Learning to Love

Chapter 7 - Old Habits Die Hard

"This tastes so good!" Ray exclaimed after devouring half his plate of food.

"God, I know right, I need to start coming here more often," Frank agreed, whilst still chewing a mouthful of food.

"Dude..." Gerard grimaced, looking away, "not whilst you're still eating..."

Frank rolled his eyes and scooped more food into his mouth before speaking, "what are you, my mother?"

"No but you're being disgusting and I-"

"Boys..." Lindsay interrupted, giving them both a pointed look. They both looked between Lindsay and themselves before mumbling an apology and looking down at their plate.

She had them all wrapped around her fingers, which I found incredibly funny since she was basically acting as their mother most of the time. I must say, I wasn't expecting them all to be so childish, it was quite refreshing to see fully grown adults enjoying themselves for once.

I would have made some form of snide comment, if it were not for the fact that I was currently trying not to vomit. Something about their previous questioning set off a lot of stress, which made me want to drink or smoke some form of tobacco or drug.

It was an awful cycle I'd been dealing with for a while now, I could go a while without taking or drinking anything but the minute I get stressed or emotional, the need comes back. It's like an itch. If you don't think about it, it's easy to ignore but the minute you notice or think about it, it's almost impossible not to scratch

So now I was sitting here at a dinner table trying not to think about the vodka and weed I had in a suitcase upstairs. I was failing quite miserably at that.

"Taylor are you okay?" Lindsay asked, we were sitting at opposite ends of the table, so she must have seen me acting strangely. Everyone's eyes turned to me suddenly, adding to the stress.

"Hmm? Yes I'm fine, why do you ask?" I said quickly, trying to act as normal as possible.

I saw Gerard and Zoe look down to my hands, which were shaking, and swiftly hid them under the table.

"You look pale..." Mikey said, who was sitting closest to me.

"I'm just feeling a bit ill is all, nothing to worry about," I reassured everyone, the left side of my mouth pulling up abruptly into a forced smile.

Keep it together idiot, deep breaths, you know how to do this I thought to myself, whilst avoiding everyone's eyes.

"Would you like to go to you room and rest?" Lindsay asked, looking very concerned. Did I look that bad?

"Erm, actually yeah if that's okay?" I asked, thinking about what I have upstairs, that could help me calm down. It was just self-prescription after all...

"Of course dear," she smiled sympathetically.

I got up from the table and swayed to the kitchen door, before gripping to the frame.

"Do you need help getting to your room?" Gerard asked, eyebrows knitting together in concern. His eyes burned into mine, I couldn't look at him.

"No, no, I'm fine," I said, waving away his concern before mustering up my mental energy and escaping anymore questioning.

The second I closed my bedroom door I rushed to my suitcase and dug through to the bottom where I hid away my drugs and alcohol. I laid them both out in front of me, debating which one I needed more.

Shaking hands, bad gut feeling, racing heart... I made a mental note of my symptoms before deciding I needed some weed this time.

I hid the vodka back in the bottom of my case before rolling myself two joints out of the baccy I had in my leather jacket pocket.