Roofers.

35. Drunk.

Ronan POV.

The house was filled with moving bodies, drunk and high and dizzy and floating halfway in the air as if the height could make them all forget their own lives. The room spun around, knocking its contents into all its walls. The collision became silent as the music blasted over everything. I could hardly breathe, with every gas present in the air but oxygen, only clouds of smoke, my lungs began to fall asleep. My slowed exhale became all that I could hear as the liquor found itself in the depths of my fingertips and the hollows of my thoughts.

The bass made the walls shake like they were cold. They shivered, gyrating as perhaps more than a hundred voices shouted into the air. The lights flipped from colour to colour. Too many people botched my sneakers with their mud stained soles and too many people ground into me on the dance floor like some kind of sexless hooker. The air was thick with sweat, and the breath of too many people mixing into a sour smelling monstrosity that seemed to cling to everybody inside. Weed smoke had risen to rain-cloud trapped by the ceiling and leaking out from the windows like factory smoke billowing into the sky. The haze made it difficult to suck in any ounce of oxygen. The smoke made my head float above my body like a helium balloon tied to my neck.

The liquor kept burning my mouth, setting the innards of my throat alight with liquid courage and fiery rage. The taste of raw fuckery, regret and bad decisions rolled onto my tongue, sickening me until I could barely stand. Good. Maybe that way I wouldn't talk shit anymore.

The liquor, although painful to stomach, gave numbness to the chaos in my mind. Allowing me to forget all the world's ills and problems.

Oh, and the world is spinning too. And why is the floor and roof so close together? Why can I see no difference? Why won't gravity just let me go and let me fall into the sky till I make heaven again? But if heaven is wherever she is and if she is heaven on earth, then where the fuck am I? Clearly not on earth. I'm surrounded by the blurred faces of people who don't give a shit about me. People I don't know. People I can't remember. I might be in my own head, but I can't really see the difference. The demons are out here now, people disguised as friends. Their eyes are only red when the light fades dark, when the smoke starts getting to them too. But by then it's already too late.

And they say Judas sold Jesus to the Romans for a few pieces of silver. I sold the girl I love for a pat on the back, for a few odd laughs that would quickly dissipate into the unforgiving hallways. He sealed it with a kiss, and I did the same without one. I left her to fight alone, knowing she would do it for my own safety. I watched from the sidelines as she broke herself for the sake of my flimsy reputation. And was she not my saviour? And was that not her crucification? Is it selfish to hope that she can save me from myself? From the taste in my mouth that reminds me too much of my father, or the bruises on my face that I hide with my hoodies. Maybe they would hurt much less if she kissed away all the places where it hurt. If she could pull my chest apart and lay her lips on the most broken part of me.

Maybe I'm just like him. Judas. Willing to give everything up for a cheap thrill - for a second of false security. For fake friends who wanted nothing more than to watch me fail. I don't know why I do that. Why I care so much to be in the good graces of people with no real influence in my life.

I gripped onto the bottle of Hennessy as I took another swig, dancing amongst the masses of body's lacking any sense of true warmth. My fingers shook as if frostbite had begun to set in, eating at my traitorous skin like a colony of sickening maggots. Or perhaps it was the booze. And perhaps I wasn't shaking or cold or even in any sort of pain. Perhaps it is just the booze almost convincing me that I'm tolerable, fun to be around for a moment but easy to leave behind when it was done.

I trembled as a walked, struggled to remember which foot was meant to follow the other. The lights seemed a little too bright, blinding me as I looked for a way out. The smoke was making me dizzy; the world spun around me as if I were a spinning top, lost beneath all theses dancing feet with nowhere to go. Spinning until gravity forced me to stop. The music blasted into my ears and echoed against the walls of my skull. The bass made my body vibrate; the beat made me want to drink some more. I took another long sip of the booze. Roaring as the taste worsened and scorched my throat once more. The crowd cheered me on and I relished in it, still; it was not enough anymore. Unless Scar was here, their praise meant nothing.

I needed her. Not anything else. Not all these people yelling and cheering me on. Just her.

I wanted to get to Mommy, even if I had to crawl there I would do it.

I wanted to tell her how sorry I was. I wanted to beg her until she took me back. Until I could feel her soft warm lips against these cold ones. Until her hands travelled my body and melted the residual ice. Until I could wipe the way she looked at me far from my mind. I wanted to be in her arms again. I wanted to hear her tell me that we would be okay. I just wanted to be hers. Just like I'd always been.

I made my way out of the overpopulated house, wandering outside to catch a breath of air. I paid no mind to the patches of vomit in the grass or the bushes. Cigarette buds trailed the wooden deck that led outside, some still dangerously glowing like freshly fallen star dust gracing the floors of mortal earth.

But the world is still spinning. And my feet can't find the floor. And my eyes refuse to find me a way out of this place. And my hands won't stop shaking and my head feels so light that it might as well fly away. I wasn't meant to be here, anyway. So I closed my eyes and I don't remember what happened after.

And they say Judas hung himself because he couldn't live with the guilt. Perhaps he thought the death would free him from having to remember. And if the Hennessy be my noose, then we are just the same. Tell me, in this story, does the traitor find salvation instead?