Another swig of vodka flows down my throat and it burns it's way down, then settles inside my stomach, leaving a stinging trace behind. My face contorts from the sharp taste of pure alcohol, the horrid sensation making me feel good in a strange way. I squint my eyes in his direction for the millionth time that evening. My vision is now hazy, going to blurry, and it takes me a couple of seconds to focus.
He's laughing. It causes my alcohol filled stomach to twist and I feel it's contents threatening to rise up. I purse my lips and attempt to keep it down.
"Kiss me.." I whisper to the girl next to me, feeling a desperate need to feel loved again. Even for a little bit. I cling to her arm in attempts to get to her mouth, but she pulls away.
"No, Jasmine, what are you doing? You're with Dan?" she gets up and leaves, feeling violated.
"Ugh." hearing his name makes me want to scream.
He brings out the worst in me. Yet again, I have found myself drunk, on somebody's floor, watching him smile and laugh and flirt. He drags me down and crashes me, shatters me to pieces, and it feels like he does it on purpose.
Being drunk feels good. It is my favourite state of being now. The alcohol, it manages to take the physical pain away, it numbs me down. The emotional weight of his behaviour though - I can not escape from that. I can never escape from that.
He doesn't love me anymore. He hasn't for a while. His hands don't feel electric, his lips don't feel as hungry, his eyes don't get lit up when he looks at me. Instead, they get filled with boredom. With regret. With pity. It kills me to receive those looks, to be touched by his cold hands, and to be kissed by his rough and unexcited lips. I am unwanted.
The alcohol, it gets me through. It blurs my mind and body for a while. It pulls me up, yet crumbles me apart. And he notices.
He sees me gulping down drink after drink, and it makes him even more revolted. His face radiates it - he's not attracted to me. He holds no desire for me, not anymore.
I look at my glass and wriggle it so the liquid moves inside it. It's not much and I take it all down. My eyes get shut immediately and my face is all scrunched bitterness of the liquid sends a shiver running down my spine and it makes me shake.
"I think you've had enough." I hear his icy voice.
"Fuck you.." I slur, opening my eyes slowly.
He looks down at me disgusted. I smile at him with irony all over my face.
"What, don't you want me anymore Dan? Don't you love me baby? Come on, why don't you kiss me.." the words start flowing from my mouth and I'm not able to hold them back. I feel pity pouring down on me.
"You're drunk." he states, bitterness dripping from his voice.
"And you don't want me anymore." a hiccup escapes my mouth and it paints a little self-mocking smile on my lips. "So we're even."
"Look at yourself!" he raises his voice, as if he orders me. As if I couldn't see myself. As if I don't pity myself. As if I don't blame myself everyday.
"Where is she anyway?" I ask, dread and hatred make their way forward.
His eyes freeze, but he raises an eyebrow, so to suggest he does not know who I am asking about.
"Don't play dumb. Jolene. The one you love now." I spit out, though my tongue gets disoriented and makes the words sound wrong.
"She's got nothing to do with this." he answers, he himself not believing his lie.
"She's got everything to do with this, you utter utter scumbag!" I yell, using every ounce of energy left. I try to shoot my words like arrows straight into his heart, a desperate attempt to make him feel the pain that I do, but I miss my target every time. He looks at me and says nothing and I feel bile threatening to rise up again.
"Go away. I don't want you, lying piece of shit." I try to sound as harsh as possible, only, now it's not just my throat that stings. My eyes begin to water.
"Don't swear. It's not like you." he says, trying to sound concerned, but it's fake.
"Well this is the new me. So spare me all the bullshit and tell me when exactly you'll be leaving me." I look at him with all the evil I could summon from inside me.
He looks at me with a mixture of pain and sorrow and disbelief.
"You don't have to do this.." he pleads, and suddenly I begin to feel it. To feel what I felt when it all started. The caring, and the loving. But it's too late. Damage is done. My glass is empty. My mouth is dry. My heart is both.
"Better me than you. Goodbye Dan.." I say as I struggle to get up and walk away.
I manage to get to the table, just to grab the bottle of vodka and start chugging away all that is inside. Maybe if I drink it all, it will wash everything away. I feel it burning like a lava river flowing down my system, but I don't care. I squeeze my eyes and continue chugging down.
If I don't have love to fill my heart with, I have vodka to fill my stomach with.
I feel the bottle getting lighter and my feet getting heavier. The tears start pouring down my face together with the little remaining alcohol making it's way down too. They weigh my body down, the burden quickly becoming unbearable. My mascara joins the parade, leaving it's black trace down my cheeks.
Suddenly it's all gone. The alcohol, it's all gone. I turn around to look at Dan, tears and mascara still splattered across my face, sobs and hiccups escaping my mouth, all my muscles way too feeble to work properly, my hair probably a tangled mess.
He looks back at me and cries too. It makes my stomach churn even more and despite the alcohol caused numbness, I feel pain stabbing it's way in every part of my body, like a thousand daggers slowly ripping through my skin and into my insides.
"I love you.." I whisper as I lose control of my hands and drop the bottle to the ground. Seconds later the lids of my eyes close and my consciousness begins to fade away. Finally the gravity came on top as a winner, and as whatever strength was holding me on my feet flew away, I slowly dived down to the floor, landing next to the empty bottle.
A few moments later I hear his voice cracking into tears next to my ear, before i am lost somewhere in the black depths of my unconsciousness.
"Why?"