"We can have the time of our lives, too, you know." He whispered thickly in her ear.
She had turned and smiled coyly, grinding her hips against his in time with the music. His eyes nearly rolled into the back of his head. He grabbed her hand and stumbled towards a back room, near the oxygen bar.
He tripped, falling softly into an old couch that smelled strongly of booze and some unknown stink. He rummaged through the pockets of his jacket, retrieving a baggy of pills.
"Time of your life, love." He opened the bag and deposited one of the alligator-monogrammed pills on his tongue.
Ashley smiled hesitantly as he offered her one.
"What? Don't believe in fun in old Canada?" He laughed, his breath thick with the smell of vodka and weed.
She gave him a defiant grin and popped the pill into her mouth, swallowing the chalky substance in one gulp.
"Cheers!" She said, swigging down a drink from an open beer on the floor.
She smiled softly as she remembered the first feelings of intoxication as the alligator swam swiftly through her veins. The blacklights and glowsticks seemed to have an ethereal ring around them. She felt her heart began to beat with the bass as a warmth spread through her fingertips.
Riley had regained a bit of composure and pulled her off to the oxygen bar, where an older club kid gave them a light show. The twirling glowsticks sent her mind in a blurred spin of color and she found herself happier than she had ever been. The music seemed to get louder as every light got brighter.
She tried to shake the longing that had gripped her. She really needed a buzz. She could hear Toby clacking away at his keyboard. She got up and poked her head in his room.
"Hey, Tobes. Where's my mom?" She asked him hazily.
"Work. It's Tuesday." Toby barely glanced at her.
She sighed, resigning to let him be. Work. Jeff and her mom were both working, and wouldn't be home until around seven or so.
She wandered into the kitchen, rummaging through the cabinets. After a few moments of scouring every shelf, she came upon her prize. A nearly fully bottle Crown Royal was wrapped neatly in the purple bag, sitting behind the herbs and spices. Her parents rarely drank the stuff -- it was merely a holiday treat. She held the bottle and bag in her hands as if she had just received the holy grail.
The soft cotton bag slipped smoothly from the bottle, the amber liquid swishing comfortably within the patterned bottle. The bottle itself was gorgeous. She gently unscrewed the cap, inhaling the tart scent.
She tiptoed back to her room, shutting the door quietly behind her. She crawled onto the bed, clicking her television on. Daytime television. She didn't mind the soap operas, though.
She curled under an afghan and sipped from the bottle. The crown burned her throat as it chased down her throat, the taste sweet and satisfying. She held the bottle close, sipping quietly as Maryanne found out that she had been adopted from her boyfriend's parents.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, Ashley has nearly drained the whiskey. She knew herself to be a happy drunk, but this time, she found herself more mellow than when she had smoked an eighth in two hours. She smiled lazily, the world around her behind a plate glass window, like an exhibit at a museum.
Around eight, Kate had knocked softly on her door. Ashley quickly forced the bottle under the comforter and pretended to be asleep. She heard her mother sigh softly and quietly shut the door.
Ashley smiled broadly.
Hours later, the empty bottle glared at her from its resting place on her night table. It screamed to be refilled, to be full of sweet whiskey once more. Ashley covered her ears to try and drown out its screams, but nothing could placate it.
She knew herself to be quite drunk, but she had never heard a bottle scream before. In desperation to stop the cries, she thrust the bottle into the bottom of closet, under a mountain of shoes and childhood relics.
"Out of sight, out of mind." She whispered as the screams died to silence.
She slid back into bed, staring at the ceiling. She glanced at the digital clock. One o'clock or so. AM. She knew this would be a long night.
The next few days dragged on endlessly. Ashley slept through the days and searched for any way to get a buzz at night. The collection of empty bottles in her closet had grown to include over-the-counter medication and cough syrup.
If you take enough of anything, you're bound to get somewhere.
As the line between day and night blurred into a grey monotony, days became weeks. Ashley could vaguely see her mother's dim outline standing in her doorway during her brief moments of consciousness.
Kate and Jeff let her sleep. She knew it was because they thought that this was her way of coping. They hadn't noticed the little things missing from their cabinets. Ashley didn't mind the idea that they were unconcerned. She would have rather have been left alone. Her night-time binges had quelled the nightmares with astonishing success. She knew that the night's intoxicant had worn off when her sound, empty sleep flooded with images of the London raves and a repetitive scream. The scream was what woke her up.
To a stranger's ears, if it were not in her head, it would have sounded like a shriek of pain and desperation. Amid the flashing images of the raves, the scream repeated over and over again, the black light mingling with the red and blue of an ambulance.
She inhaled sharply as Riley's face looked back at her, his mouth agape and eyes startlingly vacant. His pupils were dilated to the point that only a thin, green line surrounded them.
She shook her head furiously, attempting to throw his face from her mind, her memories. Nothing sufficed. She could hear the screaming; it took her awhile to realize that she had been the one making those terrible noises.
She shook his shoulders roughly, crying for him to get up. A thin dribble of blood fell from his open mouth, creating a perfect circle on the damp concrete. Around her, a crowd had gathered, most too addled by cocaine to realize that something was wrong. Someone clapped at the back of the crowd.
Performance art.
She shot up, gasping for breath as the haunting images halted abruptly. She scrambled out of bed and began to rifle through her drawers, searching for her bottle of Hydrocodone.
She rejoiced inwardly for her mother's minor back pain.
Her hands grasped for the bottle, and upon finding it, promptly took off the cap and swallowed twelve of the rectangular pills dry. Her hands shook as she tried to close the cap, shaking so badly that the cap and bottle fell to the floor with a clatter. The remaining pills rolled about her floor. She scrambled to pick them up but found that her hands couldn't grasp the little things.
Giving up, she crawled back into her bed, burying her head under the covers as she waited for the onset of the Hydrocodone. Within fifteen minutes, she felt herself mleting into her mattress, her skin meshing into the fabric of her bedsheets.
Every muscle in her body relaxed. She felt a slight tingle travel up her spine as she continued to dissolve into her bed. Her eyelids became heavy and soon shut over her dilated pupils, ushering her into a deaf world of silent ravers gyrating to a soundless music.
Riley ran up to her, his mouth moving as she struggled to hear his words. Despite the silence, she understood what he was saying as he held up his hand, revealing twenty round, green discs, all emblazoned with a four leaf clover.
"Feeling lucky?" He mouthed.
He picked out ten and tried to pass them to her. She shook her head, plugging one nostril with a finger and making a motion, mouthing to him that she had already had a line or two.
He smiled and shrugged, taking the ten he had alotted to her and popping them into his mouth. He produced a flask from his pocket and brought it to his lips, drinking from it as if it were the sweet nectar of life.
He sighed, slipping the rest into his jacket pocket alongside his flask. He reached for her hand and pulled her outside into the brisk London air.
She shivered as the cold coiled itself around her. He laughed silently, pulling her to him and rubbing her arms quickly, trying to generate warmth. He kissed her softly, holding her to him, wrapping his coat around the both of them.
She felt into his embrace, her euphoric mind racing as they kissed. A sudden taste of iron caused her to pull from his warmth. She raised a hand to her mouth, wiping a finger across her tongue.
Even under the poor light of the street lamp, she could see that it was clearly blood on her hand. She spat, her saliva tinted pink. Riley raised a hand to his own mouth, his hand coming back traced with blood.
He, too, spit, his own saliva a deep red. He looked at Ashley, a frightened look she had never seen before apparent in his eyes. He reached for her hand as his step faltered, but she drew back from him.
She saw him mouth her name as he fell to his knees, shaking. Droplets of blood spackled the concrete as he called out to her.
"Ashley, help me."