“I’m tasting you. I should have done it a long time ago.”
“You’re high. You’re so freaking high, a dog could be kissing you and you wouldn’t know the difference. Me, I’ll remember it all in the morning and have to clean up the damn mess.” She shoved me back farther, harder with fury in her eyes.
“This isn’t a mess; this is what it’s supposed to be. Me and you, Little Pebble.”
A look of confusion and then devastation marred her features. “I’m with Dougie, Jay. And you’re high.” She sighed and scanned the area to find her book bag. She checked the zippers and then hugged it to her as if it was a good barrier between us. “I love you and that’s why I’m going to tell you this. Don’t throw your career away. You keep doing this, you will. You’ll end up doing something really stupid and ruin your reputation. You think the executives aren’t keeping tabs on you? You think your audience will take you seriously if you don’t show anyone how deep you are beyond this lifestyle?”
Her words pelted into me like bullets. “What the hell are you saying?”
“You need to change something. This partying has to stop. I’ll help you. I’ll do whatever you need.”
Her hand went to my arm and then she snapped it back because I’m sure she felt the electricity between us like I did. “But you need to stop. Stop the cocaine.” She blurted out the word like it was acid in her mouth.
She ducked under my arm and stalked away from me, heels clicking as they always did. I started to follow her and then turned back, shaking my head, trying to shake the fog of the drugs from my mind. “Fuck!” I screamed and pulled at my hair. The woman had to be messing with me, but she never messed around with words like that.
Something formed deep in the pit of my stomach; it was heavy and solid, like a boulder crushing my life underneath it. I’d pushed her and she’d responded.
Maybe I wanted it, maybe it was my cry for help. Surrounded by everyone that admired me but no one that loved me, I hammered the last nail into my coffin. I let the night spiral, I let the drain I’d been circling swallow me up.
I could blame it on the events but that wasn’t it.
Drugs, my habit and my friend, the real thing I’d been close to for the last year were to blame. I wouldn’t know until a few weeks later that my friend, the white, white powder was really the enemy. And addiction was the fear of the unknown without it.
I remember getting into the bathroom with the redhead. I remember snorting two more lines off her chest. I remember more shots.
I don’t remember much after that.