Electric Blue

My life before freedom.
“hey, I’ve got a story for you… if you want to hear it.”
“Of course.”
“It’s a little sample of me and my life… I’m an honest person, but a closed person, my business is my business unless I choose otherwise, so I need you to promise that it stays between us.”
“I totally understand, everything stays between us, I promise.”
“Well, when I turned seventeen opened up a free art studio for people in need from all walks of life. I met some really intelligent, artistic people that society had given up on because of their lifestyle choices. I got to know this particular guy that was only two years older than me and we ended up being best friends, we had a pretty strong connection but we had trouble understanding each other sometimes. I got curious one day and took him out for coffee. Falcon told me a little bit about his life and his hardships, it intrigued me and I wanted so badly to be a part of it, for whatever reason at the time.
At this stage I had never considered doing crime or drugs or anything like that, I was goal orientated, focused. I had the occasional drink when I had the time, but my life was heading towards where I wanted it to go.
One night, Falcon and I went out to a pub for dinner, a few drinks, a little bit of fun. I guess you could say it was a date. We had this weird chemistry that you could tell both of us wanted each other but neither of us ever brought it up. To save face I guess. Anyway, we’d had a beautiful dinner and some drinks. Falcon was at the bar getting us some more when a guy approached me at the ATM.
“Hello beautiful,” he slurred.
“Hi?” He looked like the kind of person that you could trust on a ‘society’ level; well dressed, trimmed hair all that but I was always weary of drunks. I guess I had a built in instinct or something. “Can I help you?”
“I just wanted to chat with a pretty girl like you,”
“Um, thank you I guess, I’m going to go back to my friend now.”
“Wait, first. You interested in anything?”
“No thanks, I don’t want your dick inside me if that’s what you are implying.”
“No, not at all, what kind of a man do you think I am? I just wanted to maybe buy you a drink.”
“Yeah, alright.” Being drunk and stuff I was pretty inclined to get a free drink. “There’s a catch though, you’ve got to buy my friend one too.”
“Sure. I’m Mark by the way.”
“Poppy,”
I introduced Mark and Falcon, they seemed to get off on the right foot. We continued to drink the night away, when the pub closed, Mark invited us both back to his house. We were both a little hesitant but we agreed, it was my day off anyway. After a while I’d ended up feeling a little funny, sick. But not like I had drank too much sick, just wrong. So I went to the bathroom and threw up.
I had put it down to having far too much and called it a night, Falcon and I left Mark’s when the sun was coming up. We got to the front gate, and I dropped. Just dropped to the ground blank. I woke up a few hours later in hospital, they said I’d been spiked. I felt like crap. How could I have felt so good a few hours before and felt shitty now. Falcon was by my side.
“I knew I couldn’t trust that bloke,” he sneered. “but you’re okay so I guess that’s what matters.”
“Fuck off, don’t touch me.” I slapped his hand away.
“Well, fuck you then” he left.
I had never been like that before. I was really angry, I couldn’t shake the adrenaline and anger out of my body and it felt awful in my heart, but at the same time it was a rush, a feeling I’d never had before.
“Wait, Falcon, please come back. I’m sorry. I’ve just never experienced anything like this before. I’m fucking raging from the inside out right now.”
“That fuck will die for this shit. I swear to god… but I’ll sort that later, you just relax, I brought you breakfast.”
“Thank you, you look a wreck.”
“So do you, jerk” he laughed.
After a few hours had passed and I had gotten through what Falcon had described to me as the ‘come down’ I went home. Falcon came with me. We slept into the afternoon, got up, had some food and went back to bed. I woke up at midnight, and Falcon was gone. I had a clear head now and had so many questions to ask him. So I called him. His phone was off.
I was too riddled with questions and confused by what had happened that I got up and watched some midnight movies and fell back asleep.
“Good morning lovely” Falcon was back.
“Good morning, Where did you go last night?”
“had some business to deal with.”
I remembered what he had said about ‘dealing with him later’. No, he didn’t actually kill him did he?
“What’s the feeling like when you kill someone?” I asked.
“Are you jumping to conclusions that I killed that prick?”
“well you did, didn’t you?” I much didn’t care about the fact. I mean murder was like closed doors I’d never walked behind before so I mean I had no real emotion towards it yet and in my head it was fair, after all he did betray my trust.
“It feels like an epic rush, better than anything you’ve ever felt before. Better than any drug. You have that sense of achievement but you also have that sense of fear of getting caught which just makes it more exciting.”
“So you did?”
“Fuck, I knew I shouldn’t have come back here.”
“Falcon, I’m not going to get you locked up. I’m not going to have any hatred towards you I just want to know, I’m curious.”
“Yes Poppy, I killed him. That asshole deserves it. Do you even remember what happened last night?”
“We drank and had a good time, until he made me sick, of course.”
“Oh so you had a good time fucking him then did you, while you were half alive?”
Shock set in.
“Falcon, what the hell are you on about?”
“Don’t worry, it’s over and done with now, that scum is gone.”
“But I had such a great night last night. I felt awesome, I just don’t understand how I could have let that happen… Where were you when this was happening?”
“I was outside; having a smoke, don’t put the blame on me. This isn’t mine or your fault.”
It took a lot of arguing and disagreeing and blurry headedness to understand what exactly had gone on. Turns out Falcon had told me he could give me some drugs, I’d had such a good night that I was willing to give it a try. I didn’t have any money on me and being the drunken mess I was, I lowered my standards so low to fucking, for drugs.
I was never drinking again.
EVER.

A week had passed and Falcon and I just weren’t the same, we still talked and went places together but the laughter had toned down to almost none. After our party night, he had relapsed and gotten back on the hammer. Anyway, long story short after weeks of this, I spoke to him about it. I asked him what was so good about it, I tried to be as understanding as I could and had no judgment, and I made it clear that I was just curious. He told me to try it for myself, which was the only explanation he could give me.
“Okay, I’ll have some, but let’s do it together and not make a proper habit out of it. I’ll help you get off it.” Famous last words, some might say.
It brought back a feeling I had once lost but stronger. I enjoyed the things I used to ten times as much as I ever did. I loved it.
It wasn’t long before money got behind me, drugs got in front and that’s all I had a care in the world for anymore, was ‘feeling good’.
I stopped talking to my parents, I never wanted them to find out, I had to close my studio and I only painted for myself now when I was high and alone, or coming down and retless.
At the end of it, I ended up selling my body for drugs, funny how something I regretted, turned back around and I ended up doing it again… eventually I had to get clean because it had been days and I couldn’t get my hands on anything, my body hurt, I was abusive, my teeth and fat was wearing thin, which I could actually notice once I’d started coming down. I had hit rock bottom. Falcon had found out what I was doing to keep our drug habit going and we had a huge fight over it. I blamed him for everything. We tried to work things out with each other but you know how things happen, it was exactly like in the movie “Candy”, “When you can stop, you don’t want to, and when you want to stop you can’t.”
We ended up deciding to have “one last hit” and being the greedy junkies that we were, he shot up too much, and overdosed in front of my eyes. I mean, as bad as it is, in a way I’m glad it happened. It opened my eyes to the true reality of what I was doing to myself, so I took myself to a mental ward and got help.”