Page 70

"Good," I'd replied, sliding onto the stool beside him. "But I'm ready for that celebration now."

His smile had turned knowing, and he'd reached into his pocket, discreetly pressing a small pill into my palm. "Happy first day."

I'd swallowed it without hesitation, chasing it with the drink he'd ordered for me. The familiar warmth had started to spread through my veins within minutes, the edges of reality softening, colours becoming more vibrant, sounds more textured.

"Dance with me," I'd said, pulling him toward the crowded floor, already feeling the music pulsing through me like a second heartbeat.

We'd moved together in the press of bodies, his hands on my hips, my arms around his neck, the space between us charged with electricity. The drug had heightened every sensation—the slide of his hands down my back, the brush of his lips against my ear, the hardness of him pressing against me through our clothes.

"God, you're beautiful," he'd murmured, his breath hot against my skin. "Want to get out of here?"

I'd nodded, too far gone to form words, desire coursing through me like liquid fire. We'd stumbled out of the club and into a waiting taxi, hands wandering, mouths hungry, the ride to his place a blur of sensation and need.

The sex had been frantic, desperate—clothes torn off and discarded, bodies colliding with bruising force, pleasure so intense it had bordered on pain. I'd lost myself in it, in the purephysical sensation that drowned out all thought, all emotion except the building pressure of release.

When it had finally come, it had been explosive, leaving me trembling and gasping for breath, my body slick with sweat, my mind blissfully, temporarily empty of everything except the afterglow of pleasure.

I'd fallen asleep in his arms, the drug still humming through my system, and for once, I hadn't dreamed of Con.

I started taking more drugs, and had finished up working with James at the restaurant. I started my new job in the city and worked Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at The Underground, where I got on pills after work and danced all night long.

The pattern had established itself quickly—weekdays at the medical call centre, taking appointments and fielding complaints with mechanical efficiency, weekends at The Underground, collecting cover charges and stamping hands before diving into a night of chemical bliss and physical abandon.

The call centre job had been exactly as mind-numbing as I'd hoped—a steady stream of irritated patients and harried doctors, all wanting something immediately, none of them caring about the person on the other end of the line. I'd excelled at it precisely because it required nothing of me emotionally. I'd show up, do my job, go home. No attachments, no expectations, no one looking at me with concern or disappointment.

My coworkers had been pleasant enough, in a distant sort of way. We'd exchanged pleasantries in the break room, complained about difficult callers, occasionally shared lunch orders. But none of them had tried to get close, to really know me, and I'd kept it that way deliberately—answering personal questions with vague generalities, declining invitations to after-work drinks, keeping my weekends to myself.

"You're so mysterious," one of the receptionists, a bubbly blonde named Megan, had commented one day. "Always rushing off on Fridays. Hot date?"

"Something like that," I'd replied with a noncommittal smile, not bothering to correct her assumption.

The truth—that I spent my weekends in a haze of drugs and anonymous sex—would have shocked her, I was sure. Sweet, proper Megan with her engagement ring and her weekend plans with her fiancé. She lived in a different world than I did, one where people made plans and kept promises and built futures together.

My world had narrowed to the cycle of work and escape, each day bleeding into the next with little to distinguish them except the intensity of the high, the face of the stranger in my bed, the depth of the emptiness that followed.

The drugs had become a constant, not just on weekends but increasingly during the week as well. A pill to get through a particularly tedious day at work. A line in the bathroom of a bar on a Wednesday night. Whatever it took to keep the numbness at bay, to feel something, anything, even if it was artificial and fleeting.

I started to hook up with strangers and started to drink more, waking up in random places and just not caring, getting Ubers home the next day and pretending that life was fine.

The faces had blurred together after a while—the guy from the VIP section with the expensive watch and the cocaine; the girl with the tongue piercing who'd taken me home to her loft and fucked me until I'd seen stars; the couple who'd invited me back to their hotel room for a night I still couldn't fully remember.

Names had become optional, backstories irrelevant. All that had mattered was the moment, the connection, the temporary filling of the void inside me.

"What's your name?" a man had asked one night, his hand already sliding up my thigh in the dark corner of a club I didn't recognize.

"Does it matter?" I'd replied, pulling him closer, my lips finding his in a kiss that tasted of whiskey and desperation.

It hadn't mattered to him, just as it hadn't mattered to the countless others who'd shared my bed, my body, but never my thoughts, my fears, my true self. That part of me had remained locked away, protected behind walls of chemical haze and physical pleasure.

The drinking had escalated alongside the drugs and the sex—no longer just weekend binges but daily necessity. A flask in my desk drawer at work. A bottle of wine with dinner, followed by shots of whatever was available. Mornings had become exercises in functioning through hangovers, in piecing together the fragments of nights I couldn't fully recall.

I'd wake up in strange apartments, in hotel rooms I didn't remember checking into, occasionally in my own bed with no memory of how I'd gotten there. The panic that should have accompanied these blackouts had been conspicuously absent, replaced by a dull acceptance, a resignation to the chaos I'd created.

"You need to be more careful," Alex had said one morning after I'd shown up at his door at 5 AM, dishevelled and disoriented, having lost my phone and my purse somewhere between the club and his apartment.

"I'm fine," I'd insisted, the words slurring slightly despite my best efforts.

He'd looked at me for a long moment, concern evident in his eyes. "This isn't sustainable, Geri."