Chapter 13: Chapter 13
The silence that followed the cap’s click was porous, filled with the hum of the refrigerator and the low thunder of blood in Leo’s ears. The vodka was a low tide in his veins, pulling his thoughts out to a fuzzy, distant sea. He watched a water stain on the ceiling morph from a continent into a shapeless blob.
“My tongue is numb,” Alex announced from the floor. He was lying flat now, one arm flung over his eyes. “I can’t feel the tip. It’s like a little leather pillow in my mouth.”
“That’s disgusting,” Emily said, but she giggled. It was a loose, unspooling sound. She was tracing the pattern on the rug with her toe, her head lolling against the wall. “A leather pillow. You’re so weird.”
Reed let out a long, shaky breath that was almost a laugh. “Remember his ‘artisanal pickles’ phase?” she slurred. “He tried to ferment everything. The kitchen smelled like a foot.”
“A cultured foot,” Alex corrected from the floor, not moving. “There’s a difference.”
Leo felt a smile crack his dry lips. The room had taken on a soft, woolly quality. The edges of things—the shattered lamp, the upended bookshelf—seemed less sharp, less accusatory. The vodka had sanded down the world. He reached for the bottle Emily had capped, his movements slow and deliberate as if he were underwater. He unscrewed it, the sound absurdly loud.
“Round two?” Leroy asked, his voice a low rumble. He hadn’t spoken in a while. He was sitting with his knees up, watching Leo with heavy-lidded eyes.
“Round… infinity,” Leo said, and took a swig. It didn’t burn anymore. It was just a cool, blank space going down.
Emily snatched the bottle. “Gimme. I’m chasing a feeling and I think it’s in here.” She drank, then coughed violently, liquid spraying. She laughed through the coughs, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Missed my mouth. Everything’s… wobbly.”
“Everything is wobbly,” Reed agreed. She pushed herself upright, swaying slightly. “The room is on a boat. A shitty boat.” She took the bottle from Emily, her movements careful and exaggerated. She held it up, squinting at the label. “This is terrible vodka. Why did we buy this?”
“Because it was cheap,” Alex said from the floor. “And big.”
“It’s doing the job,” Leo murmured. The job was oblivion, and they were clocking in for overtime. He felt untethered, floating a few inches outside his own body. He could see them all from a distance: a shipwrecked crew huddled on a island of ruined carpet.
Leroy accepted the bottle from Reed. Instead of drinking, he held it in both hands, staring into it like a crystal ball. “I think I called my mom earlier,” he said, his words thick. “I don’t… I don’t remember what I said.”
A hiccup of silence. Then Emily burst out laughing, a real, ragged belly laugh that bent her double. “Oh my god. What did you say?”
“I don’t know!” Leroy said, a grin spreading across his face, wide and unguarded. It was a rare sight. “The last thing I remember is the keypad. Then just… voice. My voice talking.”
“You probably told her you love her,” Alex mumbled. “You get maudlin.”
“I am not maudlin,” Leroy said, feigning offense. He finally drank, a long, gurgling pull. “I’m… emotionally proficient.”
Now everyone laughed, a messy, overlapping chorus that filled the broken room. It was a sound with sharp edges and wet corners, born from exhaustion and cheap liquor. Leo’s own laughter hurt his ribs, but it was a good hurt, a feeling that proved he was still there.
The bottle kept circulating. Time became sticky, pooling in the corners of the room. Leo lost track of who had it. At some point, Emily tried to stand up to use the bathroom, took two steps, and sat down hard on the floor again, declaring, “Nope. The floor is my home now. I am a floor person.”
Reed slid down to join her, resting her head on Emily’s shoulder. “Floor people unite,” she mumbled. Her earlier sharpness had dissolved into a slurry, sentimental warmth. “You’re all assholes. But you’re my assholes.”
“We’re a constellation of assholes,” Leo said, the words feeling profound and ridiculous in his mouth. He was lying on his side now, the rough carpet against his cheek. He could see Alex’s socked feet from under the coffee table.
“A constellation,” Leroy repeated, nodding sagely. He was lying back now too, staring at the ceiling. “Ursa Asshole. Leo the… other Leo.”
“Hey,” Leo protested weakly, and another wave of giggles washed over them, weaker this time, spent.
The laughter died into a comfortable, drunken silence. The jukebox in Leo’s head had stopped. There was just the sound of breathing, the rustle of fabric, the occasional wet click of someone swallowing. The conflict from earlier was a ghost, present but insubstantial, seen through a thick, forgiving fog.
Emily fumbled for the vodka bottle, which was resting near her thigh. She got a hand on it, lifted it, and found it empty. She turned it upside down. A single, clear drop fell onto her jeans.
“It’s gone,” she said, her voice hollow with a mock-tragic gravity. “The well is dry.”
No one moved. The finality of it settled over them. There was nothing left to pour into the hollow spaces. They had reached the bottom of the bottle, and the bottom of the night.
Leo closed his eyes. The spinning behind his eyelids was gentle, almost soothing. He heard Alex begin to snore, a soft, phlegmy rattle. He heard Reed whisper, “I’m sorry,” to no one in particular, or maybe to everyone.
He didn’t open his eyes. He just let the darkness and the drunkenness hold him, one arm flung out on the floor, his fingers brushing the cool, empty glass of the bourbon bottle. They were here. They were a mess. They were done. And for now, that was the only truth that mattered.
And for now, that was the only truth that mattered.
And for now, that was the only truth that mattered.
The silence didn’t last. The absence of liquid seemed to amplify everything else. Leo’s stomach churned, a slow, oily wave. The pleasant numbness was receding, leaving behind a raw, physical awareness of the damage. He could smell the sour tang of spilled bourbon soaking into the wool rug, mixed with the acrid scent of their own sweat.
“Someone’s phone is buzzing,” Reed muttered, her face still pressed into Emily’s shoulder. “Make it stop. It sounds like an angry insect.”
It was coming from under the wreckage of the coffee table. Alex groaned, a deep, pained sound from the floor. “Ignore it. If it’s important, they’ll call back.”
“What if it’s your mom?” Leroy said, his voice a gravelly hum. He hadn’t moved from his spot staring at the ceiling. “Checking on your emotional proficiency.”
“Screw you,” Alex said without heat. He finally dragged his arm from his eyes. The room’s dim light made him look washed out, older. “My head is a demolition site. I can feel my heartbeat in my teeth.”
Emily shifted, dislodging Reed. She pushed herself up onto her elbows, movements clumsy and deliberate. “We need water. And aspirin. A whole bottle of aspirin.” She looked toward the kitchen, a five-foot journey
that now looked like a mile. “A pilgrimage,” she announced, and began a slow, crawling trek across the carpet, avoiding glass shards with exaggerated care.
Leo watched her, his vision softly pulsing. The room tilted on a gentle axis. He could feel the weight of every decision from the last twelve hours sitting in his gut, a physical lump of regret and cheap grain alcohol. “I think my liver just filed a formal complaint,” he mumbled into the carpet fibers.
From his fortress of floor, Alex let out a wet chuckle. “Mine unionized. It’s staging a walkout.” He pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. “The picket line is my esophagus.”
Reed finally sat up, her movements stiff. She watched Emily reach the linoleum of the kitchen with a look of vague admiration. “She made it. The promised land.” Her own voice sounded foreign to her, scratched thin. The emotional fury of hours ago was gone, replaced by a hollowed-out exhaustion that the vodka had only partially filled.
Leroy finally moved, rolling onto his side with a groan that spoke of deep muscular protest. He propped his head on his hand. “What time is it? The world feels… suspended.”
“Time is a social construct,” Alex intoned from the floor, his voice muffled. “And right now, society is constructed of pain.”
Emily rummaged in the kitchen, the sounds of cabinets opening and closing overly loud. Glass clinked. “We have water! And also… cocktail olives. Who wants a jar of cocktail olives?” No one answered. She returned, walking now with the concentrated focus of a tightrope walker, carrying four mismatched glasses of water. She distributed them like sacraments.
The water was shockingly cold, a clarity that was almost painful. Leo gulped his, feeling it hit his sour stomach. It didn’t help. The earlier warmth had solidified into a sticky, toxic sludge in his veins. His thoughts were slow, trudging through mental mud.
“We really did a number on this place,” Leroy observed, his gaze traveling over the overturned furniture, the shattered picture frame that had held a photo of them all at the lake. His voice held no judgment, just a dull recognition of fact.
Reed followed his look. The photo was face-down, glass spiderwebbed across it. “We did a number on us, too.” She said it quietly, into her water glass.
The statement hung there, too true to brush aside. The drinking had been a deflection, a loud noise to drown out the quieter, more dangerous sounds. Now, with the noise fading, the silence it left was filled with everything they hadn’t said.
Emily sat back down heavily, folding herself onto the floor. She picked up the empty vodka bottle, peering inside as if searching for an answer. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a very sad tractor.”
“A melancholy tractor,” Leo agreed, pushing himself up to lean against the wall. The room did a slow, nauseating roll before settling. “Driven by a ghost.”
“My ghost is driving a Zamboni,” Alex said, still flat on his back. “It’s just going in circles, smoothing out the bumps in my brain. It’s not working.”
They lapsed into silence again, but this one was different. It was a waiting silence. The physical effects were a shared experience, a collective punishment they could joke about. But beneath it, the emotional wreckage of the evening remained, untouched. The vodka had just put it all in soft focus.
Leo looked at Reed, who was chewing on a hangnail, staring at the broken photo frame. He looked at Leroy, whose usual quiet observation seemed edged with something like resignation. He looked at Emily, who was now lying on her back next to Alex, and finally at Alex himself, who had gone still again.
The momentum of the fight was gone. The momentum of the drinking was gone. All that was left was the aftermath, and the uneasy, sobering truth that they would have to move through it. Soon.
But not yet.
Leo’s fingers found the cool glass of his water. He took another sip. The journey back to anything resembling normal felt impossibly long, a marathon they’d have to run in lead shoes. For this moment, suspended in the dim, wrecked quiet of his apartment, all they could do was feel the full, heavy weight of the effects, and breathe.
For this moment, suspended in the dim, wrecked quiet of his apartment, all they could do was feel the full, heavy weight of the effects, and breathe.
Alex’s breathing hitched, turned shallow. He rolled onto his side, curling in on himself. “Oh, no,” he mumbled into the carpet. “The Zamboni’s leaking coolant.” His face was pale, waxy under the sweat. A thick, sour smell suddenly bloomed around him.
“Alex,” Reed said, her voice ragged. She pushed herself toward him, hand outstretched, but the world tilted violently. She aborted the movement, squeezing her eyes shut against the spin. “Don’t you puke on Leo’s rug. He’ll never forgive you.”
“It’s already dead,” Leo murmured, watching from his spot against the wall. His own stomach was a tight, hot knot, but it was a distant concern. He felt curiously detached, like he was watching a film of his own life through a smeared lens. The emotional stakes of the earlier fight were now just abstract shapes in the fog.
“Bucket,” Emily slurred, lurching upward. She stumbled to the kitchen, a symphony of crashing pans and a soft, “Oops.” She returned with a plastic mixing bowl, sliding it across the floor toward Alex. It skidded to a stop by his knees.
He didn’t grab it. He just stared at the red plastic, his expression one of profound betrayal. “I’m not gonna,” he insisted, just before a deep, wet convulsion seized him. He scrambled for the bowl. The sound that followed was harsh, private, and utterly humiliating.
No one spoke. They just listened. It was the punctuation their night deserved.
Leroy looked away, his jaw working. He brought his own glass of water to his lips, but his hand trembled, sloshing it onto his shirt. He didn’t seem to notice. The liquid darkened the fabric. “I can’t feel my left foot,” he stated, as if reporting a curious scientific fact. “It’s just… a rumor. A foot-shaped rumor.”
Reed started laughing again. It was a thin, frayed sound, bordering on hysterical. She pulled her knees to her chest, rocking slightly. “My face is numb. My lips. I think I bit my cheek but I can’t tell.” She probed the inside of her mouth with a clumsy finger. “Yep. Blood. Tastes like copper pennies and poor decisions.”
The metallic scent of vomit now mingled with the bourbon and dust. Leo breathed it in. It was the smell of the conclusion they’d been chasing. He tried to stand, a sudden need for air overriding the lead in his limbs. He got one foot under him, pushed up, and the room capsized.
He sat down hard, his vision tunneling into a pinprick of light before flooding back, blurrier. “Nope,” he gasped. The brief movement sent a fresh, oily wave of nausea through him. His earlier detachment cracked, replaced by a grinding, physical wretchedness.
Emily had crawled back to her spot. She was crying. Silent tears traced clean lines through the grime on her cheeks. She wasn’t sobbing; it was just a leak. “I’m so tired,” she whispered to no one. “My bones are tired.”
Alex was done, spent, lying back panting with the bowl beside his head. His eyes were glassy, fixed on a ceiling crack. “I want to peel my skin off,” he said, his voice hollow. “It doesn’t fit right.”
“Seconded,” Reed mumbled. She let her head thunk back against the wall. “Everything itches. My brain itches.”
The initial, almost performative misery was gone. This was deeper, cellular. The alcohol wasn't a blanket anymore; it was a chemical burn working through their systems. The pleasant wooliness had unraveled into jagged, sensory static.
Leroy finally tried to move his foot, staring at it with intense concentration. “Come on,” he grunted. A twitch in his ankle. “There. The rumor is… confirmed.” He let out a long, exhausted sigh that seemed to come from his feet. “I can’t drive. I couldn’t guide a shopping cart right now.”
“No one’s driving,” Leo said. His tongue was thick. “We’re fossils. We’re just… becoming part of the apartment layer. Future archaeologists will find us and a vodka bottle and be very confused.”
A weak chuckle circled the room, more a shared exhalation than real laughter.
Then Reed’s head lolled toward Leo. Her eyes, red-rimmed and unfocused, held his. The anger from before was gone, but something worse had taken its place: a raw, unguarded hurt. The vodka had dissolved her last defenses. “You meant it, though,” she said, her words slurry but clear. “What you said about the band. About it being a pity project.”
The air got even heavier. Leo felt the words like a physical shove. He wanted to look away, but the liquor had glued his gaze to hers. He couldn’t formulate a lie or even a softenin. All he could manage was the truth, stripped bare. “Yeah,” he breathed. “I did.”
She nodded slowly, as if confirming a terrible diagnosis. More tears, silent. She didn’t look away.
Emily watched them, her own crying stalled. Her breath hitched. “We’re a pity project,” she echoed, the phrase rotting in her mouth. “God. We really are.”
Alex made a small, pained sound. It wasn’t physical. He covered his face with his arm again.
This was the true effect of the alcohol, Leo realized. It hadn’t saved them from the fight. It had just delayed the aftermath, letting it ferment into something more potent and cruel. Now, with their systems in full revolt, the emotional poison was hitting their bloodstream too. There was no filter left, no social grace, just the exposed nerves of everything they’d broken.
Dawn was a suggestion now, a faint, gray leaching at the edges of the window blinds. It didn’t promise a new day. It just promised they would have to see the full extent of the wreckage in the light. The momentum was gone, replaced by the slow, inevitable sink into consequence.
They sat in their shared sickness, in the sour air and the crushing quiet, feeling every brutal ounce of it. No one was getting better. They were just getting deeper in.