Bad Decisions - Alex Turner

Prologue

  Alex Turner was making old mistakes.

The night was like any other, with the banter of a barman's quarrel and the looming inevitability of bad decisions awaiting to be made. The mirror warped and twisted in the heavy eyes of the man standing before it. His hands tight around the porcelain of a sink acting as his only saving grace in the name of balance and stability. His own reflection seemed to melt before his eyes, sinking into invisible corners and rippling to evade unseen dangers.

He could smell his own breath, the sharp poison of liquor striking his nostrils as the dim light of the bathroom stall made him seem somewhat nightmarish in his own reflection. Pull yourself together. Pull yourself together, he kept telling himself over and over.

With knees of jelly and the weight of his body mass threatening to drag him onto the ground, he found himself trudging back out into the packed bar. People at every corner, voices relaying back and forth making his mind dizzy. The guests were twice as many through his vision, doubles of every couple and every lonely bum wherever he looked. Even the backs of three men he was making his way to seemed to liquidate before his eyes.

He blinked to clear his vision but it only did so much. Stumbling up to the only familiar faces he interrupted his friends ordering a round of shots and called for another one for himself.

"Think you might need to slow down mate," one of his friends laughed and pat him on the back. He ignored him and downed the clear contents of the small glass placed before him on the counter. One, two, three. A wheezing cough erupted from him as the contents burned his throat, searing through his trachea and flushing acidic down his oesophagus.

His mind erupted in a series of dizziness sending him stumbling back against the bar counter top. "I'm fine, I'm fine," he told his friends when they moved to see if he was okay. There were several eyes on him. They all thought he was no longer fit to be in public and he could tell easily.

With a sigh, breathing an alcoholic cloud into the air around him, his hand found a rectangular object kept safe in his back pocket. Fumbling with it for a brief moment, he squinted as the bright light illuminated his face, trying his best to make sense of the symbols displayed before him. Every bone in his body told him no but the strength of his heart forced him to pursue the opposite.

His fingers scuttled along the screen of his phone, typing out prophetic messages to a recipient that never answered. His heavy eyes acted as roadblocks but even they couldn't stop him from sending messages he would be sure to regret.

"Ey," his deep voice slurred, almost surprising himself. His hand lifted lazy and landed on the shoulder of one of his friends. He didn't even wait for his friend to turn around before he began speaking. "Y' reckon Lauren would come 'ere if I asked her?" His speech was drawn out longer than it needed to be, like every word was a struggle to release from between his lips.

"I thought you two were over?" his friend replied.

Alex shook his head furiously, "no no...she...she said so but we're not...we weren't dating anyway..."

"I think she wants you to back off mate," his friend told him as kindly as he could.

Alex Turner was a pursuer of relationships and romance but recently he had found himself trapped in limbo where women only wanted to see him for irregular appointments. For many, benefits without anything more may seem ideal, but for Alex it meant suffering. It was an impossible task for him not to get attached.

"Yeah...yeah," Alex nodded and scratched the back of his head. "Going out for a smoke," he said and trudged off. He didn't want to be told that his behaviour toward this girl was irrational. Not again at least.

His heavy feet like cement bricks tied to his ankles found their way outside, stumbling onto the pavement and heading in a direction without ever being told where to go. Alex didn't go for a smoke, he went for a walk instead.

The world didn't really make sense around him, everything slumped in incorrect positions and melted upwards to the sky. The people he bumped into seemed to leave a trail of white fog behind them like they were steamed. The hard pavement beneath his feet felt like soft clouds that he sunk into with each step. He could feel his eyelids growing heavier and that only quickened his pace in the search for a particular address.

His hand found the phone in his back pocket again and began messaging this poor recipient once more. For the life of him, he couldn't understand why he was receiving nothing but ignorance as an answer. Methodical beeps seeped into his ear drums as he called the same number over and over. To no avail.

Why no answer?

He began hallucinating on his walk. Seeing this girl Lauren in different places that he knew in his right mind that she wasn't. Across the street, in a passing car, in a nearby shop. He looked too long down one alley convinced he saw her shrinking figure disappear down there and found himself confronted by an intimidating man. Stumbling over his own feet, Alex crossed the street to avoid any trouble and left the alley behind.

Call me. I miss you.

His feet became his compass. Guiding him to a location only his subconscious was aware of as he morphed in and out of cognisance. Nearly missing the yellow body of a taxi, Alex sauntered onto the street of his desires. Dull amber lampposts illuminated the streets and the architecture of the townhouse apartments on either side. All identical under the blanket of night.

  He couldn't remember the number but he expected that his instincts would kick in at some point. Finally, he found what he was hoping to find and forced himself up the seven steps to the front door. Popping his jacket collar and smoothing back his hair he raised a hand and knocked lazily on the wooden door.

  Nothing.

  He knocked again and listened for her voice.

  Nothing again.

  Once more and still silence. His back found home against the door way as he pulled out his phone and messaged the recipient one more time. I'm outside. Knocking again, Alex let out a sigh and shoved his phone away, moulding into the shape of the doorway and closing his eyes, imagining her opening it up to him and inviting him inside. But that's not what happened. It wouldn't have happened even if he was at the right house and he was not. Lauren's apartment was across the street and she was enjoying a night in with her roommate. So instead, he had disturbed someone else and accordingly, sent himself into yet another bad situation...