Sammy, his dealer.
“I’m good man, you?”
Sammy nodded as he walked up to him. “Just perfect.”
Sammy was average height and his hair was cut low. He had piercing brown eyes, that made him appear intense, and his physique was a bit lanky but not too lanky though. He wasn’t a bad looking fellow, some might have even considered him attractive and with the whole bad boy act as well, girls would have been going crazy if he weren’t gay.
Soon as Sammy reached him, they began to walk to school together. As they walked in silence, not the awkward kind, Cole thought about Sammy. Sammy was a dealer not a user. He was probably the smartest person Cole knew.
Sammy didn’t have the gay vibe, honestly, when Sammy came out…it was probably a shock. Well he couldn’t speak for other people, just himself. It was a shock to him.
