Cigarrete count: 25. Vodka shots: 3.
FACT: ABOUT 75% OF HOMELESS TEENS USE DRUGS OR ALCOHOL AS A MEANS TO SELF-MEDICATE TO DEAL WITH THE TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES AND ABUSE THEY FACE.
As he drove through the outskirts of the bad side of Tranverse Town, a maze of dirty alleyways populated by junkies and prostitues, Axel picked up a bleached blonde runaway called Naminé.
He had been turning into the road which would lead him straight out of that godforsaken town when he abruptly slammed his foot on the brakes as a pale, blonde girl suddenly came into view. With all the pent up rage which had been coiling in his stomach ever since leaving Roxas' house Axel stuck his head out of the car window and yelled obsceneties and watch-where-the-fuck-you're-going-you-crazy-bitch, spit flying, face contorted, while the girl just walked up to him, pushed his head back into his car with a pale finger and leaned in, arms resting on the window.
"I would like, if I may, to be taken on a strange journey," she'd said in a quiet croaky voice that fit with her withered and bony appearance, cigarette in hand as she gazed intently into Axel's eyes, half a smirk on her lips, lifeless baby blue eyes outlined in black eyeliner and red eyeshadow . In the dim light he could pretend she was Roxas' ghost asking for a ride away from this grey Purgatory. Lips set in a grim line he let her in and jammed his foot on the accelerator.
ooo
His companion talked about how her hair was dried up and destroyed after a decade of dye – and, oh, how she missed her raven dark hair! Dressed up in a flimsy black top with faded golden crosses and a worn out black denim miniskirt he noticed the track marks on her bony arms, bruised with intricate patterns of purple veins, collapsed from the hardness of heroin.
During the drive Axel kept stealing glances while she prattled away, downing Grey Goose vodka from the bottle every sentence or two, and noticed her collection of tattoos: on her left bicep was the drawing of a crude moon-like face grinning wickledly with the words "BE CIVIL or I'll eat the sun" scrawled below, another one on her right wrist said, "I don't owe you shit" written in a loopy cursive font and a third one on her thigh was a raven with the words "L'art est la solution au chaos" beside it.
She lifted her legs and let her feet rest on the dashboard and Axel could see another tattoo, a forth one, with japanese styled blossoms and the phrase "Anticipation is killing me when butterflies have knives cutting up my insides" stacked vertically stretching from her knee to her ankle.
Catching Axel's various looks at her body art Naminé set down the vodka bottle between her thighs and said, "I have another one above my right breast from a Beatle's song," the next part she sang out loud, "Happiness is like a warm gun."
ooo
An hour or so later and Naminé was well drunk, words a slur from all the vodka she kept chasing down, about how heroin was her heroine and the euphoria was the only thing that mattered. Axel asked if she was old enough to drink and she huffed in reply.
"I mean, come on princess, you can't be any older than, what, 16?"
Naminé scowled and said, "It's okay to get drunk, Axel, if you need to real bad. Only you have to get drunk on vodka. Cognac and wine – that's all for the heart."
Axel looked at her from the corner of his acid green eyes, watching her come in and out of the headlights. "So what's vodka for?"
"For the soul. If it's hurting real bad."
They stayed quiet, Naminé drinking and occasionally plucking a cigarette from Axel's pack of Marlboro Red ("Dude, you shoul totally buy Pall Mall, Vonnegut says that's the classy way to commit suicide!,") until Axel pulled up to a gas station some five hours later.
ooo
Naminé, dressed up in his brown hoodie (with a lion print on the back and the words "The Bird Hermes is my name, eating my wings to be tame" scribbled in all caps with a black Sharpie underneath) to avoid passerbys staring at her arms, talked about her life with such abandon that Axel couldn't be sure if she was lying or just freakishly open about herself. As he filled up the tank of his beaten up red Mustang, she spoke about how she was an artist, how she painted portraits of Barbara Streisand and how she planned on doing her Masters on… well, Barbara Streisand.
"What's so great about Barbara Streisand?"
"What's not so great about Barbara Streisand?!" the bottle blonde countered back. "She made a great impact on me before I became deaf."
"…You're deaf?!"
Naminé nodded, moving her foot to some unknown beat playing in her head as she look at him with her lifeless baby blue eyes and said, "If you're wondering how I can keep a conversation with you it's because I'm one hell of a great lip reader."
Naminé was staring out of the window as they pulled out of the gas station and they drove in silence, Axel quietly pondering on everything she'd said. Well, that explained why she was always staring intently at his mouth. Not because she had an urge to kiss him, or maybe that too, but not entirely.
Axel asked himself how he hadn't realised it before.