3 in the Morning (Aftermath)
People - people as' me why I - tha's dumb cuz I drink for the same reason erryone drinks- but hold up, gotta 'splain who erryone's first. By erryone I mean erryone who drinks like me – like, all the time. Like, drunks who drink. Drinking's like, what we do, man. A drinker is what we is, right?
Right anyway, so, I drink for the same reason erryone drinks. I feel too damn much. Booze's like a depressant, right? Yeah, so, yeah. Depress your feelings an' shit. Makes it hurt less, y'know?
That was one drunken video blog from when you were what, fourteen? Naw, make it thirteen. Thirteen and just starting to realize that no matter how many pumpkins you handed out, how many carapaced friends you helped you couldn't do anything. You were powerless, trapped, hopelessly naïve, fragile, tiny, useless.
Your mom knew the feeling. Why else would she have left so much booze in the house she would never live in? You got spectacularly drunk the first night you mustered up the guts to crack open one of those bottles. It was mind-numbing, and that was all you cared about. You made a habit of it.
But alcohol tolerance builds quickly when you're shitfaced every other day and you tried to drink more and more, going for hard liquor over wine. Eventually the three other humans you managed to find got concerned, and you started to feel the wear on your system. It should have destroyed you, you knew that. But the Condesce had done something to your DNA in that slurry pool, she must have, because you didn't succumb to it the way your mother warned you about (in endless pages of text and a few, precious videos). You rose above the haze, and learned to pace yourself.
Holding a martini always makes you look like a drunk. But you barely even sip it. The poor typing is from hands that shake with fury and grief, and the lazy, wild smiles cover the seething pit in your stomach, and you let yourself feel so much for your friends because if you stop, you'll start feeling for yourself again and you'll lose all control.
Your name is Roxy Lalonde, and you haven't been drunk for a long, long time.
