—Jane Austen

I didn't see her there, but every single face in the crowd was hers. Just two bars in, and I couldn't take it anymore. I trailed off the stage, set down my Ibanez, and ran straight to the line of chilled liquor bottles in the back of the green room. Fuck it, I thought. No encore, and they could finish the last song without me.

We really needed to cut that one out of the set, but I'd made such a fuss before, about including the stupid ballad, that I would've felt like a dick to suggest its removal then. What I didn't feel sorry about in the slightest, however, was my updated tour rider to include boundless tequila, and Serbian vodka, complete with thirteen health warnings on the front label alone.

Triple distilled, 170 proof. It was meant to be enjoyed with a mixer, but I sipped the beast neat, straight from the bottle. That was the only thing that could get me drunk enough, fast enough for my liking.

My throat burnt, then felt cold, as I drank entirely too much for one person alone. It hit me even more significantly as the minutes passed, since I had not been on the piss for very long, and I hadn't built up enough of a tolerance to booze. My body was playing catch up and my organs were working overtime to cleanse my toxic system, as I relentlessly released the liquid vitriol within me.

Brooke phoned me after I'd downed a fourth of the vodka bottle, and although I was off my fucking head, I still remembered most of what I'd said to her. To recall what I had said, and to have meant what I said, however, were two very different things.

I tried. God, did I try my hardest to keep my composure with her, because I loved her. I fucking loved her so much, and no matter how much I tried to stop loving her, I couldn't. No matter how much I tried to regret ever meeting her, I couldn't. She had my new mobile number, and I couldn't get swept back up into the whirlwind of Brooke Fray, so I needed to make sure she didn't ring me anymore.

We were fire and water, and it couldn't be.

Perhaps the old saying was true, that hurt people, hurt people.

I felt that I needed to hurt her, before she could hurt me any further.

I rang off on her whilst she heart-wrenchingly sobbed to me. The last remaining sober part of my brain told me to sit down and wait out this drunken stupor for a bit, then ring her back and ask her to pick me up from wherever the hell I was. She would've told Eric to fuck off. We would go back to her flat, talk everything out, alone, and I would make love to my beautiful girl—never to leave her side again. We could have forgotten all of our mistakes and started anew. A fresh start, with no more hiding or questions.

That future, whilst it was exactly what should have happened for us, was not what actually did happen then. Devon had other plans for me that night. If only I could have seen what was to come, some mere hours later...

Management had stupidly booked the same hotel in Tucson that night, which I'd stayed in nine months earlier. Instead of moaning about it, I just accepted the room. The suite, whilst a different room number, looked exactly the same as the one in which Brooke and I had been before.

The room in which I had learnt about her.

The room in which I had been convinced that she was the one from my childhood dreams.

The room in which I had lost my virginity to her.

The room in which I had gotten my first sweet taste of what real love could be.

Devon was acting kind of neurotic when we got to the suite at The W and closed the door. He had enough sense that night to not invite any girls back to the room, which I appreciated at the time. Uncomfortably, I was sat on the edge of the bed, watching Devon run around maniacally to close all of the window blinds, triple lock the door, and turn on some fans for proper air flow.

"What are you doing?" My head pounded with each pulse of blood from my heart.

"Just securing the area." He turned to give me an impish grin. "Alright, all set I think. You ready to feel good, bro?"

"Ready to see whatever the fuck you think would actually make me feel good," I countered.

"Chasing the dragon makes everyone feel better." Devon went into one of his bags, pulling out some aluminium foil and a lighter, among other things.

"Chasing the what now?" My reflexes still felt slower than normal, but I was coming off of my drunken trance.

"You'll love it." Devon folded a piece of foil, smoothing and straightening it as he did.

"What is it?" I pressed for a straight answer. "Just come out with it."

"Horse." Devon kept his eyes on his work.

"Which is?" Either I was still more pissed than I thought, or I was missing something.

"Heroin, bro," Devon whispered it, although we were alone.

"No, mate. I can't do that." I lay back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. "You really shouldn't either."

"It's not what you think, bro," Devon explained. "It's not some crazy drug. You won't hallucinate. You won't have a hangover. There's no crazy side effects, you'll just feel good. Mellow. Just what you need, to be fair."

"I can't, mate. Sorry." Even the fucking bed reminded me of her. Those sheets. The headboard. The damn clock on the docking station that had ticked our minutes away. The carpet where the fabric of her dress had pooled at her feet. The way her lips moulded around mine. Damn it.

"You won't wake up with a migraine, nothing like that. Trust me." Devon continued to ignore my rejection of his offer. "There's no harsh sobering up period, and it's not even really addicting. Just try it, see if you like it."

"Right." I closed my eyes and pretended that I couldn't still smell her perfume in my nostrils.

"Do you want to forget about her or not?" Devon's blunt words made me sit up in bed, and look straight at him. He knelt to the floor, then sat cross-legged. "Because you can lie there, in fucking misery, or I can mellow your arse out... your choice."

"Fine, show me what to do," I moronically agreed, without thinking, and slouched down to the floor with him.

My heart pounded at the knowledge that I was making an enormous mistake, but I was so damn furious and hurt that I just didn't care. I wanted to do more damage to myself, maybe to test my breaking point. It was then that I fully understood why Brooke used to inflict pain upon herself. But it killed me to think of her ever doing anything like what I was about to do. What a hypocrite.

"I'll help you smoke it," said Devon. "It's safer that way. Less intimidating as well. Even a lesser risk of addiction. Plus, it goes straight to the brain and will kick your arse into shape. It's basically just a really strong painkiller. You'll love it. Nothing crazy, I promise."

"Whatever." I did miss smoking cigarettes, so at the very least, I would've entertained that desire for a night, or so I thought. In reality, I would learn that it was not at all similar. How astonishingly naive I was.

Devon showed me how to inhale the vapour, and I felt nothing at first. All of his praise of the substance had built up my expectations, and I was getting agitated by its lack of effects. I was beginning to believe that I was immune to contentedness.

"When's it going to hit? I don't feel anything," I said, completely unimpressed by the whole experience. It felt wretchedly dirty, and if I had participated in it for no gain at all, I would've been even more flustered than before, for having wasted my time.

Part of me wanted to ask where Devon got the stuff, and how long he'd been using it—probably for quite some time, if the whole situation surrounding his ex girlfriend, Elloise, years earlier, had been any indication—but I really didn't care to know. In fact, the less I knew, the better.

"Be patient." Devon warmed the venom with his lighter again, and I inhaled some more. "You're full of piss and vinegar, you know that?"

"Just shut up and do it again," I said. He chuckled and obliged.

Fifteen minutes after the third time, it me.

Slowly, feelings of relaxation, comfort, and apathy warmed my body from the centre of my chest, then radiated outward, toward my limbs and head. I didn't mean to moan, but a soft one escaped me at my overwhelming sense of alleviation. Like someone getting an amazing body massage for the very first time. Devon was right. I didn't feel altered really, even though I was. I just felt really heavy. Immovable. But with that immovability also came relief. No obligations existed, and there was no past or future.

There was only this. This bliss.

I couldn't imagine it getting any better than this, without having Brooke back in my life, like before. Even though I'd recently taken up drinking, the piss never really made me forget about her. I only used it as a means to pass out, but even then, in my dreams, I'd call out for her. Under that logic, I should have just fucking used sleeping pills. But with H, I could stay awake, and even function a bit, without the memory of her killing me. It was the giant plaster over all of my internal wounds.

Inside my poisonous veins, the drug dissolved all of my agony, regret, jealousy, and rage. Instantaneously, my muscles relaxed, as if I were being hugged from the inside. I was left feeling happy, and apathetic in the best way. Had I participated in a subzero triathlon with a broken leg, heroin would've been the plush, warm bed that accepted my aching body afterward for a long night's rest.

I knew from that very moment that I had finally found what I needed to take a break from life.

From her.

Nothing could've hurt me whilst I was on it. Not my abuse at the orphanage. Not Brooke. Not Eileen. Not Riley. Absolutely nothing.

Too often, apathy was viewed or described as a bad thing—with conscious feeling always being the better alternative. But when you hurt like I did, apathy was the most incredible thing.

Or, at least I thought it was back then.

Time stood absolutely still, even as the hours passed, and nothing except contented tranquility touched me. It wasn't a Superman-like feeling of power, strength, or euphoria; it was just what I needed to bring me back to base level emptiness. Like being suspended in the static. Only in that sense was I untouchable—just void of everything, good and bad.

Before, I had been filled with nothing but agonizing thoughts, and to empty all of that out, even if I didn't replace it with anything good, was still the greatest sensation.

A nothingness.

An intense nothingness.

Heroin was fast becoming my barrier to all terrible things. If only I had known it would become my barrier to all of the best things as well, I would have tried harder to stop it before it began. Yet there I was, attempting to erase my past, when all I was really doing was taking the biggest risk of erasing my future. Erasing her. Maybe the two could have been one and the same.

"How are you feeling over there?" Devon was sat across from me, riding his own high. I noticed that his eyes were closed and he was barely moving.

"So nice." Even my voice sounded sedated. And slow. I had to concentrate on breathing, and my eyelids begged to close from the placidity.

"A thousand orgasms in your stomach." Devon nodded serenely in agreement. "Is it taking care of your problem with her?"

"With who?" I asked sleepily. Not quite asleep, but not really conscious either. I could have stayed in that restful, in-between state forever.

"Exactly." Devon laughed, and I felt like I was being left out of a joke, but I didn't care to know what it was.

The clock read 1:12 a.m. at one point. I looked away for a moment. It was 5:48 a.m. when I looked back again. I didn't remember falling asleep, but perhaps I had.

Devon was lying still on the floor, having smoked a lot more than I, when I found the strength and lightness of foot to reach the loo. I almost didn't finish pissing quickly enough to kneel and vomit, atop my urine in the toilet. It was mostly bile, with just a few small pieces of the bread roll I had eaten earlier that day.

"Dev," I called, with drool covering my reddened lips. His name echoed into the porcelain, thereby amplifying my voice.

"Yeah?" I was somewhat surprised to hear him answer.

"I thought you said it wouldn't make me sick." My stomach fluctuated upward, trying to expel more, but nothing was there to evacuate, so I just dry heaved for a while.

"It's probably just because it's your first time," Devon rationalised. "It gets better each time."

I wanted to say I'd never do it again, that I hated it, and that he should've been ashamed of himself for giving it to me in my vulnerable state. But as the depression started to seep back into my pores, finding its way in through the cracks, I knew it was far from over.

At the time, I wasn't even angry at him for lying about it not being addictive. Already, I wanted more. For the time being, though, I walked back into the bedroom, stepped over Devon's curled body on the floor, and lay in bed. If not for Devon shaking me awake at three in the afternoon, probably checking to see if I was still alive, I could have continued sleeping for hours longer.

But he was right. I felt fine when I woke, aside from the normal melancholia of my sobered state. But I hadn't dreamt of her. I hadn't thought of her for most of the night, and when I did, it didn't hurt me. I didn't feel the agony of pining for someone much too far out of my reach. Whilst I was on it, I didn't give a fuck about anything but myself. Consequently, my psychological addiction to it had already clicked into place.

It was the best alternative to my reality, and the absolute worst substance that Devon could have introduced me to, purely for my attraction to its effects.

Brooke slowed down my fast spinning world, and without her around, the ride was picking up pace again. In circles, I spun and accelerated, moving too fast to notice anything or anyone around me. The carousel controlled me, keeping me completely in place, and I couldn't see the conductor to ask him to stop. Without Brooke, I didn't know how to get off of the ride, even if that was what I desperately wanted. I needed her to hit the brakes for me, and hold my dizzy feet steady, until I could move them again on my own.

It was the beginning of the end for me, and somewhere deep inside, I already knew it then. All the love I thought she had for me, could not erase the hatred I had for myself. Before Brooke, I had contemplated suicide more times than I cared to admit. For the past nine months, however, she had been there, holding back the waves of hate that had threatened my survival. Her small hands were up, pushing against the tide, though it grew taller, building upon itself as she blockaded it.

When she finally left me, and let go, with her small hands falling to her sides in indifferent defeat, the gushing waters crashed over me and took me under.

Absolutely still I stood, letting it knock me over, obliterate me, cover me, drown me, and fill my nose with briny bane. I did not fight it. I had no reason to anymore. My only reason to want to continue was gone. It was as if I never existed before her, and I had no desire to stay without her.

Everything was dark again. A murky, wet cavern for me to hide within.

My success with the band aside... losing Brooke had put me right back where I started once again: with nothing to lose.

I desperately sought an apathetic escape, but found that feeling nothing hurts the worst of all.

The media had been making great use of symbolism in regards to our band name. We were the stars that we aimed to ascend, they'd say about our incredibly lucky rise to the likes of fame that none of us could have ever envisioned in our wildest dreams.

But as with each incandescent body of burning light, we would each burn out.

Every star did.

I had reached the top, and from there, I had nowhere to fall but downward. The unspoken truth that nobody would be there to catch me when I reached the bottom, kept me from caring enough to grip the ledge.

1. "Jealous" (cover) by Jake Austin Walker

2. "I Found" by Amber Run

3. "Slow Life" by Grizzly Bear

4. "Youth" by Daughter

5. "Sex" (acoustic version) by The 1975

6. "Sorrow" by Sleeping at Last (Thank you, )

7. "Hurt People" by Two Feet feat. Madison Love

8. "Tell Me" by EDEN (The Eden Project)

9. "Closer" by Kings of Leon (one of the best songs I've found to represent Julian's pain)

10. "I Fall Apart" (cover) by Kodaline

11. "Quite Miss Home" by James Arthur