been cheated on | been bullied | told a horrible lie | stolen something of value | overdosed on drugs | been drunk | passed out | cheated | bullied | punched someone in the face | been beaten up | broken a bone | been admitted to hospital | had a near-death experience | been drugged | done drugs | smoked | kissed someone you weren’t attracted to | bled severely | killed someone | had an attempt on your life | made an attempt on your own life | lost someone | loved someone | gone without food for over three days | gone without sleep for over three days | been tortured | been slapped by a parent | been abused by someone who should have loved you | had a panic attack | been in a car accident | had sex | had sex with a stranger | been raped | felt raped | passed out from pain | cried yourself to sleep | spent a whole day in bed | hurt yourself | taken your anger out on yourself | taken your anger out on someone you love | been used | used someone | been terrified | played a cruel game on someone | been dominant | been submissive | been forced to smile | been misgendered | felt too many things at once | laughed when you felt like crying
In the six months that she was with Gustavo, Zoey took one thing from their relationship.
There are two kinds of drugs. One is external. You take it, smoke it, inject yourself with it. It numbs your pain and makes your head feel cloudy. Your thoughts become a haze in your mind and you disappear into a world of panic, paranoia and anxiety depending on the kind that you’re taking. This kind is temporary, and it’s addictive in the worst way possible.
The second is physical. It comes from doing something that you love and making yourself feel better. It boosts your confidence like the first but the difference is that you’re slower when you crash. There are so many ways of finding this drug, and the most common is through people. Loving and caring and being like you instinctively know how. This kind is permanent, and there is no way to determine how hooked you’re going to get.
“Uh.” He frowns a bit, unsure if that was a good reaction or not. “Pretty? Is that better?” He licks his lips as he looks over at her, pulling his arm back slowly. “I just really–really like how you look. The hair is nice.” He knew somewhere deep down that he was making a complete fool of himself, but at the moment it didn’t bother him.
She scoffed through her nose, patting him lightly on the shoulder as behind her eyes an array of colours spilled before her. They dipped in and out of her vision, blurring, tipping and falling into the dimming natural light from the window. “Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Zoey quipped absentmindedly, following the hues in her mind before settling her concentration back on his face. “But thanks. I chose the colour myself. Salon lady said it would suit me. Salon lady also had a lot of tattoos.”
“Z…” He licked his lips, falling deep into thought at her question. “Zagara? Zera?” He had all these fictitious names hiding just beneath the surface and was more than ready to begin spouting them out. While he pondered her name, he handed over one of the sharpies, his jaw clenching and clenching to a rhythm in his head.
“Zoh-ee.” She enunciated, slowly sounding out the syllables in her name lest he forget again. “Z-O-E-Y. Zoey. Or Zeta because that’s my stage name but no one calls me that. Not anymore, anyway.” All of this was spoken as she took the pen from him and uncapping it with her teeth as she gently slid her hand under his arm and scribbled out her number onto his skin. “Wha’ade ‘ou come to ‘y woom anyway?” She managed to get out, voice muffled by the lid between her lips.
“Now, that, is something I can definitely say I’ve never done. I’ve cracked some screens and lost some phones in the toilet, but never have I ever drowned one in alcohol.” He teased, his speech already beginning to slur a bit as his tongue grew pleasurably heavy. “But! If you do manage to text me off of whatever lame ass phone you have, you probably deserve to annoy me.” He grinned, knowing his words didnt make any sense, but hoping she could make some sort of coherent thought from them.
And text she probably would. It wasn’t as is she had anything better to do. There was a small table beside him, and laying on top of it was some paper and a couple of drying out Sharpies. Her eyes flickered towards them now, considering writing out her number on his arm as she waited for the drugs to kick in. Oh, what the hell. She might as well. “Pass me one of those.” Zoey pointed towards the markers, her bangs falling into her face as she leaned forward slightly. “Then you can annoy me however much you want, Joseph. Do you even remember my name?”
“If you give me your number, sure.” H, e slipped the pill into his mouth and let his head fall back as he spoke more. “Or I can give you mine. Either works fine with me, but I’m not huge on texting.” He had never understood why people loved to bury their chin into their chest for hours on end while staring down at the tiny LCD screen of a phone. He much preferred being up in the world.
“I would definitely exchange numbers with you just to text you and piss you off,” Zoey mused, pushing her fingers into the baggie and pulling one out at random. Her eyes glimmered at the pretty pattern that had been printed onto her pill before slipping it onto her tongue and swallowing back. “I’m kidding, obviously.” She admitted, pulling her legs up beneath her and draping an arm over the back of the couch. “I don’t really have a phone right now. I accidentally dropped a half-empty can of Jack Daniels on it a couple of weeks back so I’m using this skanky old one.”
He slipped past her and slid his jacket off before throwing it onto the back of the couch and plopping down unceremoniously. He threw a small baggie of assorted drugs over to her after picking out his poison of choice. “I’ve got a huge thing of Silvia coming in soon. That’s gonna be great.” He grinned at the thought. An uncontrolled hallucinogenic with a short high… It was like a wet dream.
She nimbly caught the bag in her hands, following his movement with her eyes before reaching forward to slam the door shut. The sound wouldn’t have been too conspicuous with her near-temperamental tendencies, and she slowly spun around to face him again. “Bet you’re going to have the time of your life with that,” she spoke, making her way over to the couch and dropping down onto the cushions. “Gonna call me when it comes in?”
“I just wanted someone to trip with.” He turned around, a smile playing across his lips. “Been a while since I’ve had someone to share a couch with when I’m incapacitated.” Truth be told, Joseph found interest in the harsh words Zoey had spoken to him. Not many would be so quickly aggressive–her personality seemed to mesh with his quite well. “I’ve got some X and some acid, depending on your preference.”
The pink-haired girl peered back over her shoulder towards her couch that was littered with day old laundry and several guitar picks. Admittedly, the room was less than inviting, but he was the one that had suggested it, and she could understand why. She got the loneliness. She got the wanting to be with someone else when she was doing something ‘scandalous’. With a sigh and a slight nod, Zoey released her grip on him and stepped back to let him into the room. “Couch is yours, and I’ll take the acid. Are you staying or what?”
