Chapter 20 #2
“N–no,” I said too quickly. “It’s fine.”
She flicked the lighter until the flame caught and brought it to the tip.
The paper burned red-orange, smoke curling upward almost immediately.
Without the window open, the smell hit fast. I tried not to inhale, but breathing wasn’t optional, and the herbal, floral scent filled my lungs before I could stop it.
Bella took a deep drag, holding it in until I briefly worried she might black out. Then she leaned back against the headboard and exhaled, a thick cloud of smoke rolling lazily towards the ceiling.
I stayed very still, heart thudding, pretending my focus was on the wet wipe in my hand instead of the way my nerves were suddenly strung far too tight.
“Pass it here,” Trix demanded, holding out her hand and clicking her fingers.
Bella extended her arm without bothering to sit up, and Trix wriggled closer until she was sprawled half across my thighs. She plucked the joint from Bella’s fingers, took a drag, then turned and held it out to me.
“Fancy a smoke?”
My eyes widened. I stared at the burning joint like it might leap up and brand me if I got too close.
“I—I, um—”
Trix smirked. “Have you ever smoked weed before?”
“Yes,” I replied far too quickly.
A hysterical part of me almost laughed. Weed was practically wholesome compared to some of the shit I’d put in my body before. If she knew even half of it, her freshly dyed hair would’ve turned white on the spot.
“Come ooon,” she drawled, eyes already going glassy as the drug settled in. “It’s a pamper night. Relax. Take a load off.”
I chewed my lower lip. My hand clenched at my side, then loosened again.
The devil on my shoulder leaned in close, voice sweet and persuasive.
Take it.
One drag.
Let it soften the edges.
Let the weight lift and drift away with the smoke curling towards the ceiling.
Another voice answered back. Lower, steadier. It sounded a lot like Bodhi.
No.
Don’t.
It’s not worth it.
Trix took another pull while I hesitated. When I glanced over at Bella, she was already rolling a second joint, quick and practised, like this was all part of a well-rehearsed routine.
I knew I shouldn’t. I knew I should say no. I should’ve dug out one of Dr Williams’s coping strategies from the Willow and held onto it with both hands.
But I was just . . . so tired.
Tired of trying so hard only to live in fear of fucking it all up anyway.
Tired of not being able to say no without my chest tightening and panic clawing its way up my throat.
Tired of knowing I wasn’t as strong as Bodhi thought I was.
Tired of knowing I hadn’t been brave enough to stop myself from getting addicted the first time around.
I was fucking exhausted.
The joint felt wrong in my hand for half a second.
And then it didn’t. It felt familiar, comfortable.
Muscle memory kicked in as I lifted it to my lips and inhaled deeply, holding the smoke in my lungs like I’d done a hundred times before.
My body sank into the mattress almost immediately, muscles loosened.
The tight coil inside my chest unwound. There was the familiar burn at the back of my throat, deep in my lungs, just unpleasant enough to remind me it was real. The dopamine rush made it worth it.
When my chest started to ache, I exhaled slowly, letting the smoke spill from my mouth in a lazy cloud. And just like I’d hoped, everything heavy drifted away.
“Fuck,” I whispered.
My head tipped back, suddenly too heavy to hold upright.
Trix slipped the joint from my fingers and took another drag. Her free hand traced absent shapes on my thigh, my bare skin tingling under the lightest touch. It felt amplified, like every nerve ending had been turned up a notch, and my mind betrayed me by drifting to the way Bodhi touched me.
Bodhi.
Guilt stirred, sharp and ugly, threatening to sour the high and tip me straight into paranoia. But before it could take hold, Trix was offering the joint back again.
I took another drag, and the guilt dissolved with the smoke.
“It’s good shit, right?” Trix asked, her voice sounding far away despite the fact she was only inches from my face.
I nodded. At least, I think I did. My lips felt too clumsy to bother with actual words.
Something landed on my stomach. I blinked, only then realising my eyes had drifted shut, and found a packet of German sweets sitting there like it had magically appeared. Trix giggled, and when I looked up, she was grinning.
“You look sooo high,” she mused.
Seeing her smile made me smile, and suddenly we were both laughing.
Then Bella joined in, and whatever fragile grip I had on my composure snapped completely.
Giggles turned into full-blown belly laughs, my stomach aching as tears slipped from the corners of our bloodshot eyes.
I didn’t know what we were laughing at. I wasn’t even sure there was a reason.
But it didn’t matter. We were happy, and that shared joy felt like it was lifting me clean off the mattress.
When the joint Trix and I were sharing burned down to nothing, Bella lobbed a fresh one our way.
Soon there was a thick haze hanging over the room, smoke softening the edges of everything, colours dulling and blurring together.
I must’ve mumbled something about the smoke alarm, because Bella waved it off and told us she’d taken the batteries out earlier that morning.
A chime cut through the haze, and Trix tapped my thigh.
“Time to wash off the dye,” she announced brightly, crawling off the bed.
She wobbled when she stood, and Bella reached out to steady her. It probably wouldn’t have helped much, given how little she’d moved, but the gesture was there. And that was nice.
I followed them towards the bathroom at a much slower pace, my limbs feeling too long for my body.
Like they belonged to me but were being operated by someone else.
There was a lag between thinking about moving and actually doing it.
I started imagining tiny people inside my brain, manning levers and buttons like it was some kind of control room, and that thought sent me into another fit of laughter.
I tried to explain it to Trix, but what came out was a garbled, incoherent mess. She didn’t even try to decipher it. Just grabbed my shoulders, steered me into the bathroom, and gently shoved my head over the bath.
Washing hair dye out while high was chaotic.
Pink-tinged water splashed everywhere, streaks of dye smeared across the porcelain, and while Trix focused on my hair, I made a very half-hearted attempt to clean the tub.
Mostly I just made more mess. Water soaked straight through my T-shirt and shorts. Trix’s clothes didn’t fare much better.
By the time we were done, both sets of hair rinsed and any trace of dye gone, we were both completely naked and sprawled in an undignified heap on the bathroom floor, limbs tangled together.
Our laughter bounced off the tiled walls until it faded into breathless chuckles. Eventually we rolled apart, propping ourselves on our sides and casually taking each other in. I was firmly, unapologetically gay, but even I could admit that Trix was attractive.
“Dicks look so weird,” Trix murmured, mostly to herself.
She reached out and poked my cock where it lay soft against my thigh. “Does it feel weird, like . . . holding it to piss?”
“It’s all I’ve ever known,” I chuckled. “Sometimes I sit down like a girl, though. As a treat.”
Trix snorted and flopped onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. “Are you gay?”
“Absofuckinglutely,” I replied without hesitation. “Pussies scare me.”
“You’ve just gotta be gentle with them,” she said, like she was explaining basic science, patting her freshly shaved mound. “Some guys use their fingers like a jackhammer. They couldn’t find the clit even if a map led them straight to it.”
“Oh, I’ve slept with people like that,” I said with a grimace. “Except they’re jabbing your prostate like they’re hammering in a nail.”
“Ouch,” she hissed, wincing in sympathy.
I nodded, then let my gaze drift to her chest. Her breasts weren’t flat, but they weren’t much more than a handful either. I reached out and prodded one, giggling when it wobbled like jelly.
“What are these like?” I asked, poking it again until Trix laughed and smacked my hand away.
“They’re just . . . there, y’know?” She flicked her pierced nipple like it meant absolutely nothing. “I don’t know how some girls deal with massive ones. Bella’s are huge and they give her backache.”
I glanced down at my own flat chest and hummed. “Yeah,” I murmured. “Think I’m glad I don’t have any.”
“What the fuck is going on in here?”
We both snapped our heads towards the doorway. Bella stood there with an amused grin, a freshly lit joint in one hand and a glass of what looked like cola in the other.
Trix pushed herself up and offered me a hand.
We wrapped ourselves in the hotel’s complimentary robes and shuffled back into the bedroom.
While we’d been gone, Bella had rolled another joint for us, and music hummed softly from a Bluetooth speaker on the dresser.
Two glasses sat on the table between the beds, filled right to the brim.
I flopped onto the mattress and reached for one, grateful for it since my mouth felt like sandpaper. The second the liquid hit my tongue, I almost choked. The sharp burn of vodka caught me completely off guard.
“Fucking hell,” I sputtered, wiping my chin.
“Bella always makes them strong,” Trix mumbled around the joint as she lit up.
She motioned for her own glass and I handed it over, watching in mild horror as she drank almost all of it in one go.
It probably made me look like a lightweight, but even before rehab, alcohol had never really been my thing.
Drugs were the main event. Drinks were just something to wash the cottonmouth away.
Half the time, I didn’t even realise how much I’d had until the next morning, when my head was splitting and I was hunched over a toilet, paying for it in full.
“Let’s do this pamper night right,” Trix said simply.
Bella cranked the volume on the speaker, and the bass vibrated through the mattress like a second heartbeat.
Somewhere along the way, the vibe in the room had shifted without anyone really noticing.
I glanced at the plastic bags slumped on the bed behind us, face masks and nail polish forgotten.
“Pamper” had been stretched thin, reshaped to mean whatever we needed it to mean now.
“This is still self-care,” Trix declared, lifting her empty glass in a lazy toast. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
“Hear, hear!” Bella said, already pouring her another drink. The vodka filled more of the glass than I expected, and when the cola followed, it crested the rim and spilled onto the carpet. No one moved to wipe it up.
This was the point where I should’ve excused myself. Made a joke about needing an early night. Should’ve chosen responsibility. Boring. Honest.
But instead, I stayed exactly where I was.
I’d already crossed the line. That much was impossible to ignore now.
Weed wasn’t harmless. It wasn’t nothing. It wasn’t Oxy, but it was relapse adjacent. Close enough to feel familiar without tripping the loud alarms rehab had trained me to obey. It was enough that I could lie to myself and say it didn’t count.
Walking out now would make it awkward. It would turn a hazy, half-drunk, half-stoned pamper night into questions I didn’t have the energy to survive.
Because saying no would mean explaining myself, and explaining myself would mean admitting things I’d been skirting around since Milan.
Since Zurich. Since the first Tramadol slid down my throat and I’d told myself it was temporary, controlled, different this time.
I didn’t want to look at that, not yet. I didn’t want to peel it open and see how thin the line really was.
So I stayed.
I didn’t reach for another drink or another pull on a joint. But I didn’t push it away when it was offered either. The room felt warmer now. Softer. My thoughts slowed until they stopped tripping over each other, the constant hum in my chest fading to something distant. Something more manageable.
This was the “I’ve come this far” part of my downfall. Where staying here felt easier than walking away. Because backing out and leaving meant facing myself, while staying and partaking meant I could pretend a little longer.
Trix bumped her shoulder into mine and grinned. “You’re vibing now,” she said, pleased. “See? And you said you weren’t the partying type.”
I smiled back because it was easier than admitting I’d crossed a line and hadn’t felt it give way beneath my feet.
She nudged my knee with hers conspiratorially. “You’re good, yeah?” she asked, already sure of the answer she wanted.
I nodded, and she grinned.
“Hey,” she added casually, almost thoughtful. “If this stuff ever stops doing it for you . . .”
I turned towards her, and she shrugged.
“You can always ask. Any time or any day. No pressure, and pamper nights are completely optional.”
Her words settled without resistance. No alarm bells or panic. Just another option, an unspoken offer placed gently on the table, right beside everything else I’d already said yes to tonight.
I didn’t answer. Didn’t joke or refuse. Instead, I lifted my half-empty glass, letting it clink softly against hers.
That felt close enough to an answer.