Complicity [h.s]

33

Aven Brooks

My mind is hollow tonight.

My smile is bright with invitation, my cheeks pink with innocence, my words stellar with intelligence. I'm a perfect picture, a well-behaved bachelorette longing for a gentleman in her life. My dress is classy but sexy enough that makes me a fantasy to the male gaze.

But I feel nothing.

Despite my apparent interest and genuine laughter, I'm a sunken essence of void. Tonight, I'm running on autopilot and nothing more.

Mingle. Network. Flirt.
Mingle. Network. Flirt.
Mingle. Network. Flirt.

Nevertheless, no one here knows that I spent the last three days locked in a pitch-black room with only my declining thoughts. Curled into a ball on the frigid concrete, you start to forget what it's like to be a person. To recognize colours, to hear laughter, to feel the warm touch of someone else. Your thoughts become stripped from you by the hour until your mind finally convinces you that your life was an illusion. Your memories were artificial, your existence was never real to begin with.

It's unbearable.

And the worst part is—right when you've convinced yourself the world never existed, the door busts open and your hauled back into it like a sick game. After three days of nothing but a cold pitch-black room, I found myself thirty minutes later sat in front of my vanity with makeup being applied all over my face, preparing me for another one of my father's tasks. When I saw my own face in the mirror, I didn't recognize who it was. I merely forgot what I looked like.

And now, here I am.

Another banquet, another dinner, another night dressed to the nines. Walking through the classical music, suited men, trays of champagne—I find myself dissociating my own human existence.

But, there's an open bar.

"Can I get vodka on ice, please?" I say to the bartender.

Glancing around the room, I'm confident that Zayn is in close proximity. I make a mental note to be vigilant with regard to alcohol tonight. As the bartender hands me a glass of pure vodka on ice, I confidently gulp it down to avoid drawing any unnecessary attention.

"Can I actually have another?"

He nods and is quick to prepare me a second. Once I toss it back quicker than it had taken for him to make it, he cocks his head to the side in curiosity

"We also have shots, if you rather that..."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you've ordered six vodkas on ice tonight and treated them all like shots."

I've had six already?

"It's more ladylike to have it in a glass," I remind. "I'll take one more."

He walks off and goes to equip another. I tap my black pointed fingernails on the glass counter in wait.

"Mariana..." I smell his cologne.

My eyes roll back into my head before turning around and making eye contact with Zayn towering behind me with his glass of whiskey.

"You've been over here a lot." He warns.

"I'm just chitchatting with the bartender."

"Your vodka on ice, miss." The bartender says at the perfect time.

Zayn tilts his head and squints.

"Sue me." I turn around and toss it back before he has a chance to take it away.