Oxygen (Catfish And The Bottlemen/1975)

Saff

I woke up with my head resting against Jazz's chest, hair in my face all tangled and knotted together, catching my chapped lips. When I pushed myself up my neck ached, that sharp bad nights sleep kind of strain that always seems to come with a dry throat and a bad headache.

It never usually seemed to hit me this hard though. Never usually seemed to hurt this much. I never usually felt so sick, never usually felt so much.

And then I realised why; I'd woken up with Jazz and not with Rhys. I tried for a moment to remember something, anything that might explain the circumstances I'd opened my eyes to. The pain in my chest, tight like I couldn't breath.

I pushed myself up gazing round the room. The beds were messy, tobacco and something else scattered across the sheets and the carpet. The windows were all closed, the air around me stagnant and stale.
Alice was lying across her bed in the clothes she'd passed out in, someone elses arm slipped from under the covers, their limp fingers skimming the floor.

I opened the curtains and strained to shove the window open. The lock had been stiff since we moved in and Alice was always closing it for fear of spiders.

I passed two other seemingly lifeless bodies on the stairs as I tiptoed around empty glasses and bottles, half rolled cigarettes and lighters people would be scrambling for when they woke up and realised that they weren't at home.

I turned the tap on in the kitchen and watched the water run, captivated by the flow, the cascade like a tiny waterfall, the dirty dishes perilous rocks waiting in the cavern below.

The clock on the wall read 6:30am or there abouts, but outside the sun was already melting our broken home of a terres house.

I couldn't remember anything. No matter how hard I tried I just couldn't picture the previous evening at all and the more I focussed on the time or the date, the people I might have run into, the more I realised quite how little I knew.

I sighed, breaths shallow and faint, I was wounded, but like going over the top I'd been shot at in a violent haze, without a second glance. Pushing my palms flat against the draining board and shutting my eyes, deep breaths flooding my blood with fresh oxygen, seemed to help for a moment but when a voice interrupted my thoughts and I was forced to acknowledge the outside world once again it all came crashing down and even just a 'good morning' ached like nothing I'd ever had to say before.

"Whats the story morning glory?" Yawned Bondy with a smirk as I opened my eyes and turned to him with a weak smile. "Looks like you're really feeling it this morning," he offered me a sympathetic smile routing through the cupboards for two glassed. I stepped asside and watched as he filled them with water, hesitant to accept a glass when he offered. I wasn't sure I could stomach anything for a little while.

"I don't want to think about how I feel," I managed with a small smirk.

"That bad?"

"I don't know, I don't usually feel anything the morning after..." I shrugged, "you know just a bit numb like but this is..."

"Shit?" He offered with a chuckle, "welcome to the world of us drug deprived few..." I would have laughed at that had I had the strength, but as it happened laughter was beyond my capabilities. "We take a drug, we feel the depression, the nausea, all of it... keeps us in our place," he winked.

"Scares you off doing the drugs ever again..." I smirked dryly shrugging the subject off before I could say something stupid like, "I don't think it was the drugs..."

"Oh?" He raised his brow, "you don't huh?"

I shook my head and held my breath a moment wondering whether opening up to a stranger such as himself was really the best decision. Still it didn't stop me.

"I didn't wake up in the right place..." I sighed flicking the kettle on, hoping that I could shake the depression before anyone else woke up. I wasn't going to be that girl. The one.you can't move for crying the next morning. "I don't remember anything though, I don't even know what day it is," I sighed my cluelessness making him laugh a little louder than I'd have liked as he lent back and adjusted his hat.

"Friday morning lass," he chuckled as my heart plummeted.

"Oh." I breathed, the world crashing down around me as the bad thing dawned on me and everything slipped into place exactly the way I'd hoped it wouldnt. "Well shit," I smiled that strange sort of smile where your eyes glisten with tears and everyone can tell that youre not alright. You think youre doing your best to hide it but everyone knows.

I was grateful when he held back, when he didn't ask and instead offered me a sympathetic smile, a little wistful, just enough to let me know that whatever it was, he was sorry. For a minute or two we faded into silence, in my chest my heart was throbbing, slow drawn out beats, the kind you feel when the doctors take your blood pressure. I tried to steady my breathing but when Fliss pushed the kitchen door open quietly I felt myself slipping up, struggling to keep it together.

"Saff," she sighed upon seeing my face, arms open ready to wrap me up in a hug. I buried my face into her hair and tried not to cry. It took all my energy not to burst into tears, crumble there and then in her arms. "I wasn't sure if you remembered..."

"I don't..." I bit my lip.

"Do you want to know?" She asked slowly, her eyes pooling with sympathy and despair. I nodded my head and she took a breath. "You don't..."

"I need to know Fliss..." I sighed pushing my hair from my eyes as I struggled to find something to look at. I didnt know what to do with myself. Rhys and I had been together for 3 years, I loved him more than I loved myself and to wake up without him by my side the morning he was supposed to be leaving for a six month tour... he should have been beside me.

"He's not coming back," said Fliss quietly. My breath caught in my throat, the nausea coming in waves, rattling me with every tide.

"Was it... was it my fault?" I asked but she only sighed and shook her head, one hand on my shoulder, one hand in my hair pushing it back and smoothing it down.

"Its never your fault Saff," she said firmly, "I'm sorry sugar I don't know what to say..." she breathed, "you both went upstairs last night, I walked past the room and he'd started saying all that shit that he says when its late and he's drunk and I opened the door to tell him to stick it, but he was already there with all his stuff, and he just left..."

"So you don't know... he might come back after the tour?" I asked a little flutter of hope tickling my heart strings, only to have them all cut up moments later when she shook her head again and sighed.

"Im sorry love," she said taking the tin from the side where she kept her weed, offering me her hand, tugging me in the direction of the patio for the morning after. A wake and bake to attempt to ease the passing of what would probably be the worst morning of my life.

At some point during our conversatio. Bondy had made himself scarce so that by the time we were stepping out onto the patio he was already lying on the paving slabs with his eyes closed, one of his friends smoking beside him.
I slid down against the wall and gazed out at the fence, the uncut grass, the shed. Everything looked a little more run down with the light of day. An unforgiving light washing over us all.

"Here you go my little sugar lamb," smiled Fliss offering me the first few tokes, "all things must pass," she breathed lying back and closing her eyes as if about to slip into a slightly more comfortable state of being. I only wished I could join her.

Van joined us eventually, then the rest of his band mates, Alice following Jazz quietly with a look of pity in her eyes when they met mine. The only two people I didn't see were Katie and Benji.

"You think they fucked?" Smirked Fliss earning a laugh from Van. He seemed entranced by her, as though in his eyes she could do no wrong. If she hadn't been my best friend I'd have envied her for that. She had him wrapped round her little finger and she didn't even know it, whereas I couldn't even keep my boyfriend of 3 years happy.

"If she was off wi Van I'd agree with yous," teased Larry shooting his friend a cheeky grin, the sort that got a rise out of Van.

"Ahh fuck off would yous..." he shot back and soon they were having a lovers tiff over who was more of a slut. I wasn't listening though. I had other things on my mind.