Black Knight (Royal Elite 4)

The burn picks up where the buzz left off.

The burn means I’ll be able to collapse and sleep without having thoughts I shouldn’t have. I’ll wake up with an epic hangover, but it’ll be worth it.

In other terms, I won’t let my mind take me into dark mazes that have no way out.

As usual in one of Ronan’s parties, it’s full-blown mode. People grind against each other, and other people who won’t shag tonight tell them to get a room. Post Malone is playing in the background, but he’s ignored with the amount of chatter in this place.

Noise.

So much fucking noise.

It’s normally my playground. Their noise means they can’t hear me. Their distraction means they can’t see me, and even when they do, they see what they like to see. Popularity, social status, trust funds that could boost a third world country’s economy.

I’m as rotten as they are, if not worse. I just hide it better.

With the help of my friend vodka.

Summer is blabbering about the shit from today and how her best friend, Veronica, had to go to the doctor – an aesthetic one – to fix her nose and how upset she is, while she drags her fingernails up my thigh.

“If you’re upset, maybe you should be with her.” I smile, speaking with the slightest slur.

I’m drunk as fuck. I know because I hold my liquor well and don’t typically slur. Also, I’m seeing double and Summer shouldn’t have ten fingers on one hand.

Still, I don’t speak as if I’m wasted. That’s the power of being a drunk fool since I knew what drinking was. I would say I blame my mum and her own alcohol problem, but meh, who needs that tearjerker in their lives?

Step one into decimation: mummy issues.

Summer is protesting about some shit, but I’m not focused on the blabbering. I shake my phone as if that will make it magically light up with a text from her.

Maybe I shouldn’t have said that all at once like some pubescent with a problem of holding down his wiener.

To my defence, I usually have a wingman, Ronan, to stop me when I’m drunk. He disappeared somewhere, and he’s been acting like a dick all night, which probably means he’s mad at me.

Fuck him, basically.

I’ll have time to regret tonight tomorrow, so I might as well continue the show.

Unlocking my phone, I type.

Xander: Do you still sample Calvin’s collection of tea?

No reply.

Xander: Do you still hide Jeanine’s brushes to have her come out of her studio?

Nothing. Absolute fucking desert.

I don’t know why I want to prove that I know her better than anyone else, that the fucker Ronan or that other metalhead arsehole Knox, Elsa’s brother, would never know her the way I do.

It’s not how it’s supposed to go, but I continue my self-destructive path.

Xander: Are you still scared of horror films

but watch them anyway?

Xander: Do you still make wishes upon the stars?

Xander: Do you still want to sleep beside me at night?