I felt him throw me into the booth, heard him talk around me. I don't know what he said. I didn't care.

How had this all gone so wrong?

“Coop?” Bren, Bren was there. He had a beautiful voice. “What’s going on?”

“I think I’ve been drugged,” I told him. I vaguely felt like I’d mentioned that before. To the guy, my guy. Shit, I still didn’t know his name. “Do we know his name yet?”

“The guy who drugged you?”

I frowned. I knew who drugged me; I didn’t care who drugged me. “No, the pretty man with the braid.”

There was a moment of silence. “When’s the last time you were drug tested?”

“Oh.” Fuck, I thought. Fuck fuck fuck. “Like, right before my last fight?”

“When’s your next fight?”

And where had he gone, the pretty man? And why hadn’t he let me touch him, why had he been so upset. I scanned the bar but it was so fucking distracting, the lights, the noise. I couldn’t really see anyone through all of it, let alone a specific person. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Cooper.” I felt Bren take my hands and pulled my gaze back to him. “I need you to concentrate.”

“Okay.” I concentrated. “You’re very beautiful, you know.”

Bren smiled. “Thank you.”

“And you’re a very good friend. With soft hands.” I squeezed his soft hands and felt my leg start to bounce. “I think I’m on E. I think I’ve been drugged.”

“E.” Bren frowned. It made his face incredibly wrinkly. Had he always had that many wrinkles? “How do you know?”

“Been here,” I told him. The song changed, and I jerked my head towards the dance floor to watch the music shift. “Fuck,” I breathed. I wanted to be dancing. I wanted the pulse to spread through my chest, to take over everything until there was nothing left.

“Cooper? Honey?”

Uhoh. I turned back to Bren. “Mhm, right here, don’t be mad.”

He was still wrinkly. “I’m not mad.”

“You only call me honey when things are mad.”

“I.” He paused. “Really?”

I pointed at Orin, who up till now had been silent. “He knows. He always winces when you call me honey.” Here, Orin winced, and I smiled. “Like that.”

“Oh. I didn’t -” Bren shook his head. “Tell me about the E, Coop.”

“Oh! I don’t think I told you. I think I’m on E, isn’t that fantastic?” I think I must have been grinning like an idiot; it felt like my face was splitting in half. “Can I go dance now?”

“No.”

I stood up anyway. “Alright, I’m gonna go. Thanks, Bren.” I was out of the booth before Bren could get a hold of me.

“Cooper!” I heard him call after me. “Ewan!”

But I was already gone.

***

I watched the guy slip back onto the dance floor and cursed his friends. He was going to be seen as fresh meat out there, eaten alive by the type of people that didn’t give a shit if he was sober or not. What the fuck were they thinking?

And what the fuck was I thinking, watching him? Because this was torture. To see him, the way he moved like that not for me. Not with me. It was impossible to keep my body from following his movements, his turns, twists, his breaths, those fucking lips…

But someone had to do it, had to make sure he wasn’t going to make all the mistakes I did.

Fuck. They weren’t mistakes, it was just. It was how I had to live, it was just the way life worked. People like me ended up like this. That’s the way the cookie crumbled, with turning into tiny pieces to be consumed by others but if that’s what it took to live, then that’s what it took and that was okay, that was fine, it was…

But he had someone to put him back together. Of course he did; he wasn’t me. His friend had joined him on the dancefloor, pushed away some fucking cunt that was getting just a little too close. I watched as he pulled the high, stupid, annoying man into his arms, watched as they tangled together in a mess of arms and muscles and fuck, shit, the look on his face, the way he threw back his head and smiled like the world was perfect, it was perfect for him and it didn’t have me…

I turned around and left.

The alley of the bar wasn’t the prettiest place, but it was mine. The other guys only came out here for quickies and standups, and mostly that was with me anyway. Tonight the long grey corridor was empty but for my stupid form.

I breathed in the cool air. It was getting colder and colder out; soon I was going to have to sleep with the heat on in the Golf, or find someone to go home with every night. Or make some sort of deal with Chad. Or buy a better sleeping bag. None of those things seemed possible; I didn’t want any of those options. Couldn’t barely even think about them, was having trouble thinking past the ghosts of fingers on my skin, lips on my lips, hands in my hair.

He told me that he loved me.

Shit. I crouched down in the alley. Fucked, that’s what I was. Fucked by him and he’d barely even touched me. Had he been high earlier when he'd said he'd cared? Had that all been a part of this, too? It hurt so bad to think that he only wanted me when he was like that. That it was temporary, chemical.

It hurt so bad.

I pressed my face into my knees and wrapped my hands over my head, and for the second time I cried for this stupid man, cried until I was empty because he only thought he loved me when he was high, he only wanted me when he wasn’t sober and not himself and when he woke up in his right mind I would be nothing to him. I cried because of how that felt, to be used like that. I cried because I had tried to do that to him. And I cried because, at the end, in the morning, he would still have his friends and I was so, so alone. 

***

I woke up the next morning cottonmouthed and sore, my body reminding me what I’d done last night even as I held that familiar emptiness within myself. Immediately I wanted to get up and go find something else to take, to fill up the hole that was fresh inside my soul, whispering, poking at all the things that were still there waiting to be awoken.

I pressed my head into the pillow and tightened my fists around my sheets until the feeling faded enough that getting up didn’t automatically mean walking over to my phone and calling my old dealer to beg his forgiveness.

Fuck.

Orin and Bren were speaking quietly in the kitchen when I finally emerged from my hiding; at my presence their conversation immediately stopped. Orin jerked up straight, something like discomfort on his face.

The sink and water called me; I didn't have time to deal with whatever insecurities Orin might have. I poured myself a glass of water and drank it quickly, then got myself a second, trying not to notice how my hand was shaking.

“Coop,” Bren said, his voice reaching through the kitchen carefully.

I sighed and put down the glass. “How bad was it?”

He frowned at me. “What?”

“How bad was.” I stared at the glass in my hand. “What I did.”

“You don’t remember?”

I was at the bar. I had a drink. The lights were amazing and there was a man in my arms, and he was amazing, and then, and then.

“No,” I lied.

“You just danced,” Bren told me, lying as well. I guess he thought that would keep me calmer.

Orin cleared his throat. “You were very, um. Affectionate.”

I glanced up at the big man. We’d made out on the dance floor, much to Bren’s amusement. I remembered thinking at the time that he might be watching me for pointers, knowing I’d have all of Orin’s sweet spots pegged after just moments. “Wrists,” I told Bren now, not caring that Orin’s face flushed bright red. My stomach was dropping again and I needed something to fill it. Anything. “Just under the ribs. Earlobes. Dirty talk.”

Orin looked away.

“Oh,” I said, feeling a sharpness in me that made me vindictive. “And he wants to be fucked but he thinks your dick is small.”

Dark eyes flashed over to me. “How would you even -”

“At least I didn’t do it, didn’t fuck you in the goddamn bathroom,” I cut him off, the hole expanding in my stomach, moving into my chest. “Fuck.” I spun and threw my glass into the sink so hard it shattered.

“Ewan!” Bren snapped. Orin wasn’t looking at me.

I slid into the corner of the cabinets, feeling my stomach drop with me. “Fuck,” I repeated. “Do either of you have any weed? A spliff?”

Silence.

“A fucking cigarette?”

“Ewen,” Bren said again. “Honey.”

“I should go,” Orin mumbled.

“Don’t. He’s just.” I heard Bren sigh. “He’ll be better in a few hours.”

The emptiness was turning into something churning. I gasped for breath as it hit my lungs and shocked the first tears from my eyes. “Fuck,” I choked, trying to hide my face.

“Oh, babe.” Bren slid down next to me. “I know.”

He didn’t. He didn’t have the first fucking clue. But I still let him hold me as I cried, and cried, and cried.