Hypocrite

I hummed, lolling my head to the side and staring at the bright lights on my floor. I wasn’t sure what it was at first, but the tunes of Bastille filtered across the room and I realized it was my phone. Reaching blindly, by the time my fingers wrapped around the device, it had already finished ringing. They’d call again - they’d been trying for the past hour.

Coughing from the smoke in my lungs, I stumbled my way into my bedroom and rifled through my bedside drawer. When I found my prize, I swallowed it dry and climbed into bed without bothering to change. Ambien was my best friend.



“Wake up!”

Whining, I pulled my pillow over my head and buried my face into the mattress. I felt a sharp pain on my backside, and I realized the intruder had punched me in the ass. I whipped my head up and glared, only to realize that it was Terra. She looked worried, and I wasn’t sure why.

“Do you know how long we’ve been trying to get a hold of you?”

“A few hours probably, why?”

“A few hours!? Iris, it’s been almost a full day now. What’s wrong with you?”

“What?” I slowly sat up and grabbed at my phone, checking the date. After a few seconds of calculations, I realized that maybe I had slept a bit longer than a few hours. It had almost been twenty. Maybe I had taken a bit too much last night while working.

“No big deal, I just had a rough night,” I lied easily, but Terra wasn’t fooled. She knew what I’d done - it had happened before, more times than I’d care to admit. Sometimes I was careless with my inspiration, but when the ideas wouldn’t flow my go-to solution was to just take even more. Sluggishly, I climbed out of bed and made my way to my studio. Paper was scattered everywhere - that wasn’t anything new. I never bothered to clean up in here.

On the far wall was a canvas, its colors only consisting of black, white, and red. I couldn’t decipher what it was at first through my sleep-crusted eyesight, but I realized what I had painted last night in my drug-induced stupor. Gerard’s face was staring back at me, contorted into some desperate and pleading expression.

Memories from the night before came back to me in one go. After Terra’s call, I began to think about Gerard and I. Sure, he was good looking, and we had a lot in common, but he wasn’t right for me. I only wanted him, not his extra issues. That’s what scared me, though. I wanted Gerard.

After my horrifying revelation, I threw myself into painting - and that was paired with taking pills and doing a few drugs that I probably shouldn’t. It helped the creative process, so I didn’t see anything wrong with it. I don’t know how my painting came to be the visage of the person I was trying to avoid, but I knew that I couldn’t let anyone find out about it. Especially Terra. Hurriedly, I exited the room and locked it behind me.

As if on cue, Terra came up to the door and asked what I had been working on so hard last night that I almost killed myself. I told her that it wasn’t finished, and she accepted that answer without a fight. I never allowed her to see my serious projects before they were finished. I didn’t want any outside input, because then it might construe what I originally felt of the painting.

“Look,” she took my hand and led me to the bathroom, where the bath tub was already filling up. Without even asking, she began to force my shirt over my head. With minimal help from me, she managed to get my clothes off and help me into the bath, “Frank’s having a party tonight. His band, Pencey Prep, is releasing their new CD tomorrow, and it’s supposed to be this big celebration with all these hot shots. He invited the both of us, but you don’t have to go if you aren’t feeling up to it.”

I clenched my eyes shut as Terra helped me dunk my head under the water, and then she scrubbed shampoo into my hair, “Let me clean myself. You go make me something to eat. If I’m not done by the time you’re finished, go pick me out something to wear.”

“Aye, Captain,” she rinsed her hands off in the water and jogged out of the room, leaving me to sluggishly clean my body of the sweat it had garnered through my adventure the previous night.

After eating, I pulled on the black dress Terra had chosen, and opted for some flats instead of heels. Terra had already changed into the dress she brought, and the two of us made our way to Frank’s ridiculous house. It was large, and entirely full of people. At the door, we were prompted for our invitations. Terra gave the man both of ours, and then led me into the mass.

Frank was in the living room, surrounded by a crowd of unfamiliar people. Scratch that, I did recognize one of the group’s members. Gerard looked up when I walked in, and the small smile he gave me made my stomach clench. I remembered my ordeal, and hurriedly looked away from the dark haired man.

“My two dates for the night! Guys, these are my extremely close friends - Ray, Mikey, Bob, and their girlfriends that I’m too tipsy to remember the name of,” None of the girls looked offended, and I figured that they must be used to this right now. I wasn’t particularly interested in remembering them, either. They were easily forgettable; Short dresses, obscene cleavage, legs for miles and killer racks.

I greeted the three introduced men - Mikey bore a resemblance to Gerard, and he explained that they were brothers. Terra immediately sidled up to Frank, and I was left to sit next to Bob as he ogled his date’s tits. Gerard leaned over from the armchair next to my seat on the couch, and asked if I wanted to go and get something to drink with him. I was wary, but agreed anyway. I didn’t know where the alcohol was, anyway.

Armed with a solo cup filled with beer, I turned around to face Gerard. He said nothing, but slipped an arm around my waist and led me back to our little circle in the living room. Gerard tried to coax me to sit with him on the armchair, but I took my place on the sofa again and began to nurse my drink.

I continued to make trips into the kitchen to refill, and by the time I realized that our group had dispersed and it was only Gerard and me, I was already quite past buzzed. Gerard seemed to be as well, and whispered something into my ear as he took my hand. Up the stairs and to the last room was where we stopped, and he helped me sit at a coffee table where he began to line up a white powder.

Not long after we had finished it off, I was lolling across the couch, a bit woozy from everything I had done over the course of the past few hours. Gerard was on leaning across me, kissing down my neck and murmuring praises that I couldn’t really hear. I wasn’t sure why, but I didn’t want to be doing this with him. Something was telling me it was a bad idea, but when he reached up my dress, everything flew out the window.