drinking from the bottle ♕ Lei

Confusion never stops
Closing walls and ticking clocks
Gonna come back and take you home
I could not stop that you now know, singing

If Cleo knew what I’m doing, she’d kill me.

She’d yell at me first, call me an “imbecile” or some other fancy word for “dumbass”, then she’d throw something at me (most likely a clock, just because she’s a bitch who enjoys irony), probably knock me out, find a knife somewhere, then carve me up into a million tiny pieces and hide me under the basement floorboards in a bunch of zip-lock bags. And when my family realized I was gone, she’d say the Dewitts kidnapped me. And while my family and their family fought and feuded and killed each other I’d be rotting away under their feet the whole time. No one would ever know.

So, it’d be best if Cleo doesn’t know what I’m doing. She was asleep when I left, just like everyone else was – I couldn’t find Cassander, but he was probably just up taking a piss or something - all tucked safely in their beds, busy dreaming whatever it is they all dream about at night. (Mine are full of ticking clocks that never stop, a never-ending metronome of clicks and ticks that have plagued me for as long as I can remember, even when awake.)

I know that going out alone in the middle of the night is stupid and reckless and could end up getting me killed before Cleo could do it herself – I could run into Luce and end up with a slit throat, stumble across Howie and be found the next morning with my skull caved in or my limbs snapped off as easily as if they were toothpicks. Worse, it could be Lux I come across, in which case I wouldn’t know whether to fight or flee or hug him because remember when we were kids, Lux? When we used to race together and play outside on the company lawn while our dads were working inside? Cleo's tried to get it in my head that there's a blood-hungry Dewitt hiding around every corner, but I know better. They're probably all asleep. If it was daytime, it'd be different.

But still. The streets suddenly became a very dangerous place for me when Dad was murdered. Life in general became a very dangerous place for me, actually. Mom and Cleo try to keep me inside all the time, and for the most part they’re successful, but I’m not one to allow myself to be shoved into a cage and dead-bolted inside like they want me to be. Sometimes I just gotta get out of that house. Gotta have some time to myself, without the walls and locked doors and watchful eyes.

The bar down the street is a sweaty, filthy, vile little escape for me on the nights that I just can’t stand the tick-tock of my mind’s internal clock, or when being locked up in my own prison room just becomes too much to bear. I’m a restless person, can’t sit still like my family wants me to do, so tonight I’m going to do exactly what they don’t want me to do. I’m going to get drunk. I’m going to drink until the clocks stops ticking I’m too hammered to care about how much of a reckless dumbass I am, and if I run into a Dewitt… Well, Cleo always says I have the foresight of a tablespoon. I’ll worry about that when it happens.

I’m hit with a blast of hot, thick air as soon as I open the door, heavy with the stench of alcohol and cigarettes and general filth. It’s loud inside, dozens of conversations all going on at once, layered by the shouts of the six or seven people too shit-faced to realize that they’re yelling words too slurred for anyone to understand what the hell they’re trying to say. A woman stumbles into me just as I close the door, a little bit of her drink spilling over the rim and onto the front of my shirt when I reach out my arms to keep her from crashing to the floor. A man stomps up and rips her away by the arm just a second later, yells at me to keep your damn hands off of my girl, then lumbers off with the drunken lady in tow - but not before I curl my fingers around the drink in her hands and slip it from her grasp as she goes. Sure, I have plenty of money to pay for my own drink, but I want to be as drunk as possible as quickly as possible, and the barkeep looks swamped.

I sniff the liquid in the glass – no smell. Vodka? – then take an experimental sip, only to spit it back just as quickly. Yep, vodka, bitter and grainy in a way that vodka shouldn’t be, and the rim of the glass tastes like lipstick. There’s not much left, though, so I wrinkle my nose, throw my head back, and down the rest of it before I can think better of it. It burns a little no the way down, that familiar warmth tingling in my gut before spreading through my veins as thick and slow as syrup. I set the emptied glass down on the table and make my way toward the counter, shouldering through the crowd in an attempt to reduce the time I’m going to have to wait for another drink. Half a glass isn’t near enough to send my mind spinning into the drunken haze I want it to.

There’s a slurred shout from nearby, somewhere close off to my left, but I ignore it in favor of pushing people out of my way, set on getting to the front of the line. Someone stumbles into me just a few seconds later, fingers latching onto the sleeve of my jacket, the stench of breath heavy with alcohol blasting me in the face. Disgusting. “Ungh, get off!” I shove the person, turning to grab the lapels of their coat with both hands in order to peel them off of me, but I stop short at the sight of familiar, bottomless brown eyes and dark, sweaty hair plastered across a tanned forehead. At first, I’m not sure if I’m seeing right – there’s no way - but then I see the mega-watt smile and it’s unmistakable.

“Caz?” I did not see this coming. He’s here, at a bar – not taking a piss – and far drunker than I think he’s ever been. Has he ever even gotten drunk before? I don’t think he has. “Caz, what the hell are you doing here? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is?” I give him a shake, pissed off that he got himself into this situation, and alone. So what if I’m being a little hypocritical? I can take care of myself, but Cassander… he’s the one that makes knock-knock jokes in the middle of war meetings. If a Dewitt found him, he wouldn’t stand a chance.

Come out upon my seas
Cursed missed opportunities
Am I a part of the cure?
Or am I part of the disease?