No one has to know.
Two: Can I get a margarita on the rock, rock, rocks, can I get salt all around that rim, rim, rim, rim?
One more suicide shot!” I said to Zacky
“C’mon I’ve already don’t three!”
“Do it!” I said slapping the bar. He rolled his eye and poured some salt onto his hand, snorting it, downing the shot and then to finish, squirting the lime in his eye.
“Okay you owe me ten bucks” He said holding his hand out.
“Best ten bucks I ever spent” I said handing it over.
“What watching your best friend hurt himself repeatedly is worth cash now?”
“Always has been” I laughed and he elbowed me.
“Hello ladies” Matt said walking over with Valerie.
“I am sitting here y’know” Zacky pointed out.
“That’s why I said hello ladies” He said before ordering a drink for him and his girlfriend.
Valerie was lucky, you didn’t find lead singers that weren’t often full of themselves, but Matt was nice, sure he had he very much bigged himself up on stage, but that was all part of the act, he was actually one of the sweetest guys you could ever hope to meet, and he treated me like his kid sister, I suppose that’s really what I was to them, like a sister, I saw them all as brothers anyway. Except obviously it’s not normal to have a crush on your big brother.
I sighed and downed the rest of my drink, wrinkling my nose, why does the vodka always go to the bottom?
“Guys we’re leaving” Brian announced, he had a very drunk Michelle on his arm who was giggling hysterically and her hands all over Brian. “I think she’s had a little bit too much to drink” He said laughing at his girlfriend. I chose to turn my eyes away and order another drink so that I didn’t have to watch them be all cute and goo over each other.
“Okay catch ya later man” They all said their various goodbyes, I chose to ignore the both of
them. That’s fine, if he wants to go and screw his drunken girlfriend he can, there’s nothing that I can say about it, no it’s fine.
“So what’s up with you?” Zacky asked me the minute they’d left.
“Nothing” I mumbled around the glass.
“Riley, you’ve been my best friend since we were five; I know when something’s bugging you”
“It’s nothing Zacky, really”
“You’ll tell me eventually” He said
“You sound so sure”
“Oh I am sure”
X-X-X
“Come on kid into bed” Zacky said ushering me into my bunk, I was well and truly off my face now, he was slightly drunk, but he was still coherent.
“Noo I don’t wanna go to bed!” I shrieked.
“Shh!” He laughed “You’ll wake the other’s up”
“Oh fuck them, I’m so drunk” I laughed as he pulled the blankets over me.
“Shh now go to sleep”
“No you shh” I mumbled turning over and falling asleep almost instantly.
When I woke up in the morning it felt like my brain had turned too much and was about to pour out of my ears. My stomach was churning too, and I knew I was probably gonna throw up, the bile creeping up my throat told me that.
I rolled out of my bunk, landing deftly on my feet and running up the bus to the bathroom. I pushed past a sleepy Matt and got to the bathroom just in time to throw everything in my stomach up into the toilet. I felt someone standing behind me, pulling my hair back out of my face.
When I was done I got up and brushed my teeth and stood up, turning around to see Matt leaning against the doorway.
“Somebody drunk too much last night” He said in a fake lisp voice.
“Oh shut up Sanders, just because we’re not all big buff men who can handle their drink”
“Hey short round you’re not too bad, you just need to work on being quiet when Zacky brings you in at night” He laughed.
“I’m not that short”
“You’re five foot three; I think that qualifies as short”
“You’re an ass” I counteracted
“Maybe so but you’re a noisy drunk” He said
“Whatever, I’m going back to bed”
“Have fun”
“Oh I plan to”
I went back into the bunk room and got back into my bunk. But I couldn’t sleep, as much as I wanted sleep to come and let me rest my aching muscles, it wouldn’t. I rolled around for a while, trying to get comfy, but every position I tried made me feel worse than before, so I dug around for my pyjamas and put them on, leaving my clothes from last night at the end of my bunk.
I went back into the bathroom and took my makeup off, pulling my hair back into a ponytail, I sighed, I looked crappy, but then again, they’d all seen me at my worst.
A few years ago I went through a nasty break up, I was with these guys, Craig, and I was trying to convince myself that I could love him. I suppose I did love him, but I wasn’t in love with him like I was Brian, and he accused me of cheating on him, and that I was in love with someone else. I told him that yes, I was in love with someone else, and then he’d raped me and beat me up pretty badly.
Of course I’d called Zacky and him and Gena had abandoned their date and come straight over, and then Zacky called the rest of the guys and they went and hospitalised Craig. I suppose he deserved it, it’s not that he was a bad boyfriend to me when we were together, but it was the whole rape and GBH thing, but I never heard from him again.
But after that I developed a pretty bad drinking problem, it took me a whole bottle of Vodka or Jack Daniels just to be able to get up in the morning. I remember the day the guys confronted me about it pretty vividly.
“Riley we wanna talk to you” Zacky said sitting me down on the couch, the rest of the guys were there too.
“What did I do now?” I asked groggily, I was suffering from a horrible hangover and I didn’t feel like being sociable.
“You have a drinking problem” Johnny said bluntly.
“What?”
“Well I would have put it a bit more eloquently” Matt said “But he’s right, you’ve got a problem Riles, and we don’t wanna sit back and watch you destroy yourself any more than you already have, you need help”
“I don’t need help with anything. I’m fine”
“Have you even seen how many empty vodka bottles there are in the trash?” Zacky said
“A few”
“More than a few babe, you’re gonna kill yourself if you don’t stop, and none of us want to have to see your name written on a gravestone”
“I don’t have a drinking problem!”
“Riley you do, okay we understand that it’s been hard for you these past couple of months, with everything that’s… happened, but you need to stop this”
“I’ve told you guys! I’m fine, I don’t have a drinking problem, and so what if I like to drink, you guys drink” I snapped getting up and stalking out of the room like a small child.
I knew someone was following me as I slammed my bedroom door, a few seconds later there was a knock at the door, and my best friend walked into the room.
“Riley babe” He said sitting down on the bed next to me “You need to stop this” He said, I studied his face. It hadn’t changed much over the years, except he’d filled out a little more, he still had the baby face from childhood, with the sparkly green eyes and pouty lips, but he’d grown up, his facial features had hardened a little and he’d become a man. But those same eyes from our childhood were what always made me do whatever he wanted me to. I just couldn’t say no when he pulled the puppy dog face. It wasn’t fair.
“I know I have a problem” I whispered burying my face in my knees. “But it’s how I cope, it’s how I deal with everything, it’s the only way I can cope”
“C’mere” He said pulling me into a hug “I know that it’s hard, but there are other ways of dealing with this, you can’t destroy yourself like this, I don’t want to have to be the one to call your Mom and tell her that you’ve been admitted to intensive care and you’re unconscious cos you’ve drunk yourself to death”
“I know” I whispered, tears rolling down my cheeks.
“Please, if not for yourself, do it for me, I don’t want to lose my best friend”
“I don’t want to lose you either” I said gripping his shirt.
“Please? Just try”
“I am trying though”
“We’ll help you, no one’s rooting for you to fail, and we all want you to get better”
“I want to get better; I hate what he’s done to me”
“I hate it too, but come on, we’ll all help you, and you’ve got your five big brothers to look after you” He laughed.
“Yeah, except I’m more mature than the lot of you put together”
“You know it babe”
I shook my head, clearing it of all the bad memories of then, no, I was better now; I wasn’t going to put myself of the other guys through any of that again. Yeah it’d been hard trying to get clean, it took almost a year, but they all saw me through my ups and downs, and here we all were three years later, yeah we lost Jimmy two years ago, but he was still with us, he was the one who helped me through it the most I think.
He was the one who sat up with me at 3AM when neither of us could sleep, he was always there make me smile and forget about being sad.
“Um Riley?” I looked up to see Brian standing in the doorway in just his boxers.
“Yeah?”
“Sorry you’ve been staring at the mirror for like five minutes and I really gotta piss”
“You’re so crude”
“Jesus just let a man pee”
“Fine” I rolled my eyes and left the bathroom, he shut the door quickly behind me
“Just put the damn seat down when you’re done!”
"Yes Mom!"
“C’mon I’ve already don’t three!”
“Do it!” I said slapping the bar. He rolled his eye and poured some salt onto his hand, snorting it, downing the shot and then to finish, squirting the lime in his eye.
“Okay you owe me ten bucks” He said holding his hand out.
“Best ten bucks I ever spent” I said handing it over.
“What watching your best friend hurt himself repeatedly is worth cash now?”
“Always has been” I laughed and he elbowed me.
“Hello ladies” Matt said walking over with Valerie.
“I am sitting here y’know” Zacky pointed out.
“That’s why I said hello ladies” He said before ordering a drink for him and his girlfriend.
Valerie was lucky, you didn’t find lead singers that weren’t often full of themselves, but Matt was nice, sure he had he very much bigged himself up on stage, but that was all part of the act, he was actually one of the sweetest guys you could ever hope to meet, and he treated me like his kid sister, I suppose that’s really what I was to them, like a sister, I saw them all as brothers anyway. Except obviously it’s not normal to have a crush on your big brother.
I sighed and downed the rest of my drink, wrinkling my nose, why does the vodka always go to the bottom?
“Guys we’re leaving” Brian announced, he had a very drunk Michelle on his arm who was giggling hysterically and her hands all over Brian. “I think she’s had a little bit too much to drink” He said laughing at his girlfriend. I chose to turn my eyes away and order another drink so that I didn’t have to watch them be all cute and goo over each other.
“Okay catch ya later man” They all said their various goodbyes, I chose to ignore the both of
them. That’s fine, if he wants to go and screw his drunken girlfriend he can, there’s nothing that I can say about it, no it’s fine.
“So what’s up with you?” Zacky asked me the minute they’d left.
“Nothing” I mumbled around the glass.
“Riley, you’ve been my best friend since we were five; I know when something’s bugging you”
“It’s nothing Zacky, really”
“You’ll tell me eventually” He said
“You sound so sure”
“Oh I am sure”
X-X-X
“Come on kid into bed” Zacky said ushering me into my bunk, I was well and truly off my face now, he was slightly drunk, but he was still coherent.
“Noo I don’t wanna go to bed!” I shrieked.
“Shh!” He laughed “You’ll wake the other’s up”
“Oh fuck them, I’m so drunk” I laughed as he pulled the blankets over me.
“Shh now go to sleep”
“No you shh” I mumbled turning over and falling asleep almost instantly.
When I woke up in the morning it felt like my brain had turned too much and was about to pour out of my ears. My stomach was churning too, and I knew I was probably gonna throw up, the bile creeping up my throat told me that.
I rolled out of my bunk, landing deftly on my feet and running up the bus to the bathroom. I pushed past a sleepy Matt and got to the bathroom just in time to throw everything in my stomach up into the toilet. I felt someone standing behind me, pulling my hair back out of my face.
When I was done I got up and brushed my teeth and stood up, turning around to see Matt leaning against the doorway.
“Somebody drunk too much last night” He said in a fake lisp voice.
“Oh shut up Sanders, just because we’re not all big buff men who can handle their drink”
“Hey short round you’re not too bad, you just need to work on being quiet when Zacky brings you in at night” He laughed.
“I’m not that short”
“You’re five foot three; I think that qualifies as short”
“You’re an ass” I counteracted
“Maybe so but you’re a noisy drunk” He said
“Whatever, I’m going back to bed”
“Have fun”
“Oh I plan to”
I went back into the bunk room and got back into my bunk. But I couldn’t sleep, as much as I wanted sleep to come and let me rest my aching muscles, it wouldn’t. I rolled around for a while, trying to get comfy, but every position I tried made me feel worse than before, so I dug around for my pyjamas and put them on, leaving my clothes from last night at the end of my bunk.
I went back into the bathroom and took my makeup off, pulling my hair back into a ponytail, I sighed, I looked crappy, but then again, they’d all seen me at my worst.
A few years ago I went through a nasty break up, I was with these guys, Craig, and I was trying to convince myself that I could love him. I suppose I did love him, but I wasn’t in love with him like I was Brian, and he accused me of cheating on him, and that I was in love with someone else. I told him that yes, I was in love with someone else, and then he’d raped me and beat me up pretty badly.
Of course I’d called Zacky and him and Gena had abandoned their date and come straight over, and then Zacky called the rest of the guys and they went and hospitalised Craig. I suppose he deserved it, it’s not that he was a bad boyfriend to me when we were together, but it was the whole rape and GBH thing, but I never heard from him again.
But after that I developed a pretty bad drinking problem, it took me a whole bottle of Vodka or Jack Daniels just to be able to get up in the morning. I remember the day the guys confronted me about it pretty vividly.
“Riley we wanna talk to you” Zacky said sitting me down on the couch, the rest of the guys were there too.
“What did I do now?” I asked groggily, I was suffering from a horrible hangover and I didn’t feel like being sociable.
“You have a drinking problem” Johnny said bluntly.
“What?”
“Well I would have put it a bit more eloquently” Matt said “But he’s right, you’ve got a problem Riles, and we don’t wanna sit back and watch you destroy yourself any more than you already have, you need help”
“I don’t need help with anything. I’m fine”
“Have you even seen how many empty vodka bottles there are in the trash?” Zacky said
“A few”
“More than a few babe, you’re gonna kill yourself if you don’t stop, and none of us want to have to see your name written on a gravestone”
“I don’t have a drinking problem!”
“Riley you do, okay we understand that it’s been hard for you these past couple of months, with everything that’s… happened, but you need to stop this”
“I’ve told you guys! I’m fine, I don’t have a drinking problem, and so what if I like to drink, you guys drink” I snapped getting up and stalking out of the room like a small child.
I knew someone was following me as I slammed my bedroom door, a few seconds later there was a knock at the door, and my best friend walked into the room.
“Riley babe” He said sitting down on the bed next to me “You need to stop this” He said, I studied his face. It hadn’t changed much over the years, except he’d filled out a little more, he still had the baby face from childhood, with the sparkly green eyes and pouty lips, but he’d grown up, his facial features had hardened a little and he’d become a man. But those same eyes from our childhood were what always made me do whatever he wanted me to. I just couldn’t say no when he pulled the puppy dog face. It wasn’t fair.
“I know I have a problem” I whispered burying my face in my knees. “But it’s how I cope, it’s how I deal with everything, it’s the only way I can cope”
“C’mere” He said pulling me into a hug “I know that it’s hard, but there are other ways of dealing with this, you can’t destroy yourself like this, I don’t want to have to be the one to call your Mom and tell her that you’ve been admitted to intensive care and you’re unconscious cos you’ve drunk yourself to death”
“I know” I whispered, tears rolling down my cheeks.
“Please, if not for yourself, do it for me, I don’t want to lose my best friend”
“I don’t want to lose you either” I said gripping his shirt.
“Please? Just try”
“I am trying though”
“We’ll help you, no one’s rooting for you to fail, and we all want you to get better”
“I want to get better; I hate what he’s done to me”
“I hate it too, but come on, we’ll all help you, and you’ve got your five big brothers to look after you” He laughed.
“Yeah, except I’m more mature than the lot of you put together”
“You know it babe”
I shook my head, clearing it of all the bad memories of then, no, I was better now; I wasn’t going to put myself of the other guys through any of that again. Yeah it’d been hard trying to get clean, it took almost a year, but they all saw me through my ups and downs, and here we all were three years later, yeah we lost Jimmy two years ago, but he was still with us, he was the one who helped me through it the most I think.
He was the one who sat up with me at 3AM when neither of us could sleep, he was always there make me smile and forget about being sad.
“Um Riley?” I looked up to see Brian standing in the doorway in just his boxers.
“Yeah?”
“Sorry you’ve been staring at the mirror for like five minutes and I really gotta piss”
“You’re so crude”
“Jesus just let a man pee”
“Fine” I rolled my eyes and left the bathroom, he shut the door quickly behind me
“Just put the damn seat down when you’re done!”
"Yes Mom!"
@Tones27tga
Life in technicolour :)
5/27/14