Artgirl

to fall (again): 17// smoke in the air

artgirl 17: smoke in the air 

"'Cause love ain't never been so close, but so far away. It's like my mind is telling me to just back off. And my heart says just stay." –Kehlani

Zoey Willow Hunter

        "ONE MORE!" shouted a voice that could've belonged to me. I chugged down the shot being offered to me without a single doubt in mind. It turned out that an hour after going to a club, drinking with my left hand was no problem at all.

In fact, at this very moment, I didn't have many problems, aside from perhaps more alcohol in my system than I'd had in the past year or so. My right hand felt numb, as if it didn't even belong to me anymore. I didn't feel like I belonged to me anymore.

I'd forgotten how tequila felt. It remembered me very well, though, because it had settled into my body as quickly as I started laughing like an idiot. My mind was buzzing. With thoughts of the constant hum of a beat that was playing, because the songs seemed to have merged together into one.

Boom.

One spot on the dance floor wasn't occupied by sweaty bodies. I'd made myself familiar with the never-ending song by now, so I'd decided that hopping all the way over there was the best idea. Somehow, I lost control of my feet—as if I'd been walking on clouds.

Then, I bounced up into the air, due to a trampoline-like body of—well, a considerably handsome guy. "Sorry!" I said, but he winced. He laughed and shook his head. Was his hair longer than mine?

He said something, but the beat drop had happened at the same time. I screamed at him to repeat, and all I understood was "I'm Derek, dance!"

So, I grabbed his hand and dragged him along with me to jump up and down to perhaps the stupidest song in the world. Maybe the alcohol blurred its lines to me, but no matter what could happen in the next minutes, I didn't care. That song was the prettiest melody in the world to me.

Derek, who portrayed the epitome of dark, mysterious and with hair that looked softer than satin pillows, was a good dancer. He wasn't as gone as I was, but the glint of alcohol in his eyes was enough to fill him up with zeal. I was very much aware of the fact that he'd probably try to kiss me later on tonight, because boys that looked like him didn't talk to girls like me for no reason.

Oh, but if only he knew. Boys like him didn't have the time to know all about me. I was a walking, talking mess. He didn't need to know that I'd spent the past week staring at an empty canvas and broken brushes. He also didn't need to know that I'd watched around five hour-long documentaries and movies about people with life-changing injuries, watched them sob about losing their soul and rekindling their love for life in a different way. He didn't need to know that I'd only showered once this week, right before going out. He didn't need to know that up until now, the shape of my body was molded into the couch.

All he needed to know was that I was here.

He held my waist like it was nothing at all, and pulled me close at the end of the song. Too close, I could count his eyelashes. They were longer than mine. Maybe I could count the little cracks in his lips, but as they got closer, my vision got hazier.

For a second there, I slipped into reality. As I ended up falling on the floor, Derek took my wounded hand to help me up. I squealed but it got drowned into the song and I, for the first time in weeks, took care of my hand by pulling it out of his grasp, maybe too harshly. The alcohol in my veins fogged the pain, but I was so used to associating that part of my body with pain that my entire arm was stinging.

"What the hell—" he said, and I sat there on the dance floor, clutching my hand.

I tried to get up, but there was nothing around me to help me up. The only leverage I had was people's clothes all around me, but I wasn't too sure of where any of them had been. I pushed myself off the floor with one hand and staggered over to the bar.