When we know what to do in new situations, it's time to admit to ourselves how old we have become.
It was all new to her, and old at the same time, worn out as if she had witnessed a moment more than once. Which was not far from the truth with a few modifications. The music roared, people moving in pools of color that formed on the floor under splashes of neon lights from the ceiling. Everything was chaotic, mixed, in motion. Even the drink in the glass echoed with tremors along her fist, tightly wrapped around the crystal. She could see lips talking, trying to get her attention, but she could only make out their movements, not the tone. Her eardrums vibrated from the rhythm of the sound that permeated every creature that found itself in the disco tonight.
She drank the liquid to the last drop, then left glass on empty table, moving through the pile of bodies. A few weeks ago on the amount she had ingested, she would already be intoxicated and would not know where she was going. But, she learned, it's easy to learn the bad. Like an ugly gift wrapped in a ribbon with a bow on top. It is hard to resist it, and it is not polite to show displeasure to the one who gives the gift. But is there such a thing as ugly gift?
The girl with the painful expression on her face hung over her shoulder to rest as she walked past her. She starts to wince, but instead of a sudden movement, takes a hard breath. There was no air, the heat began to choke her, but she still wrapped her arm around the girl's arm, other around the girl's hip. The last thing she would want is for the poor thing to fall at her feet. Everyone would talk about it for days. Although outwardly friendly smiling, stiffness caused by the proximity of the stranger did not leave her.
"I got you." She whispered, knowing the girl wouldn't hear her.
"Don't worry, I won't hurt you. Just to take off these shoes. They are killing me. "
They say that drunk people feel more strongly about other people's mood swings, and that this is one of the reasons that leads to an outburst of sincerity with which they scatter around while in that state. Her usual sinking into that delirium was shrouded in oblivion that made her never know if the rumor had anything to do with the truth. The girl was showing symptoms of a rumor, which made her even more uncomfortable. She tries to relax but the heat makes it impossible for her well-drunk body and mind. There were times when she would fight but tonight she has no strength and neither sees the need to look for energy she will not find.
For a moment the girl disappeared from view in the dark, and she already thought she could breathe, but she felt someone's mane on the leaf, dragging itself along the denim of her trousers. "There it is. I'm free. "
An unknown girl stood up, waving her high-heeled shoes hanging from her fingers.
"Can you go on your own?" She asked. She probably hadn't even heard her, and even if she had, alcohol had ruined her entire memory. She received a kiss on the cheek with the greetings "see you! enjoy!" and leaning to the side under the weight of the girl when she pulled her in hug. She disappeared into the electrified crowd without saying her name. She wipes both the lipstick and the kiss from her skin, doubting whether she should have said goodbye or not.
She was overwhelmed by a sudden rush of panic. She pushed her body through shoulders, looking for a way out, but from the torsos rising above her tiny figure, she didn't get a chance to see anything. The air is too thick, unknown faces surrounded her, she squeezed. She is surrounded, there is no way out, she can't find him. She can't call anyone, call on her cell phone because it's too loud and no one would hear her calls for help. She felt a rush of blood in her face, hair sticking to neck. Y/N clenched her fists, closed her eyes, and began to count.
1 ...... inhale.
2... ..exhale.
3... ..repeat.
4 ...... inhale
5 ..................The swirl is interrupted by a crack of glass that shattered somewhere, causing a deep giggle to break.
Through the shadows of helplessness that paralyzed her, a familiar face emerged, and she grabbed onto the last straw of salvation. She's saved! She better hurry while he's still there!
She sneaks under someone's arm, not having time to get around boulder, always much bigger than her. The lights made it even harder to move, but she felt she was close. At the other end of the room, two people blocked her way, their backs turned. She tries to get around them several times, climbing on her toes to catch the source of the murmur from which the fracture originated."I'm sorry."
She finally pushed her way to the desired destination, leaving emotionless faces behind. Had she acted a little more violently she would probably have caused an argument and a fight. And she didn't want that. Intoxicated minds are unpredictable. They are like a match that will ignite at any moment at any stimulus.Reach for the counter in the crack created by moving the man to the side. She took it before the character decided to return, not wasting a moment to catch her breath, she began to speak, which in the noise was more reminiscent of howling.
"Hey you! There you are! "She approached him to draw his attention to herself, but he had already turned his head, he had already noticed her. For a few moments he just stares at her in wonder.
"Oh, look who showed up." He growled furiously, visibly drunk. His eyes flashed in the dim light, his pupils absent and empty. She wasn't sure he recognized her at all.
"I'm going home. Do you want me to take you? "She didn't prepare for the possibility that he was in such a deprived state, but she knew what she had to do. She won't leave him. Although they know each other, they weren't exactly friends. More a kind of wanderers who often find themselves in the same place at the same time.
"You look really good tonight." Now her attention is drawn to the drunken flirtation of the character in front of her who leaned over and whispered the words in her ear. He was still watching her as he took a sip from glass, not counting any more, but the waiter was counting, who was already pouring him the next one, grinning at the amount the man would have to pay. The only luck in the accident was in the fact that this was an organized party to which they were both invited so that each of their drinks was or will be paid for from the pocket of the organizers.
Y/N covered the rim of the glass with palm. "He's had enough." She didn't have the strength to give in, much less to argue. With the sharpness that remained, the waiter nodded in understanding. Tonight everyone lacked energy. The real ones, not artificially acquired by alcohol. But sometimes that is the only other thing left for those who do not get drunk out of leisure but out of sheer necessity.
"Let's go home Kit. Come on. That's enough." She won't give up. She has to get him out of here. She can't go on the road alone.
After much persuasion, they managed to find a way out and stagger out onto the recently defrosted asphalt, which glistened under the parking lights. It looked like a floor, black, thick, scattered with bits of shiny pebbles, and the smallest of them fell into cracks in the concrete from which no one would be able to pull them out because they would melt with the first rays of dawn.
The coldness of the steering wheel on which she leaned her head was a welcome refreshment. It cooled her forehead veins and penetrated its tongue through the thin skin to her skull. It was always her favorite part of going out late at night. The coldness of the seats, the foggy, cold windows, the coldness of the car we all experienced when we left them in the outdoor parking lot in the middle of the night. Relief from the boiling blood still fueled by the deafening atmosphere they had left. It was as if her blood flow eased, diluted, and everything else stopped. If only she could stay and live in a world where everything is still. Not for long. Just for a few days, weeks. Until the thoughts are cleared and the body and soul and brain agree on how to proceed.
"You shouldn't drive."
She almost forgot about her companion. His voice on the passenger seat was the only warmth in the car. She watched him as he began rummaging through the cabinets in search of candy. They are both like children. She with her head on the steering wheel, and he crooked in the seat, relentlessly looking for a box he won't find, but which he won't stop looking for until his eyes fall on something that will distract him from the candy to some other little thing.
She threw them away or ate them. Thomas didn't dare ride with her, but the candies of the candied fruit were quite safe for him. Open the window and spit. One taste less.
She watched him as pencils fell out of one of the drawers. He watched them in amazement with no intention of stopping them. They went too far to catch them.
What are you running away from? She wondered as she handed them to him, picking them up from the gearbox they'd rolled onto. Maybe he's not running from anything. Maybe he just drinks because he has money. Maybe she just didn't want to be the only sad person tonight.
"I'm less drunk than you, anyway."
Someone spoke, saying the words to her lips, when she remembered that he had said something to her but that she had never answered him.
He studied those damn pens as a scientist holding a new discovery. With childish curiosity and steely attention, he didn't even catch her words."You have to buckle up." She reached for his belt and began pulling it over the her absent acquaintance. "Even if they catch us, they can't charge us two fines. Although even one would be enough for a normal person. "
His gaze did not leave her movements, pencils long forgotten. He tries to help her with his fingers by wrapping them around the belt slot, but pulls them back when he sees that she has already fastened it.
Her chest heaved. She was upset, and he didn't know what made her angry.
"We're not normal, there's nothing that's too much for us." Against tears can only go those other tears. Tears of laughter. Although the smile has been hard to find lately. Light tears ran down her cheeks.
"Let's go." And off they went.
The machine didn't seem to be controlled by her hands. The engine rumbled gently under the chassis, the road unwinding like a ribbon under tires. They slid through the traffic lights whose shadows played on their faces. They did not exchange a word. The car lights were distant spots, blurred by insomnia and fatigue. Everything was moving slowly within the windshield, somewhere far away from the two of them, as if it was not on the same road with them. No one stopped them, two drunks in the car, driving with impunity. Probably those who should have punished them are also locals somewhere, trying to forget that no one loves them. Why do we all care so much about being loved? And when we are, we look for flaws in the love that is given to us, pretending that it means nothing to us.
"He left, and he ate all my candies." She said suddenly, not addressing anyone in particular. Swallowing would be a better expression, she thought. Why did you have to go and make the world sadder than it already was?
He knew from the beginning that it would end that way. Dickhead was the moon, Y/N a star, and those two never meet in the same sky, he would tell her. His words were useless. If he had said it, she wouldn't have listened. No one ever has.
"I'll buy you new ones as soon as I'm sober." He said, looking at her. She stared ahead, squeezing the steering wheel. It was dark but in the glow of the piece plate above the steering wheel he saw the bones of her wrists and the whitened skin stretched over them. The words came out of her insides. She felt a little better. Another taste less. She didn't get carried away by the thought that she wouldn't remember him until morning. Poison is hard to get rid of because it enters every pore, she knew. Knowledge sometimes kills even the last hope.
"Make sure they're extra sugary, I prefer them now."
The road emptied except for a few cars that were moving, it seemed to him, even slower than them. He wanted to get somewhere, to go somewhere, without a clear goal. Where she was leading him was a riddle he didn't want to figure out. The seat sank under his figure, the rattling of the freshener against the rearview mirror the hum in his ears until he could hear only the soft sound of the rope tightening from one side to the other. The nights are beautiful, he concluded. The only time of day when the whole world leaves you alone and you leave it. When it is dark and when all obstacles are less visible, so it seems as if everything is possible. If he were the ruler of the world, the sun would not rise, nor the nor the problems it brings with itself. He amused himself with the thought of being alone, of disconnecting himself from the crowd that surrounded him as soon as he felt the tentacles with which they were trying to devour him.
"One day they like my hair, the next day they are disgusted. One day they say I'm right, others are already writing that I must not have brain when I can say such nonsense. After a while, it becomes tiring. " The words begin to fall out on their own before they can be stopped.
His curls were caught in a halo of light, though disheveled and uncombed, beautiful.
"Nothing's missing your hair," she tried to reassure him, looking back at the road after a brief glance. Not noticing, he looked through the window, biting his lower lip, stretched between his teeth. He shook his head as if something bothered him. "It's not a matter of hair. Nothing ever works. It seems to me that the more I try, the lower my success rate. "
"Then cut them." She added absently, not at all startled. Now comes that outpouring of sincerity associated with feelings. Every doubt as to the truth of the rumor had dried up, gone before the anticipation of the words to be uttered. Vomiting, if there's any luck. She decided that even if nothing embarrassing happened, she would never reveal to him what he was like tonight. His secret with her to the grave. How many secrets the underworld knows. Allow yourself to pull the corners of your lips up. One day one might decide to exchange with the living, above-ground world. She was sure who would do better.
"It will grow again," he replied quickly, too quickly, directing all his attention to the driver.
"You think too much." It was the only answer she could think of.It was getting harder to keep my eyes open and the yawn muffled. She yawns, filling her lungs with oxygen that never reaches them fast enough.
"I think so." His fingers played with the torn thread of his jacket. "Have you seen them?" Those children? "It takes her a moment to remember what he's talking about, which he generously, not very patiently, gives her. Who was she supposed to see? The only person she saw, though only when she closed her eyes, which she had been doing more often lately than keeping them open, was a boy with brown eyes and blond hair. And only because he never showed himself to her in plain real sight. not anymore. She didn't even want to look at anyone else. And when someone stepped in front of her gaze, she would look for him and his glow and his eyes and his smile on an unknown occasion incomparable to him. It was a sobriety bordering on eccentricity."Children from the Humanitarian?" She finally remembered his humanitarian work, which she had heard about on the radio some time ago.
"Those children are hungry, and I can't help them. I look at them and just smile at them and promise to do something and I don't believe in that possibility either. Man. it's so fucked." He went back to looking out the window. The curls danced against his face, untamed and free, just as she had always imagined. Like something too beautiful to ever be hers. Like a drink too strong for her tired body, like the last minute of a night fading with daylight."It's not your fault for the injustice."
"No, no one is to blame. But there is still more and more of it every day. "He answered her more desperately than angrily. At one point, the sadness turns to anger, and when we realize that it is also useless, despair comes and liquid that blurs his real face, so we don't recognize him for a few hours. The rest of the ride passed in the silence and rattling of the air freshener when they turned into a bend or changed lanes.
The house was dark and huge. And glass. Lots of glass, on all sides.She escorted him to the living room, after he had not gotten out of the car for a few minutes even though they had already arrived in front of the entrance. She didn't rush him. It was dark, quiet, interrupted by breathing that returned to both a somewhat normal routine.
They were sitting. She leaned her head against the window. It was no longer cold on the inside."You're home."
They were sitting. He didn't answer her. The freshener stopped swaying as if signaling the end of the night. He didn't want it to end like that, so miserable, so mundane.
She had to open the door for him in person and help him up the stairs. "You're leaving the house unlocked?"
"I'd sleep more nights outside than in my bed if I didn't leave."
He unbuttoned the collar of his shirt, still holding her hand. Tonight she became a support for the drunk and tired, without any support for herself. "Yeah, you seem to have more luck than wit, in some things."
She stood in the middle of the room not knowing what to do with herself now that he let her go and staggered down the hall. She didn't know where to place her eyes. Everything was so clean and tidy and new. She didn't know what she expected from the inside. She didn't expect anything. She never imagined herself in a space like this. He's fine here, he thought. But he probably doesn't even know what he has, the sick part of her mind tunes in very quickly. He had never been sober enough to realize, she replied to herself. Sometimes it's easier to have imaginary conversations. No awkward questions, ambiguous phrases. We can follow word-for-word scenarios, which in the real world no one has ever learned.
Should I leave without saying goodbye or not? Maybe she should wait to make sure Kit's okay.
She didn't move from where he had left her.
He stopped in the hallway. Something deep in his head bothered him. "You listened." Turning to the girl, he said. "And you weren't laughing." He continued as he leaned against the doorframe. "I hope to remember that tomorrow."
She didn't laugh. She remained frozen in her emotionless expression. "I'll make sure to remind you."
Thoughtfully, with a wrinkle between his eyebrows that hadn't been there before, he stared at the floor when he remembered. "If only you weren't right."
"About what?"
He remembered her every word when she told them to him that winter twilight. It was difficult for him to reconstruct them now because he saw them in his memory only partially in the haze of numbness.
"That we don't remember things we did while we're drunk, but that forgetting doesn't apply to those.. em... to those... .. because of which we drink. The ones we did before we got drunk. Which means that even that one- "he began to approach her awkwardly as he pointed with his index finger as the number one" -one, the only thing, drunkenness, is meaningless. "
He stood opposite her, so close she could feel the breath in her hair. When she finds the words she's sure are ones she's been looking for, she raises her head so that their gazes are on the same level."We can't run away from ourselves Kit. That is impossible. With or without alcohol. "
She didn't even finish, his lips were already on hers. Gently, gently, as only the desperate know. Slowly, slowly, as only those who are no longer in a hurry do. He parted her lips with his own. They were warm and suddenly full of blood. Where there is blood, there is life. He wanted to remember, to draw a mental map of her lips and all the emotions that filled him. When he leaves, that he can still feel it all, all of her on his lips. When he sobers up that he still remembers her. Her lips are full of life, which must come to an end someday. They run out of air and separate, her cheeks still embraced by his smooth palms.
"If you were little bit older, I would make passionate, crazy love to you." he said, caressing her cheeks. He spoke to her briskly, at the same time softly and bluntly. He spoke the way he would speak sober if he didn't care who was listening, who was watching. If he was relaxed and naive, childishly distracted, with no worries on his mind.
She didn't know where to put her hands, so she put them in her coat pockets. She didn't want to leave a trace that might remind him of tonight's events. The nights are dark, so are the deeds. So that they can merge and disappear in the shadows of darkness.
"I'm leaving now. Take care."
She left him behind, in the creaking of the door and the sounds that signaled it has closed. She didn't want to leave him. She didn't even want to stay. She wasn't sure what she wanted. If only he wasn't right. Everything was really messed up.
He's fine, safe, and the steering wheel and windows are cold again like the rest of the car's interior. This time she rested her head on the seat. Tongues of cold crept through her exposed scalp, cooling the boiling blood again. Everything repeats itself. We are constantly looking for reruns of pieces that comfort us. But we forget that even those for whom we don't want to buy a ticket must also show up for the theater to survive.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that the pencils in the passenger seat were neatly stacked next to each other. She didn't touch them, let them rest where they were.
We are just children, she finally concludes, who want to be happy again.