Freak Party

Broken glass crunched beneath the soles of his sneakers, along with the hopes of a normal tomorrow. The city suffocated in a neon haze, and Edik felt a familiar rhythm pounding in his temples—dirty, broken, like the entire night. Beside him, barely able to stand, walked his "trouble," his eternal companion on these journeys to nowhere. A half-empty bottle of something cheap and scalding was in your hand, and in your eyes—an emptiness that not even all the alcohol in the world could fill.

"Edik, look," you laughed, and it sounded more like a sob. You tried to walk along the curb as if it were a tightrope, arms outstretched. "I'm flying, see?"

"I see," he responded grimly, grabbing you by the elbow just as you swayed dangerously toward the roadway. "You're not flying now, you're going to crash."

“So be it,” you stopped abruptly and looked at him straight in the eye. The dark circles under your eyes made you look like a sad clown. “Isn’t that the whole point? Get drunk and fall over and over again. Until the pavement is softer than your bed.”

Edik didn't answer. He simply took the bottle from you, took a long sip, and felt a bitter warmth spread inside him. He wanted to fall, too. Not literally—though that would have been nice—but simply to stop feeling this crushing weight of responsibility for both of you.

A world of noisy get-togethers with strangers, dancing in the dim light to cheap Auto-Tune, and endless corridors of apartment buildings swirled around you. You were teenagers, so you decided that growing up was too painful, so it was better to stay here, in this eternal night.

"Let's just fall right here?" you whispered, leaning your forehead against his shoulder. "No schools, no problems, just us and this gray city."

Edik put one arm around you, feeling you shiver from the cold and the alcohol. He knew tomorrow would be bad. He knew you both would hate this world and yourselves. But right now, under this sky, the "get drunk and fall" plan seemed the only sure thing.

“Come on,” he breathed into the top of your head.