liquid acid

7: doctrine of violation

"I'm really sorry about all of the stuff I said last night... I really wasn't thinking properly. Please just forget about it, ok?"

This was the first text I saw the morning after Alaya had come back to my dorm with me. I was alone when I woke up, which was just what I expected, but I wasn't upset with her.

In the last couple of days before the night we were supposed to perform, I spent the majority of my time either with Alaya or practicing with my band. I didn't talk with Alaya about the things she said to me when she was drunk, and it was obvious to me that she wanted to pretend like it hadn't even happened, which is what she did. Cillian didn't talk to me about the things I had told him, and I didn't want him to. That, I appreciated.

Despite all of the distractions I indulged myself in, I still could not bear the nights without any acid. I would wake up in the middle of the night to the sensation of the god forsaken creature squirming through my chest or my throat, sometimes even coupled with the feeling that it was trying to climb out. Before I'd started acid, this was what would usually interrupt my sleep aside from nightmares. If I fell asleep while I was high, I was for sure going to be knocked out for hours, and that was something I'd come to rely on. But because I'd been taking it so much, inevitably, I got more tolerant of it. Those breaks where I gave my body time to reset were always the most miserable. So many times I'd come close to overdosing just because I didn't want to go a week or two without a good night's sleep. But still, it never fixed anything.

I texted my dealer and asked him to meet me on Friday night—the plan was to head straight over to him after I left the club. I always paid him ahead of time, since I never had any cash on me, and I'd seen him enough times to trust that he'd have what I'd asked for. I'd consider him a friend if I didn't only see him when I needed more acid.

Come Friday, I was hardly satisfied with the demo we put together over the past week, but the others thought it was good enough. I figured I'd just put up with the performance and then relax when it was done, and we could make it sound better without a deadline of a week.

We all met at the club a few hours before the show, before it had opened to the public. We were there to make sure our equipment was compatible, easy to move between sets, and to rehearse in the order we were meant to go in with the other bands. Since the majority of it was technical nonsense, I spent a lot of the day sitting at the empty bar while Ryan was handling that stuff and while the others were socializing with the other bands. I was drinking water, for I had nothing else to do, and stared at the polished wooden countertop, deep in thought. I bit down on the rim of the plastic bottle as I did.

Jessie walked up behind me and patted me on the shoulder, making me jump, where I almost choked on my water. "Hey, what's up man? How are you doing?"

I coughed. "Jesus, you scared the shit out of me."

She laughed. "Sorry, dude. I'm just happy to see you, it's been a while."

I turned around in my seat to face her. "Seriously? You are?"

She tilted her head. "Sure I am. Ryan and Cillian always come by, but never you. I mean, yeah, I get you've got a bar closer to your school, and one that doesn't have shows going on almost every weekday, but you could at least stop by more often."

I shook my head. "I'm not really all about the bar life, Jess. I probably wouldn't even take a sip of wine in a church."

"Ah come on. You come here, and I'll give you all the water you want."

I chuckled a little at that remark, but before I could respond, my phone vibrated with a text message. Looking at my phone, I saw it was a message from Alaya.