My feet took me back to Chad’s bar, like they always would. I only had enough gas to either move the car or keep it warm, so I chose keep it warm and gave up on the idea of being anywhere else. Besides, where else would want me?

When I walked in the door Chad looked like he’d been expecting me, his grin already in place and a condom in his hand. I shrugged and headed back towards the breakroom, grabbing the drink he’d mixed up for me on the way.

Ten minutes later things were swirly in a very familiar way. “Chad,” I managed, tucking my head between my arms to look back at the man working away at my ass. “Did you fucking drug me?”

He took a break to lean down and kiss my back. I shuddered at the brightness of the sensation; I hadn’t had any X in days, preferring speed and coke. Things with edges to help me lose track of mine. Fuck, I thought as another wave of tingles raced through my body. I’d forgotten how much X made everything.

“Be grateful,” Chad told me, his tongue running up my spine. “I didn’t have to. Consider it a gift.”

Yay, I thought, as he went back to slamming into me indiscriminately. Chad was a boring fuck, concerned entirely with getting himself off. I was a fleshlight that moaned. And drank his booze. “Thanks, Chad,” I told him in between thrusts. And I was thankful; this was better high for sure.

He slammed into me one last time and bent forward to bite my ear. He always finished that way; no kiss, thank god, no thank you. Bite on the ear. It blossomed with the X, slipped into my neck and down my back and I actually had to fight not to react. I hated reacting to fucking Chad. “More than your boyfriend gave me.”

“What?” I sat up, grabbing some tissues to clean up. I wasn’t concerned with getting off; that could come later in the night, and Chad had barely even made me hard. Although with all this X rocketing through my system all of a sudden…

“Got him high the same way. That boxy lad, too good for himself? Sent him out to fetch you.” He made a tsking noise. “Didn’t even get a thanks.” His pants fastened and the condom tossed out, Chad was back out to get the floor ready for the night.

I sat there with my high, my tissues full of lube, and my information. Chad had drugged me. That sounded like Chad, and sounded fine to me. Free drugs, right? Why the fuck should I care what happened to my body?

But Chad hadn’t just drugged me. My boyfriend, he had said. Sent him out to go and fetch you.

Chad had drugged Cooper.

Cooper, I want you sober Cooper. I care about you Cooper. Green eyes and soft hands and you could call him an ex, but he helped him get sober Cooper.

I got up, got dressed, and headed out the back door.

It was all crashing down on me at once, all the feelings that I was having. All at once after not at all. I have to admit it was overwhelming at first, the crush of it, the press of anger and rage and passion and texture after living in a world that had been flat, smooth. It was like seeing color after existing in some beige fucking dorm room for weeks - it was electrifying. It was nearly horrifying. I wanted to go up to the first fucking person I saw and just hit them til I didn’t feel anymore.

I stopped and took a breath. When was the last time I’d been in a fight? Like, a proper fight, not beat-me-because-I-deserve-it but me and some bloke trading blows until one of us just couldn’t anymore? Damn, it had been so long. What had happened to me? Why was I like this?

Chad had drugged Cooper.

Fuck. Fucking, fucking Chad. I wanted to walk into that goddamn bar and punch him in his smug fucking face, just hit him until he couldn’t smile anymore, smash those hands of his until he never mixed another drink again.

Fuck. 

I crouched down on the pavement. But then I wouldn’t get another drink.

I sat there for a moment running that option over and over in my mind. Yeah, I finally thought. I think I can live with that.

But as I stood up, fully intending to head into the bar and beat the living shit out of Chad, my phone started ringing. Divine intervention? A fucking annoying distraction? I paused, then pulled it out.

“Yeah?” I asked the flip phone. Only three people had this number. Chad, my sister who would never be calling me, not anymore, and -

“Hey, bitch.” Fucking Jimmy. “Got some new juice. And someone who’s dying to meet you.” Another one of “friends” of his for me to fuck. If money exchanged hands after I was done, what did I care? Free drugs and fucks. I was happy.

Well. I wasn’t unhappy. Or like. Whatever. It worked out.

Free drugs, I suddenly thought.

“Bitch,” he said. “Hey, John. You fucking there?”

“Jimmy,” I said slowly. Plans were falling in place in my X’d up brain. “You got that shit that those clubber’s OD’d on last week?”

The phone was silent. “Man, you know they took like three times the -”

“I’m no fucking first timer, babe. I know the dose.” I made my voice sickly sweet for him, the kind of voice he loved to fuck out of me. “I’m just looking for a little fun.”

There was another moment of silence. “Get your fucking ass over here, bitch. You’re mine.”

The phone clicked dead. No, I thought. Not yours.

But I think I’m gonna need your drugs.

***

Bren called me an hour later. “He isn’t here.”

“What do you mean, he isn’t there?”

“I mean he isn’t here.” I could hear the pulse of the nightclub in the background; it made me want to be sick. “Car’s here, though.”

“Anything in the boot?” I asked desperately.

There was a moment where all I could hear was the music. “Coop…”

“I know, I know.” I sighed. “Did you ask the bartender?”

“No, and you know I’m not talking to him.”

I sighed. It was probably a good idea to keep Bren far away from that man if we wanted to keep him out the hospital. The bartender. Bren would be fine. “Keep looking for me, okay?”

“Yeah. Orin flies in tonight; he said he’d come straight from the airport.”

“Tell him to get some sleep. Cross-atlantic flights are no joke.”

“Fuck,” I heard my small friend grumble. I wondered if he hadn’t wanted his bear there anyway. But no; he was probably just worried about him. “You get some sleep too. You fight tomorrow, remember.”

“Don’t remind me.” I hung up the phone and went back to my pushups. I was still a half pound overweight and needed to lose it by weigh ins. I tried to concentrate on my exercise and not worry too much about the man wandering around god knows where in the night.