West and I were completely smashed, drunk as hell.
Not slight tipsy and not a bit like a swaying sailboat – we were about as drunk as was possible in order to stay alive and mobile. If we were a ship, we'd not only be the sunken ship at the bottom of the sea, but we'd have been the storm that caused the sinking.
It'd been kind of funny. After things had gotten a bit rocky – admittedly, my fault again, but then again, when wasn't I the one fucking up? - West and I had still talked, but it'd been off and it had almost felt wrong.
So I'd invited him to the beach with me and he'd come along, a brown paper bag that I knew all too well clutched in his hand and a pile of random blankets in the backseat of his car. It'd been weeks, almost a month since I'd bought anything from Kevin, but that certainly didn't mean I hadn't had anything to drink.
I lost track of all the alcohol I'd drank, ranging from cheap beer to a cursive handwritten bottle of wine who's title I couldn't read and then to finally, my favorite: whiskey, from my good old friend Jack Daniel.
West and I sat on the beach, a few of the blankets from his car piled beneath us. It was around six pm and the sky was slowly growing dark, my mind taking in the change of color and wondering if I could somehow simply change that way and make myself better, more beautiful.
I always hated the part of being intoxicated where I thought about everything beyond any point of reason. I wondered about the beginning of the earth and everything in between heaven and hell – if that even existed – and I wondered when it'd all began. But on the worst days –the one's where my thoughts seemed to sound like an alarm in my head, ricocheting around in my head until I was sober like a sick reminder that I'd made yet another mistake – I thought about who I was.
And I knew, without an ounce of disbelief, that I had no clue who that person was, who North Hill was, and that little thought scared me more than any horror film I'd ever seen combined altogether.
“West?” My voice sounded far away.
“You know, I think we should go do something,” He paused, spotting a couple with tattoos lining almost every inch of their skin. “Let's go do that.”
“Do what?” I briefly wondered if my words were slurred and if West was wondering the same.
“Get tattoos.”
I stood up, either because my mind was too fogged up and muddled to make a coherent decision or because I just really wanted to do something, heading for the nearest stand. Rationally, I knew that I'd either regret my decision later or just blow it off entirely – the latter was more likely, really – but I wanted to do it.
For fucks sake, my lungs and my liver were going to give out any day if I continued filling them with the toxins that I was – and as I'd proved to not only everyone around me, but myself, too – I couldn't change.
West grabbed my hand, threading our fingers together and swinging our clasped hands between us. I'd never want to admit it out loud, but his hands were just the right size for mine and when he grabbed my hands without asking, brushing his thumb against the back of my palm in the way that he always did, I couldn't get enough.
Everything about being with him felt so right and it just made me feel absolutely disgusting to be taking something, even something as minor as what could potentially be a summer fling, from someone who deserved more than what he believed.
My thoughts seemed to be loosing their muddled appeal – the one thing I loved the most – so I reached across West and I and grabbed the bottle of Jack Daniel's that he was holding loosely between the fingers of his other hand.
He happily released it to my grasp, watching me while I took a quick swig, immediately embracing the slight burn and warmth, allowing it to spread throughout my body in the way I couldn't seem to get enough of.
We stopped at the little shop, slightly disappointed when we saw that they weren't real tattoos, instead the temporary tattoo sort of ink called Henna. West looked over at me before shrugging, stepping into it and heading over to a small basket beside the little Henna kits.
“Check it out, they have fake piercings.” He said to me, picking one up and sticking it on his lip.
I refrained from mentioning that not only did it fit him in a way that I would never admit, but he also needed to buy it now that he'd basically put it in his mouth. I made my way over to him, reaching a finger up to touch his lips with the new accessory.
West grinned, leaning down to press his lips to mine. Everything about him seemed to be spontaneous, even his kisses. But they were better and sweeter than anything I'd ever come across.
I pulled away, my eyes shifting away from West when he laid a hand sloppily on my cheek. His hands were steady, despite how unsteady everyone around us could see his paces were.
“I thought these things were supposed to be erotic.” He muttered, pressing a finger from his unoccupied hand to it.
I couldn't help but laugh at his use of the word erotic.
I nudged him with my shoulder, staying still for a moment to enjoy the way it felt when our skin touched. It wasn't that I didn't like his new accessory, however temporary it was, but it just hadn't felt like him.
And I felt – more like feared sometimes – that he was the only thing I would want.
I'd yet to find a single flaw about him – not one that I couldn't handle, that is – and everything in my mind, even in its drunken state, was telling me to turn the corner and run, never looking back at the boy who's smile reminded me of the last light left on in a building, unwavering and brilliant until it was forced to go out.
We sort of stood there, both of us looking at each other, but lost in our own minds. I often let my mind go off on its own tangent, but so did West – however, unlike me, his only telltale was the distant look he got in his eyes.
I seemed to break free first, my eyes not any less foggy than moments before, but no foggier either. I nudged him with my shoulder again, gesturing with a nod of my head towards the guy who was set up in a little tent off to the side with a sign that read, “Henna tattoos.”
“Come on, we've got things to do, you punk slacker.” I said when he continued to touch the fake piercings in the bowl, before he smiled a little, following me over to the guy who was looking at us as if he knew we'd be coming to him.
We sat down in front of a table with him and he called his friend over, the friend sitting down across from me and asking me what I wanted.
“An arrow,” I paused, looking down at my fingers and wringing my hands a bit. “Diagonally along the palm of my hand.”
The man looked surprised for a moment, clearly not used to doing something so minimal, before he shrugged and told me to hold my hand out for him.
It was ironic, really, that I'd chosen an arrow. I'd never met someone as aimless as me – except maybe West, of course, but we were equals, at worst – and arrows were known for being shot and aimed to hit their mark.
Every shot that I'd ever taken, whether it be an attempt to better myself or to just care a little more like I knew I should, seemed to be an endless string of misses for me, the mark I always wanted to hit moving at the very last second.
It was ironic, really, but maybe irony was all I had in the times like these.
I glanced over at West, who's palm was bared too. The man appeared to be drawing a flag on West's palm, the square devoid of color and rather minimalistic, and I made a note to ask West what it stood for.
When the two men were finished, they awkwardly looked between us and simply asked for five bucks, I pulled it from my pocket and slid it across the table like drug dealers always do in the movies, just to see if I could.
West and I headed back over to the beach, plopping back down onto the blankets which were now covered in a thin layer of sand, most likely due to the blowing of the wind.
I reached for his bottle of whiskey again, taking a long sip before handing it to him and smiling a little when he did the same.
“What's it mean?” I finally asked, glancing over at him. “The flag on your hand, I mean.”
“It's a white flag, as in I surrender.”
“To what?”
“My addiction.” His voice was barely above a whisper, and I had to strain to hear him.
I turned away from him, glancing out at the dark blue, almost black sea, making the comparison between his eyes and the calm waves. Although, I believed that if I looked over at him and leaned in real close, I wouldn't see calm waves – I'd see an endless tsunami swimming about within the most expressive part of his features.
“I'm so fucking scared, North. I thought that if I. . .let it go, pretending like it's fine, then it would be,” He paused, swallowing so hard I could almost hear it. “But it isn't, and I wish I'd have seen it sooner.”
“Denial gets to us all.” I replied, trying to keep my voice even when he chuckled, the sound devoid of humor and sounding drier than anything I'd ever heard leave his mouth.
That thought mixed with the reverberating sound of his humorless laugh left a nasty taste in my mouth.
“Not you, North, you're so unfazed by it all.”
I laughed at that, suddenly not even the alcohol seeming enough to keep my mind from accepting where he was going. He was baring his heart to me, admitting for the first time ever that he had a problem, but my throat was clogged from admitting all the things I wanted to.
“Maybe it's because I'm drunk or maybe it's because I'm genuinely an idiot,” He paused, not a single trace of a smile on his face. “But I must confess, I really don't think I can do this alone. Not when I'm not strong like you.”
“You don't have to do it alone.” I barely managed to choke out, my eyes still focused on the steady rise and fall of the water.
I couldn't tell him things back, I couldn't spill my feelings from my mouth like the rainbow slides from the sky after a rain storm – especially when all the things I had to say weren't anything like rainbows.
They were rocky and chaotic, just like me.
And each and every one, they ate me up inside, tearing at my insides like a predator coming in for the kill.
I'd yet to discover when exactly I'd become not only the prey, but also the predator, of my very own hunt.