All it takes is One Smoke

Last night, when I finally managed to get to sleep, I had some weird dreams. In one of my dreams, I had a seal called Whisky, and lived by the sea. One day, Whisky went out for a swim and a supposed balooga whale, which didn't look like a balooga at all, swam up and asked me where the seal was. I pointed him in the direction where I had seen him, and he swam away.

Two dream days later, the seal hadn't returned. A big, slow, sad looking fish came to my sea-step and asked me where he was. I didn't know, I told him. But I was worried, and I would appreciate it if he could look for him.

The fish searched in vain. I began to suspect that Whisky had died, and was trapped in an underwater cave. I asked the fish if he could check these out, and suddenly the fish turned into Roy and the underwater caves weren't underwater at all -- they were caves along an endless circular hole in the earth, and Roy was jumping from level to level, looking for Whisky. I was afraid that he would fall off and die.

The last part of the dream was something to do with a hut and people, and serving them juice. The cousellor came up to me, and said "Whisky's here!" and I ran down happily to see him. But it wasn't Whisky the seal, it was Whisky the cat, who attacked an innocent orange cat not long after I arrived and I spent the remainder of the dream trying to convince him that he shouldn't bite for no reason.

The dream was long, and weird. Alcohol induced, maybe.

There are many things that I want to say about last night, but I'm not quite sure where to start, or how to say it.

I finished my exam at 5 in the afternoon. My next one is a week away, so after, I met some friends and we went to the bar to get a few drinks.

"I figured out why you like to drink." Boy told me while we were waiting for my exam to start.

"Why's that?" I asked, trying to keep the wind from snatching my notes.

"To turn yourself upside down."

"What?"

"Well, you know how you always say that the world is upside down? I think you drink to turn yourself upside down, to match the world, because it's much easier to do that than turn the world the right way up."

Yes, he was right. Although sometimes, the world gets turned upside down, and inside out, and not even drinking can fix that.

Boy wasn't drinking. He was in the library studying. He had an exam the next day.

We got a little drunk, my friends and I. Most of them had already been there. Some more came, and it felt just like the old times.

"Friday night at Shadows." I said to a happy Therese. "Haven't seen these in a while!"

"Yeah I know! I can't believe how much work we've been doing."

"A toast to the hottest girls in compsci!" Mike raised his glass. We drank. And danced. And smoked.

The first, and last time I had a proper smoke was the night I had been out with Ben. It had made me feel so relaxed, and so good... something I had wanted to feel again ever since. When Therese confessed to being a social smoker, and offered to share a cigarette, I didn't say no. She asked the Asian guy across the table if he had a smoke, and he stole one out of the Fat Woman's bag.

So, we sat smoking the Fat Woman's cigarette, when Boy arrived.

The problem is that Boy doesn't like smoking. And neither do I, when I'm sober. But when you're drunk - it just adds that much more zing to the sensation.

I decided that we should leave early, so that Boy could have a good sleep for his exam. Downstairs, I said,

"I know you don't like me..."

"Yeah, I know I don't." He said.

Yes, this upset me. He spends his time trying to convince me that I am a good person, that I am worth something, and that he loves me because of who I am. If a single smoke can take all that away, it makes everything he has ever said a lie. It makes me scum, and worthless, unworthy of him and his presence in my life.

He is the most inherently good person you will ever meet. I have always felt that I am not good enough.

As he drove me home, after dropping off Tongue Mike and Therese, he asked me why I was so upset.

"I don't know." I said. We drove in silence for a while.

"You know how you said you don't like me?" I asked him, as we drew nearer to my house.

"Yeah." He said.

"Well good. Because I know I can do better."

Maybe I said it out of "jest" (he claims this was his reason for saying anything he did), but when the words came out of my mouth, they sounded so right. I didn't mean that I could find someone better than him - I couldn't, even if I tried. I meant that I could probably find someone who was better for me. Someone who didn't make me feel like shit. Not that he does -- I do it to myself, knowing how good he is, and in contrast, what kind of person I am, it makes me feel like. Nothing.

He dropped me outside my gate, and drove away. I sat outside, under the tree in front of my driveway for a while, staring into the night. Then I walked down to the gas station to get some gum, stopping to look whenever a car slowed down, hoping that it would be him, that he would stop alongside me and get out and give me a hug, and make everything go away.

None of them were him. I walked back the long way, hoping someone would jump out of the bushes, and slit my throat. There was none of that either. I came home and had a semi-argument with my mother, locked my door and sliced, wiping blood and tears away with the same tissue.

The best thing about being drunk, aside from the intense relief you feel when you go to the toilet, is the fact that you stop feeling physical pain.

The cuts got higher and deeper, until suddenly I was afraid, and put the knife away, burying my head beneath the covers, trying to follow the random bubbles appearing in front of my eyes, crying until eventually the overwhelming dizziness put me to sleep.

The last message he sent last night was "i love you".

I woke up in the morning and continued to cry. As I lay curled up under my desk, crying uncontrollably and feeling alone, dirty and uncared for, I realised that I couldn't even remember why I was really crying. But I couldn't make the tears stop coming.

I still can't.

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