Chapter 2: The Morning After
The light was a physical assault. It speared through the gaps in my blinds, thin, hot blades that landed directly on my face. I groaned, a sound that rasped in my dry throat, and turned my head into the pillow. The pillow smelled of smoke and sweat.
My mouth tasted like something had crawled in and died. A chemical aftertaste, sweet and toxic, clung to the back of my tongue—the ghost of last night’s vodka. My skull was a fragile shell, and inside, a dull, persistent hammering had already begun. Not a full-pound headache yet. Just the promise of one. The anxious buzz was still distant, a faint static in the corners of my mind, waiting for its cue.
My phone vibrated on the nightstand, rattling against an empty bottle. The screen was a blister of light in the dim room.
Danny: 10:14 AM. Saw the tail end of the stream. You were on fire. Clutched that 1v3 like it was nothing.
I stared at the words. My eyes struggled to focus. The tail end. He hadn’t seen the earlier, crisp rounds. He’d seen the later ones, the sloppy ones, the ones fueled by the bottle. He was lying. Or he was being strategic. With Danny, it was always the latter.
A second buzz.
Danny: Thinking of running some Apex tonight. Duos. Our chemistry’s good for views. You in?
The static in my head grew louder. A collab. Danny had a bigger following, more pull with sponsors. A collab with him meant exposure. It also meant being “on” in a different, more exhausting way. It meant performing for him, too, not just the chat. It meant his voice in my ear for hours, a constant, smooth patter that was always calculating angles.
Validation and manipulation, served in the same text.
My bare feet hit the floor. The laminate was jarringly cold. I stood, my head swimming for a second, the room tilting on its axis before settling. I was wearing the same band t-shirt. I padded out of the bedroom, into the small, disastrous rectangle of my kitchen.
The scene was a monument to neglect. Empty energy drink cans stood sentinel on the counter. Two wine bottles, both holding about a finger’s worth of flat, cheap red, sat by the sink. A bag of tortilla chips had spilled its contents, a scatter of yellow shards across the sticky countertop. My cracked laptop, lid closed, hibernated beside the mess.
The whiteboard on the wall was the worst of it. Scribbled in dry-erase marker were usernames: Skitz, Marrow, Vex. Numbers beside them. Bet amounts from a late-night poker stream I’d done weeks ago. I hadn’t settled them. I kept meaning to. The numbers seemed to pulse in my peripheral vision.
I needed to quiet the hammer, to push back the static. The countdown to the next performance had already begun.
I filled the kettle, my hands shaking just enough to make the metal spout clatter against the sink. While it boiled, I took the nearly empty bottle of vodka from the freezer. The cold glass was a relief in my palm. I poured a generous measure—not a splash, a solid glug—into my largest mug. Then I added the instant coffee, the black crystals dissolving into the clear liquid. I didn’t add water. The kettle clicked off. I poured the boiling water over it all, watching it swirl into a murky, familiar brown.
I carried the mug back to the table, set it down, and stared at my phone.
The warmth from the mug seeped into my hands. I lifted it, blew across the surface, and took the first sip. It was brutal. The bitterness of the cheap coffee fought with the oily, antiseptic burn of the vodka. I gagged, my throat constricting, but I swallowed. The heat travelled down, a spreading stain of comfort in my chest. The second sip was easier. The third was welcomed.
The hammering in my skull receded, not gone, but muffled under a thick blanket. The static faded to a bearable hum. My fingers steadied.
I picked up the phone. My thumb hovered. A collab meant money. It meant visibility. It meant I was still in the game. Danny knew that. He was offering a lifeline wrapped in barbed wire.
I typed back a single word: Sure.
I sent it before I could think. Then I took a long, deep draught from the mug, finishing it. The aftertaste was still horrible, but now it was a familiar horrible. A useful horrible.
The day stretched ahead, an empty corridor to be filled. I had edits. I had to post the short from last night’s “highlights.” I had to be witty on Twitter. I had to be Lenz.
I started the coffee maker for real this time, a performance for myself. While it gurgled, I opened the laptop. The bank tab was still there. I refreshed it. The numbers hadn’t magically improved. Rent was a block of red text in my budgeting app. The sponsorship review email was buried in my inbox, unopened.
I closed the laptop. Not yet.
I cleaned the kitchen instead. It was a slow, methodical process. Wiping counters, throwing away bottles and cans, sweeping the chip fragments into the dustpan. The physical movement felt alien. My body was a tool for clicking and talking, not for this. The vodka-coffee swam in my veins, making my movements deliberate, slightly slowed. I was a ghost cleaning up after its own wake.
The whiteboard stayed. I wiped off a week-old grocery list, but left the usernames and numbers. They were a debt. A tomorrow problem.
By early afternoon, the warm hum had settled into a steady state. I’d edited and posted the short—all sharp cuts and triumphant music, no missed shots, no slurred speech. I’d tweeted something vague and slightly self-deprecating about “ranked resilience.” The replies were full of hearts and fire emojis.
My phone buzzed again. Danny.
Danny: 2:07 PM. Sweet. 8 PM your time? We’ll run pubs, warm up, then hit ranked. I’ll host you.
He wasn’t asking. He was telling. A host from him would flood my channel with his viewers. It was a gift. It was also a takeover.
Me: 8 works.
I had six hours.
The anxiety began to reshape itself, focusing from a general dread into a specific, sharp-pointed thing. Performing for Danny’s crowd. They were different. More critical. More savvy. They’d see through a mask faster. I needed to be sharp. I needed to be perfect.
The bottle in the freezer was empty. I stared into its clear, hollow depth. Then I walked to the small pantry, moved aside a box of off-brand rice, and pulled out my reserve. A full, unopened liter. The seal cracked with a satisfying pop.
I didn’t mix it with anything this time. I poured three fingers into a clean glass—a concession to the approaching “work” evening—and carried it to the couch. I sat in the silent apartment, the sun moving across the floor, and drank it slow. This was the good part. The private part. The warm, silent solidarity with myself. The alcohol wasn’t a crutch here, in the daylight silence; it was a tool, a fine-tuning instrument. It smoothed the jagged edges of my thoughts, sanded down the panic, and left me with a clear, if artificially derived, calm.
I thought about Danny. His easy laugh on stream, the way he remembered his viewer’s names. The way he’d casually mentioned a new sponsor deal last week, a figure that made my rent look like a rounding error. The familiar, sour curl of envy in my gut. I drank until it uncurled.
At 7 PM, I showered. The water was too hot, scalding my skin pink. I scrubbed yesterday off me. I dressed in fresh, identical clothes: clean boy shorts, a different oversized band shirt. The uniform.
My setup glowed in the darkening room. I opened the streaming software, ran my audio checks. My voice came back clean, no hint of slurry. “Check, check. Hey everyone.”
It sounded hollow in the empty room.
At 7:45, I filled my large stainless-steel water bottle. I emptied half of it into the sink. Then I topped it back up with vodka from the new bottle. A 50/50 mix. Hydration. Performance fuel.
My hands were steady. My mind was quiet. The buzzing was gone, replaced by a focused, liquid clarity. This was the gear I needed to be in. The Lenz gear.
At 7:58, I opened Apex. Danny’s invite popped up instantly. I clicked accept. His voice filled my headphones, smooth as brandy.
“Lenz! You ready to show these kids how it’s done?”
I hit ‘Go Live’. The red light on my camera glowed. I leaned in, a smile spreading across my face that reached my eyes. It felt real. In that moment, with the warmth in my veins and the camera’s eye upon me, it almost was.
“Hey Danny,” I said, my voice bright, effortlessly cool. “Born ready. Let’s ruin some days.”
Chat began to flood in, a torrent of his people and mine. I took a long, casual pull from the water bottle, the liquid fire a secret applause in my throat. The game loaded. The countdown began. The performance, the only one that ever truly mattered, was underway.