Page 92 of Breathing Without You

He takes my hand and walks me over to the table and he hands me a drink from the guy behind it.

“Here you go, gorgeous.” He lightly hits his glass to mine without saying cheers.

“Thank you.” I smile at him and down half the drink. I don’t care if I look like an alcoholic to him. I just chugged my full drink in front of him before he got me this one and then I chuggedthis one about three quarters of the way down. He can judge all he wants. My lips start to tingle, and I feel a heavy buzz already, I giggle to myself as more of the warmth spreads through my body. I don’t care though. I’m ready to get drunk.

“I'm Matt,” he yells, holding his hand out to shake mine.

“I’m Emerald,” I yell back, shaking his strong hand. His skin doesn’t feel anything like Creedence’s hard working calloused hands. His are soft, too soft and doesn’t feel manly at all for someone as big as he is. Maybe I’m just being a bitch because he’s not Creed.

“Let’s go dance again,” he yells to me and I’m thankful for the distraction from my annoying thoughts. He takes my hand and leads me back to the middle of the crowd. I hold my drink and close my eyes, feeling the music as he comes up behind me and places his free hand on my hip. Bringing me closer to his body as he grinds his clearly hard length into my lower back and top of my ass. Because that’s where he comes up to when he stands behind me. I grind my ass into him, hearing him groan into my ear. That's how close he is to me, and I smile, it’s nice knowing I can turn another guy on. That I didn’t lose myself when Creedence broke my heart. That I can still excite a man. But I’m not getting turned on myself which sucks because I’d probably fuck this guy if he wanted to fuck me that’s how horny I am. But he doesn’t try making any moves besides grinding his erection into me and I feel like he could probably get off this way and its actually kind of turning me off.

“I’m gonna go find my friend, I need to go smoke.” I lie to him, although I’m drunk to the point where I wouldn’t mind bumming a couple cigarettes. I enjoy drinking and smoking sometimes.

“Want me to go with you?” he asks, and I shake my head. Kinda disappointed that my fake smoking didn’t turn him off. Apparently smoking doesn’t bother him.

“You don’t have to, I’ll come find you when I’m done, I might be a while.” I smile at him, so he doesn’t think I’m fucking around and not coming back. Even though I haven’t decided if I’ve wanted to come back yet.

“Alright I’ll see you in a bit.” He winks at me, and I actually feel bad because I might forget to come find him. But that’s alright, I’m not here to meet a guy I’m here to get fucked up. I need to stay focused on numbing this fucking heartache.

I walk around the party giving zero fucks. Like I said before, I’m doing me and giving zero fucks as I do it. I'm downing drinks and shots with people I haven’t seen in a while or people I’ve just met and I’m having so much fun. I’m pretty drunk so I start looking for the girls, so they don’t get mad. Although they should be happy that I even came out. Even though I came here with one goal in mind. To get fucked up. To drown my sorrows in alcohol and numb my pain with shots. I think I've become an alcoholic these past two weeks because all I do is drink since I’m not working, and it takes way more alcohol to get me drunk now. My heart hurts and the pain hasn't gotten any easier, if anything each day it's gotten worse. I just wish things would go back to normal. Every morning, I wake up wishing it was a terrible nightmare that I'm waking up from only to be hit by this extreme anxiety as I realize it's not.

I walk back over to the first table I got drinks from and hold up two fingers to the guy again and he just winks at me as I make my way out back and sit on the edge of the porch swinging my legs over the side. As I down my first drink and stack my full drink into the cup. I light the cigarette I bummed from one of my friends I ran into and take a hit, feeling the buzz from it tingle through my body and I smile. I love the way it makes me feel when I’m drunk. Yep, I’m officially drunk now, but I’m not shitfaced yet. I sit there and smoke my cigarette enjoying the continuous tingle it brings to my body, or maybe that’s thealcohol, or both? I snap out of my thoughts when I hear footsteps behind me.

“Hey, Emerald.” I jump at the sound of my name. Although I heard footsteps, I wasn’t expecting anyone to come up behind me and talk.

“I’m sorry to hear about you and Creedence, I heard about it from Stacy at the Diner.” I hear Daisy say while she stands next to Brynn.

“Thanks,” I mumble as I take another hit of my cigarette before taking a sip of my drink. I end up drinking half of it down. I look down at my almost empty cup. Fuck, I need to get up and get more. But I’m really enjoying this cigarette.

“Do you need another drink?” she asks me, and I look down at mine remembering that I just downed almost half of it. And I giggle at the fact that I forgot about it that quickly. Shit, I’m fucked up.

“Yeah, I’m about to go get one though so I’m okay.” I take another hit of my cigarette while she smokes hers, wanting to just be left alone. I figured if I came to a spot on the porch that was empty people would get the hint and leave me alone. Guess not.

“Here girl, you can have mine. I just grabbed it from that guy at the first table over there, the one who won’t tell you what’s in this delicious drink. I didn’t even drink out of it yet.” She places it down next to me and instead of telling her no I think to myself, zero fucks tonight, I’m here to have a good time. Plus, she just grabbed it before coming out here. I need to be a little more trusting and stop thinking everyone is out to drug me. Especially a girl.

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” I down the rest of my other drink and stack hers into the other two solo cups I have.

“No problem.” She smiles as her and Brynn put out their cigarettes and walk back inside giggling like something had happened that I apparently missed.

Weird, maybe they went to get more alcohol, or they were just done smoking and went inside. Emerald, stop being so paranoid I think to myself.

I pick up the cups and take a sip out of the drink she just gave me, actually more like I chug half of it down and feel the burn in my throat finally going away. My throat is starting to go numb, and I no longer feel the strong burn from the alcohol. I take another hit of my cigarette before putting it out and lighting up another one that I borrowed from someone else. Zero fucks tonight. I’m not ready to go inside yet either. The weather is perfect and I’m enjoying the slightly cool breeze as I sit here and swing my legs still looking down at the ground. I’m also super warm from the alcohol so it’s nice to feel the cool breeze blow across my hot skin. I sit here in silence, staring up at the sky as I take a hit of my cigarette, kind of getting grossed out by it. This is why I don’t smoke regularly, just for fun when I’m shit faced.

My mind automatically wants to go to Creedence, and I know I need to take another sip of my alcohol because I haven't erased my feelings just yet. I chug down the rest of it and put my cigarette out not wanting to finish the rest just now, I’ll hide it out here and save it for later. Or go find what’s her face, I forgot her name. And bum another one I’m sure she won’t care if I promise to buy her another pack tomorrow. Or give her money for them. I need to go get another drink first. I’ll come back out later.

I slowly stand up, feeling a little dizzy for a second before it finally passes, and I walk inside through the back door. My stomach turning a little as I walk. Almost like a motion sickness feeling. I still haven’t seen the girls or even Carsten and Axton since we got here. Maybe I shouldn’t have left them, but I’msure I’ll find them eventually. They’ve gotta be around here somewhere. I’m surprised they haven’t tried to come looking for me either honestly. It can work both ways, if they wanted to find me, they would have.

I start walking towards the table stumbling because I’m starting to feel weak, almost like my body is feeling heavy and I’m feeling a little dizzy again. I haven’t been taking much care of myself over the last two weeks. I’ve consumed more alcohol than I have actual foods or other liquids, and I think it’s finally starting to catch up to me. It’s probably from how much I had to drink so far though. I haven’t exactly gone easy on the drinks or the shots for that matter. I finally get over to the table after feeling like I dragged my body there and attempt a smile at the guy, hoping my cuteness will hide how fucked up I actually am.

“Are you sure you want more, sweetie? You're looking like you’re past your limit,” he yells to me, his brows scrunched up with a concerned look on his face.

“Just two more please, one is for my friend. I told her I’d grab our drinks for us.” I think that sentence made sense as I slurred the words together. I give him a flirty smile hoping it’ll convince him. But he’s not going to tell me how much I can and can’t drink.

“Okay, but if you come back, I’m going to have to tell you no,” he yells to me again, over the music and I nod my head as he hands me two more drinks. He’s not being a dick either, you can tell he’s just truly worried. I’ve come to the table and grabbed two drinks for myself of this crazy concoction they’ve made up all night. And I haven’t shared any of them with anyone. They’ve all been for me and I’m sure if the guy knew that in the beginning, he might have slowed down on how much he was giving me. Thank god he didn’t see how many shots I did. I’m surprised I’m not passed out or black out drunk from howmuch I’ve been drinking. I guess my body really is building up a tolerance.

My head starts to feel foggy as I make my way back towards the back door. I want to sit back on the porch again but I’m starting to feel a little funny. I start feeling shaky, like I’m cold. But I’m not, in fact I feel like I’m burning up, so I know that’s not it. Maybe this morning when I woke up feeling sore it was due to me getting sick and not just from the drinking.

I take another sip of my drink and set them down on the nearest table. I need a bathroom; I feel like I’m going to be sick. I saw a lot of people going up and down the stairs all night so I'm going to assume the bathroom and the bedrooms are up there. I stumble my way upstairs, catching myself with my hands as I do. I probably look like a pathetic idiot who doesn’t know how to handle their alcohol to all these people that I’m apologizing to as I run into them from my body feeling so heavy. I feel like someone is pulling me down as I try to walk. I stumble up the stairs, dizzier than before and start to panic. What the fuck is wrong with me? I’ve never felt this bad from drinking before. Maybe it’s from mixing all the alcohol. Or all those shots and those drinks I had tonight and they’re just all hitting me all at once. I start to sweat so I reach down and grab my pink scrunchie from Creedence and put my hair up into a high ponytail as I search for the bathroom, I finally find it, the third door on the left and there’s someone in there. Fuck I feel like I’m about to pass out. The person finally opens the bathroom door and as soon as I get in there, I fall to the ground on my knees feeling nauseous and dizzy again, like I’m about to pass out. My vision is blurry as I start attempting to crawl towards the toilet. My shaking body barely allows me to move as I attempt this crawl. I start dry heaving my hands give out under me and I smack down onto the ground. My head hit the floor pretty hard because I didn’t have enough time to catch myself. My eyes arebarely able to make out what’s in front of me as black dots dance in front of my eyes.

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