See You Bleed | ✓

XXI

"What the fuck are you doing here, Vlad?" It's almost midnight and I'm not in the mood to deal with any guests.

"I'm out of snow, Sash," he looks at me with his dimpled smile that makes him appear more charming than he already is. Goddammit.

"And that's my problem how?" I ask with annoyance evident in my tone.

"C'mon Sash, help a friend out, I'm getting paid only in two days," I know he's lying.

"Firstly, I'm not your friend" I tell him crossly. He only shrugs and smiles wider, knowing that I'm giving in. "Secondly, remove your shoes before stepping into my apartment."

Vladislav is an interesting character. He dreams of becoming a rockstar and he plays in metro stations two or three times a week with his band of lowlife scumbags when he isn't busy with recording new songs or working in the local bakery.

He started snorting coke when he was seventeen because he was a massive David Bowie fan and kept animatedly telling me about his favourite album, Station to Station.

It was, as he claimed, written when Bowie was surviving on cocaine, milk and pepper in LA, and apparently Bowie didn't remember creating that album at all.

I don't remember how I got acquainted with Vlad because I was high at a time. I only remember how he saved my ass when some thug outside of the club tried to rob me with a knife pointed at my throat that same night.

Since then I just kind of allowed him to hang out with me.

"Do you ever talk to your family?" he asks me out of the blue after snorting a line. He seems pretty sad today.

"I stopped all communication with them a while ago," I reply emotionlessly.

Cocaine is the devil's drug. If you want to lose all your friends, family members and everyone you ever held dear to your heart, that's the drug to do it with.

It severs any link you have to another human being. And that's the realisation that's been coming to me lately. When I let him go a few weeks ago.

I never really realised just how lonely I was because I always had drugs to get me by and give me the dopamine rush, I didn't need anyone to fill that need in my life.

But now, when I'm reminded again of how happy Max makes me feel, I feel like nothing will ever be enough to fill that void anymore.

And it's making me fucking angry.