“They say when one door closes, another one opens.”

Don’t you ever wonder who the fuck they are? And what do they know, anyway?

“The door closes on one chapter, opening on the next.”

As if your life is a book. Easily chopped up into neat little paragraphs and organized by chapters that follow some linear, progressive narrative. Periods of existence titled aptly to look back on like a scrapbook. A story is there to be followed, an ending and a beginning. Over, and over again. 

But that's not the way life works. It's complicated and messy. Plot lines overlap, the characters don't make sense– there's no one right path, no clear logic. No defined beginning or ending. 

Sometimes it does feel better to pretend there’s some secret cohesion to life. Hidden meaning that proves there’s a reason why everything fell to shit, that there’s a higher power’s plan for it all. That in the end, everything will be okay… But the harsh truth is, I just don't know.

This story begins in an ending. 

The destruction of everything I once knew, allowing for the start of something new. 

At least that's one way to rationalize it. 

Chapter One: The Ending of It All

The way his hand grasps around my wrist makes me cry out in pain. But it’s not his fault, I'm the one who put those cuts there. 

When he takes my chin within his hands and forces me to look at him—my sullen brown eyes meeting his own tired, silver-lined gaze—it’s like nothing I know how to describe.

His grip is too tight. He tells me to be quiet, but it hurts. He moves to cover my mouth, but whimpers and moans still escape. In response, his hand finds a hold around my throat. I can't breathe.

I signal to stop. He won’t, and a part of me knows that. Still, I signal anyway.

When he finally lets me breathe again, that alone is practically orgasmic.

I push back at him, my hips finding purchase against his strong body above mine. He forces me back down. I'm not allowed to do that yet. He likes to make me wait. He likes to make me beg.

And I do. Though he enjoys taking his time. The more I whine, the longer he takes. He suddenly decides I'm too loud and stops all together. It's my fault. I fucked up.

I apologize. I promise I can be quiet. I beg again.

One hand finds a hold around my hips, I can already feel the bruises forming beneath his fingertips. The other restrains both wrists above my head, I couldn’t push back against him if I wanted to. I can't even caress him. 

I know he likes it that way. When he can just use me. 

It’s what I deserve, isn't it? 

The feeling of him inside me is ineffable. It’s not just the drugs, or the liquor either. It’s something else entirely, and I can only enjoy it while it lasts. 

•••

I can't remember the first time I dyed my hair. 

I know I was drunk. 

I know I was practically a child, maybe eleven– or was I thirteen?

I know the bleach burned my fingertips and the dye stained the sink blood red.

What I can remember is the first time I cut myself. 

I don't think I was drunk– I was still just a child. I didn't know what razorblades were so I bent a paperclip in half and scraped the metal against my skin until it felt so fucking good. 

There's just so much life I can’t remember. Whether I was too fucked up to know what was happening or it’s been repressed outside of my control… But still, there's enough that I do. 

Whether I want to or not.

The memories come through sensations, flashes of feelings I once felt. The warmth in my chest as I chugged from that first bottle and the piercing cold of the pool as we jumped in fully clothed. The strength of his hand wrapped around my wrist. The sting of slicing into skin. That sudden tension as utter panic seizes it's hold of me. 

It all bubbles to the surface of my skin and rolls off of me in waves. 

I swing my head side to side until my vision blurs in shades of red and I feel the blood rush to my head. When I stop I am awash in the comfort of commiseration. Liquor and lies, a delusion of grandeur. 

Then all at once the feeling is gone. Stolen from my stomach, fallen to my feet and all but disappeared in an instant. The emptiness I am left with is hollow and numbing. It is a pain unlike any other. It doesn't hurt and that's the problem. 

How to make it hurt. How to make it better. How to make it stop. 

I can make-believe the memory into something better. I can romanticize the repulsive. I just can't comprehend what compels me to do the same fucking thing over and over again.

Even so, here I am and here we are. The weight of the blade balanced between my fingers is metaphorically crushing. I know he’s sitting there, just on the other side of the bathroom door. Waiting.

He must know what I’m doing, this is the routine.

Then again I’m sure he doesn’t, oblivious as ever.

I put the small silver razor back in the box meant for jewels and tuck it beneath the sink. I wash my hands with cold water, turning off the tap as it still drips from my fingertips. Chipping black polish and red smeared stains across my skin, rings feeling heavy on my hands.

I try to catch the gaze of my own reflection in the mirror. The girl in the glass is one I don’t recognize. Red hair, chopped short, a tangled mess– a brightness amid the darkened shadows like a graphite outline. Smudged mascara and eyeliner peeking out beneath, all bleeding ink and muddled lines in an otherwise perfect piece of art.

Wrapping the towel tighter around my torso, I step out from the bathroom. Steam billowing out into the room behind me as I walk back towards the bed. My own bed, with its satin sheets that still smell of sex.

I only realize I’m still rolling when I try to look at Jacques. All tired eyes and a mop of brown hair, squinting through glasses in the dim red light that seems to pulsate around him.

Slipping back into bed I lie flat on my back. My hands grip the frayed edges of my towel while my gaze drifts up to the ceiling, the world around me shifting in and out of focus along with my vision. 

Neon street lights flicker on and off, bright colors filter in through the window and turn the walls of my room into a part-time kaleidoscope. If I let my eyes cross, the shadows seemed like they were dancing.

A late night party and picture show, just for me.

I then felt Jacques turn, his expectant stare burning on my cheek. Blinking fierce, the dancers faded back to shadows and the neons turned nuisance once more.

“Sorry, what?” I offer the boy beside me a sideways look and sympathetic smile. For all I knew he could have been talking for hours, and I hadn’t heard a word.

Thankfully he didn’t seem offended, or even upset at having to repeat himself. Rather, he just let out a laugh that sent his messy brown curls bouncing across his forehead. 

“The red light,” He says oh-so casually, as if that explained everything. “It doesn’t get… suffocating?”

“It’s just so 20th century whore-house, don’t you think?”

When my only answer to the question was an expression aghast with bitter betrayal, he quickly attempts to rectify the situation– the only thing to do once a girl hits the point of, Oh you did not just fucking say that.

“I mean, that’s what I was saying.” He backpedals, explaining away the offense as he brushes curls from his forehead– silver-blue eyes glinting behind the glass perched on the tip of his nose. 

“I just imagine the red gets depressing. I’m, like, feeling suffocated sitting here so long myself, you know.” Jacques laughs again. Only this time it isn't as free as before, I notice that much. His nerves had begun to creep back in.

“If you don’t like it you don’t have to stay,” I state simply. In another time I might have used this opportunity to crawl closer to him, an attempt to seek comfort in each other. Now however, I slip back out from the bed, towel falling to the floor.

I brush it to the side with my foot as I stand, reaching for my robe that hangs from the bedpost. A thin kimono, black and dotted with little red roses. Easily donned in one fluid motion, it drapes loosely over my shoulders as I stand before the window across from the foot of the bed. 

On the sill sat a crumpled pack of smokes and a light. I drew one to my lips and the quick flicker of a flame illuminated my face from the shadows for the briefest of instants before becoming shrouded in darkness once more amid a puff of smoke.

I feel Jacques stare from across the room, watching like he was the artist and I his muse. 

In his eyes I see him memorizing the way the shadows fell across my face, damp hair stuck to my cheeks. The late night mist clinging to the glass behind me in just the same way, blurring the street below like an abstract painting. 

“Yeah,” He says eventually. In the pause that followed it was impossible not to feel all the weight of the world behind such a simple word. “...Maybe I should go.”

I lose his expression behind the smoke that clouds around me, but I don’t mind. I can make up the image in my head all the same.

The sound of moving cloth and the clink of a belt buckle is all that breaks the silence in the room while I stand, turning cigarette to ash. The nicotine calms my nerves. I wonder again why Jacques won’t pick up the habit as the world sways beneath me.

I snuff out what’s left on the sill, crossing to catch Jacques at the door. My robe hangs open, my chest exposed. Not that I ever felt the need to hide my body from his gaze, I can see him avoiding having to look. He could have carved my curves out of marble with his eyes closed, what did it matter so much if he looked at me now?

“Hey,” I stop him, hand catching on his shoulder. My voice came out more harshly than intended. I clear my throat and desperately try to meet his gaze. “Thanks for the trip.” The carefree lilt to my voice is only a facade– an attempt to get a smile out of him, like old times, but I could tell he was done with me. What a pity I was only getting paid in love.

A bitter kiss is placed upon my lips without so much as a breath goodbye, then the door is closed behind him. I didn’t know then that I won't ever see Jacques again. 

Chapter Two: Routine

A lifetime ago I was still sharing a room at the Club with Violet. We loved each other at a distance, a friendship formulated in party favors exchanged for covered shifts and late nights coked out while dyeing each other's roots.

We kept our business separate. Each of us knew our place at the club, a pill pusher and prostitute. The Rollins drug empire fueled by cheap strippers and even cheaper liquor. 

That was the way of The Colors Club. 

And we were damn good at it, too.

“There’s gonna be an after party tonight, are you down?” Violet offers with a stolen look from across the stage. I move beside her, grinding in time to the music as our conversation flows uninterrupted by the men with bills at our feet.

“Is this, like, a real party, Vi? Or just another one of your guys?” I ask with a smirk. We both know I can’t say no to her, but I still inquire all the same.

“Hey now, those are parties too– just… we are the party.” She contests with a put-on pout. “Anyway, no. This one’s real.”

Violet turns on her heel, purple hair whipping over her shoulder. I lean back against her, our hips in matching rhythm. “Sadie said she found a new guy,” She breathed the information down my neck, the smell of tequila and stolen cigarettes on her lips. Vi never carried her own pack but still smoked like a fiend. “They’re all gonna drop then hike down to the wharf at sunrise.”

“Sounds like another one of her hippy-dippy lovefests,” I roll my eyes with the reply.

“Oh it’ll be fun, come on, we never do acid.” Violet presses with a whine I know is only mimicking my own.

Yeah, maybe there’s a reason for that. I can’t help the memory that presses on the forefront of my mind at the idea. Even so, all it takes is her puppy dog stare to wear me down. Next thing I know, it’s 3 AM and we’re walking to some “party.”

I lose sight of her by the time we make it into the second room. The place seemed reminiscent of a frat house, although there were no Greek letters out front. I learn later that it’s the old boys boarding house of the 16th district, abandoned by then and pretty much exactly the lovefest I envisioned. All beaded curtains and communal living.

By the third or fourth room I finally find a bar, tucked away in some corner across where overstuffed couches had been moved to make room for a dancefloor. I make my way to their makeshift bar top, passing sweaty couples swapping drugs, spit, and who knows what else.

I lean against the bookshelf turned on its side as a makeshift counter and try to catch the attention of the boy on the other side. Bookish and mousey, he seems almost out of place. Then again the bohemian types always come off that way to me. Who knew what this guy’s deal was.

He meets my gaze with interest, pointing at himself as if to ask, You want me?

“You able to make a cosmo? Or are you fuckers too good for cointreau here?” I ask, words dripping with sarcasm I doubt actually registered in his brain.

As his puzzled expression turned to understanding, a smile spread across a chiseled jawline. He steps closer to me and I can just make out the toned muscles beneath his black turtleneck, even as the silver-blue scarf he had wrapped around his neck attempted to hide it all away.

“Oh I don’t–” He raised his hands in mock surrender, an offer of honesty that my words were lost on him. 

“Then the fuck are you doing behind the bar?” I snap. A little harsh maybe, but now I wanted to know. Whether it made me sound like a bitch or not, I couldn’t care less.

He only shrugs in reply, flashing me that smile once more as the colored lights of the room glint off his glasses, dark lenses tinted and hiding his gaze.

I run my tongue across my teeth, half considering abandoning Violet right then and there. Certain that the Stoli back in my bedroom would be better than anything at this bookshelf bar. I can't say what it was about that boy that made me stay. Curiosity killed the cat, and all that. Yet, something told me to wait it out. So, in one smooth motion I push myself up onto the countertop and reach for the closest bottle of vodka. I yank it out from its place, glass clanking loudly against the other bottles, then hop back down to the floor.

Jacques watches me the entire time. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I sure could feel them.

I lean across from him once more and unscrew the cap, knocking back a swig straight from the bottle before offering it to him. He laughs, denying with a shake of his hands.

“I ah,” He starts with a laugh. At that moment it seemed like nerves to me, but this boy would prove to be a more complicated read. 

“I seem to have been abandoned in favor of a pretty girl.” He says, like a bashful admission.

“Oh.” I reply between sips from the bottle. “Tough luck.”

“How long were you talking to her before you realized she was gay?” I ask with an accusatory smirk.

He paused for a second then, shaking his head with laughter that made him rip off his glasses to dab at the corners of his eyes.

I raise an eyebrow in discontent, breath stolen off my lips the moment his eyes meet mine.

Even in the dim lighting, it was evident just how blue they were.

An ocean frozen over, a stare like arctic ice. I didn’t know it then, but I know it now.

“Oh no, no– I came here with an old friend,” He clarifies. “He ran off some time ago… I’m not really sure how long it’s been, actually.” Again there was an air of confession about his words, something he wasn’t quite saying that was reeling me in.

My expression cracks into a thin smile as I remind my body how to breathe. “In that case, - sip - we seem to be kin of the same lot.”

“You mean, stuck in the same lot.” He replies, like a correction.

“No,” My brows furrow. What did he mean? “The phrase is kin, like family– next of kin.” 

“I’m pretty sure the idiom is stuck in the same lot.” He repeats himself, like that was all the explanation needed.

“Oh.” I say. Not typically one to doubt myself so easily, but for some reason I feel compelled to believe him. “That seems - sip - sadder.”

He laughs, expression breaking out into a smile opposite of my unsure pout. “Well that’s the English translation anyway, in Russian I’m sure it sounds much more poetic.”

“It’s a Russian saying?” I ask, trying to envision my father ever saying the phrase. He stopped speaking our native tongue around the house soon after my mother and sister left, however... I could only remember so much.

“Yeah,” As he nods his head the motion sends brown curls bouncing once more, to which he responds by pushing his glasses atop his head like a headband. “A philosopher, I think.” A curl fell loose, he pushed it back. “From the turn of the century, early two-thousand-ten’s. I think.”

“You seem to think a lot,” The words tumble off my lips, eyes still stuck on his gaze.

He laughs again, moving closer to me as his body pressed against mine, though I don’t even know his name. 

“Yeah,” He says, voice soft against my ear. “Maybe I do.”

“My name’s Alexsy,” I say, a lie like an offer. 

“Though most people just call me Red.” I add, a truth like bait.

“Well, have you ever dropped acid, Red?” He pulls away to look at me as he asks, a childlike glimmer to his eyes. 

“Yeah. In high school.” This was true. I hated it. “It makes it hard to tell what’s real.”

“Ah, but isn’t that the beauty of it?” He contests, expression alight with wonder.

“Of dropping acid? Is that the appeal?” My tone is incredulous. 

“Sure, losing yourself to your imagination? At least, I like to think so.” He assures me.

“There you go, thinking again.” I can’t help but laugh a little.

He meets my eyes and holds my stare. I forget where we are, who I am. I lost myself in his gaze, and I think that was the point.

“Do you want to know what it’s like to think like me?”

I can’t trust my voice enough to reply, so I just nod my head, loose red wisps tumbling into my vision. I want to know, desperately, and I still didn’t even get his name. 

The acid back in high school wasn’t anything like what he shared with me that night. He procured a small glass vial with an eye-dropper cap, placing three drops underneath my tongue. I thought immediately that must have been too much, but I didn’t do anything to stop him.

In that moment I would’ve given anything to him, and maybe I did.

The rest of the night was a blur.

Somehow through the hallucinogenic haze there’s one thing I can remember, we actually followed through on trekking to the wharf for sunrise. Climbing over locked gates and slipping past the docks, we dangled our legs over the river sound and I finally understood what all that hippy talk was about.

It was a feeling. 

It was something I wanted to feel for the rest of my life. 

Chapter Three: A Change

Once the sun had fully made its appearance, our rag tag assembly of hippies and junkies squinted from its harsh glare and reluctantly agreed it came time to part ways. Awkward hugs and sloppy kisses are exchanged as we say our goodbyes, when I turn back to the bohemian boy with brown curls and those ice blue eyes, once again hidden by John Lennon shades, he offers to walk me home before I can even open my mouth. 

I had learned by then his name was Jacques Collier, and he had a penchant for prose. 

If Violet would have chosen to run off with her boy-toy de la noche (as she so affectionately refers to them) who knows? I might have actually taken Jacques up on that.

But she didn’t. In fact she was well past very drunk and now very sleepy, and I was very much still rolling from the acid. Jacques admits he doesn’t trust us enough to make it back on our own, and in an attempt to prove himself polite he asks where he should order a rideshare to.

“The Colors Club!” I exclaim like it should be obvious, arms draped around him with Violet nodding off at our feet.

A flicker of misunderstanding brushes across his brows, “That’s home?”

“Just tell the pretty boy we’ll give him free shit, itzfine.” Violet slurs in reply. I’m surprised she was still listening. Surprised, but grateful.

She broke the tension and I broke out into a laugh. “Shh,” I quiet her, pulling Vi up to stand beside me. “That’s, like, totally not allowed.”

Jacques shuffled us into the car, and even through the window I couldn’t peel my eyes away from his until he was lost to the glare of sunlight reflecting off the river.

Violet couldn’t help teasing me, rarely did I ever fall so easily. 

Was it that obvious? I wondered.

Back at the club I assured her it was nothing, we didn’t even kiss. I had completely forgotten about him. Out of sight, out of mind.

Well… Okay, maybe not completely.

Not at all.

I thought about his eyes. Ocean blue. Swimming with secrets.

He knows where to find me, I thought. He’ll show up eventually.

And show up he did, two days later– all mousey and bohemian, just like at the party.

I spot him immediately, slip my fingers into his and pull him off to a private room.

“I must admit, I’ve only been to a strip club once in my life.” Jacques confesses, bashful beneath brown curls. He’s wearing plain glasses tonight, silver rimmed, round and perched on his nose. More studious than the steampunk shades from the night prior.

“Oh?” I ask, breath hot and heavy on his neck as my hips grind against his.

“It was a long time ago, let’s just say that.” He laughs, still charming as ever. “It seems so cheap to pay for something so…” He trails off, unable to find the words for what was basically gawking at the female form.

I pause in my movements, pulling back just enough to look into his eyes. Our noses tip to tip.

“Something so what?” I press, defensive– catty.

“I just mean,” As he says this, I feel his hands find purchase on my hips, grip strong and knowing. “I like to meet my women the old fashioned way, that’s all.”

“Oh yeah? And what’s that?” I whisper the questions into his ear.

“I don’t know, say, meeting a lovely little redhead at a party. Walking her home with a kiss placed upon her cheek and promises of a better tomorrow.” He paints a picture with his words, I melt into his touch.

“What are you, a poet?” I tease.

“Far from it, they all die before being recognized anyway.” He says this longingly, like he wishes it were him– or maybe he simply wished it weren’t true. “All I know of love comes from twentieth century poetry, back when the language of love was real.”

I try to imagine just how much could have changed in a little over a century. “So what does that make it now?”

“Cheap gimmicks?” He says like a question. “A lost art?”

“Uh, are we still talking about the same thing?” I question with a sideways tilt of my head. If he meant to imply strippers were a cheap gimmick or lost art, I was really going to lose it. 

“I’m not even sure what we were talking about at all.” He professes, laughing into my neck.

I look up into his eyes, even behind glass I can see they’re dilated to the size of the moon. “Are you rolling right now?” I question, a furrow between my brows.

“Is it that obvious?” He asks me.

“No, but I can tell.” I couldn’t help but taunt him with the idea that I knew something he didn’t. I only hoped he’d find me interesting enough.

“Say, you wanna get out of here?” Jacques threw me a signature dashing smile. 

“Uh, I’m working right now?” I manage between giggles at his audacity.

“Oh, right.” He says, as if just remembering himself.

“But I’ll be done around three,” I tell him, an offer hidden in the subtext. “If you care to stick around.”

“Hmm,” He leans his head back against the booth and I run a hand through his hair. Curls soft to the touch. “I can think of a few good reasons to stay.”

A coy smile finds its way upon my lips, gone just as fast as it appears once his face meets mine and we lose ourselves in each other’s taste.

Eventually I hear my name announced over the speakers and realize I’m back up in rotation. 

Reluctantly, I slip away from Jacques and make my way to the stage. I can see him in the shadows, leaning against the bar with water in hand, lights glinting off his glasses. He stays true to his word and lingers about the club for the rest of the night until I’m done with my shift.

Every time I danced on the stage, even when I sat on the laps of other clients, I could feel him watching me. With that debonair smile.

And I did it all for him. 

Chapter Four: The Beginning of the End

I fell hard, and fast. No sort of vague sauntering downwards, no accidental slip– more of a jump into the abyss. 

Jacques seemed to like it. He reveled in the power it gave him over me.

But now– now? He was fucking over it.

“I thought you were born in the city?” I ask, lounging on the bed across from him, a pizza box laid out between us on sheets that still smell like sex. This was our nightly routine, habit– a comfort.

“Ah, well, no.” He manages after a moment’s contemplation. “Not exactly.”

“But you know so much about it,” I counter, somewhat defensive.

“I’ve been running these streets since I was fifteen, I sure would hope so.” He says this proudly, like it’s a boast. 

“What were you, like, some teen run away?” I ask suspicious, only because I was one myself.

“Worse. Boarding school.” Jacques deadpans.

I look at him like he has three heads, and it’s not because of the drugs.

“I, ah, was born in Florida.” He admits. I look to him expectantly, eyebrows raised in question.

In my mind, memory flashes like flickers on a silver screen. I’m standing on the edge of the docks at sunrise, stuck staring into Jacques eyes, pale blue in the morning light.

“You know,” He starts, gaze lingering on the horizon and the districts across the river.

“When we were born, this whole wharf went back like five hundred feet.” He gestured with his arm, pushing back the bay to the cityline uptown.

“Northeast beach towns were majorly flooded once environmental heating set in,” He shakes his head with a laugh. “And they all thought the south would go first.”

I didn’t realize then how he said it with such conviction– such knowing.

My face must read of betrayal, because Jacques pushes himself up from the bed. Turning away from me, busying himself with clearing away the remnants of our 4AM dinner. 

“What, is this news a problem for you?” He asks. Now it was his turn to get defensive. 

“No,” I assure him. “It’s just… news.” I offer with a shrug.

“Hmph,” Jacques’ expression cracks into a thin smile and I can see my reflection in the glare of his glasses. His eyes, a shadowed darkness behind them.

“Well, you never asked before.” He says this with his usual charm, his careless way about it.

“Well,” I sat up on the bed, tucking my knees underneath me and appraising him from across the room. “I’m asking now?”

He must have been able to read me like a book. The pressing questions and curious glances.

It had been three months of late nights and even later mornings. Rolling for days on end, reality melting before us until we could mold it to our will. And I still knew nothing about him. Not really.

Maybe I learned more than I remembered, histories told in moments I forgot. I hoped as much.

“How do you go from boarding school to…?” The phrase fell short off my lips. I didn’t know the PC words to say ‘a tripped out psychedelic mess.’

“How did you think I first got into this shit, Red?” His brows furrow. He pulls off his glasses, but I can’t read the truth behind his gaze. 

“The sixteenth is what it is because of me,” He says this with a smile pulled a bit too tight, not quite reaching his eyes.

I groan, standing from the bed and pulling my robe closed tighter around my waist. 

“You sound like Eddie.” One half of the Rollins, though his sister was the scary one. Both of them were my bosses at the Club. 

Jacques lets out a laugh at that. “Edison doesn’t know half the shit that goes on around here,” 

“And Evie ‘n I go way back.” He adds with a smirk.

I try to put together all I know about him in my head, comparing that to Evelyn. I can only guess they knew each other at school. It wasn’t any secret that Eddie was the drop-out, Evie the brain. 

“Oh god,” I keep my back turned to him. So he can’t see the hurt on my face. 

“You’re just like them, aren’t you?”

“If you mean to say I turned a fun little science experiment into a lucrative business prospect, then sure.” He says. I can hear the bitterness in his voice. “I’m just like them.”

Before I can even process the words, Jacques comes up behind me. He slips his arm around my waist and rests his chin on my shoulder, breath hot in my ear. “But you don’t need to worry yourself about all that now,” He coos, brushing through my hair with his free hand.

His fingers caught on knots and tangles, I’d been awake for far too long– when was the last time I even brushed it? Still he continues, softly working through red tresses.

“We’re gonna be fucking rich,” He whispers this with conviction, a grin snaking it’s way across his face. “With Evie pushing my shit, it’s perfect. I’m gonna be set for life.”

I try to yank free from his grasp, refusing to look at him as I blink back tears that only seem to appear when I get angry. “You already were set for life,” I scoff. 

“Oh come off it, Aleks.” He says with a snarl, using what he thought was my real name. He quickly drops his arms from around me along with his sick-sweet demeanor.

“A guy’s gotta make his own living, you know.” Jacques leans back against the bedpost ever so casually, as if I was the one out of place here.

“But…” I brace myself against the bathroom doorway, unable to trust my feet to keep me standing as the world sways beneath me– unable to tell if I should be blaming the drugs or the boy.

“But all this talk of bohemia, of truth.” The past months flash in my mind’s eye like pictures on a reel. Fragments are all that I can pick up from the hallucinogenic haze. I try to remember all the time we spent just talking. He read me poetry, he spoke of beauty even amid wreckage.

Through his eyes my world was authentic, it was real.

“You didn’t mean any of it, did you?” My voice barely comes out above a whisper.

“Of course, I did!” He doesn’t raise his voice, but I can feel the way his nerves take over. A kind of electricity around him, a static that was palpable.

“I do.” He assures me. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“Yeah, right.” I scoff. “You might choke with that silver spoon you’ve already got there.”

“Alexsy, my darling.” Jacques’ tone betrays him, his amorous words no match for the animosity.

I step into the bathroom, a futile attempt to put distance between us before he reels me back in.

“Don’t call me that.” The command comes out mumbled.

“You don’t get to say that, not anymore.” I try again through gritted teeth.

On the other side of the wall I could imagine Jacques, standing there clear as day. His stupid smile, sunglasses hiding a stare that held me hostage.

“What?” He feigns confusion. “What is this? Are you mad ‘cause you think I lied?”

“No–” I start, “Well, yes but, I–” The words didn’t seem to make sense. 

Why didn’t anything make sense?

Before I could put more mangled words in front of each other, Jacques appears behind me in the mirror. 

Our reflections warp within my vision. A dizzying display as two bodies twisted into one.

In that moment there’s a feeling inside of me I can only equate to withdrawal. A physical ache in my muscles that yearns for relief. The acid bleached my brain, the colors changed– everything once so bright, gradually faded dimmer, and dimmer.

With overgrown bangs falling into view, the mirror world warps into itself until it no longer feels real. No longer was I alone, no longer did I ache for something out-of-reach. It was right there.

Jacques was right here.

He brushes my hair back with a soft caress, breaking the barrier of shadows between our eyes.

Even in the mirror, his gaze was piercing.

My breath caught in my throat. His fingers trail down my jawline, nip at my lips and brush against my neck.

In that moment I would have given him anything, and I did.