By Alex Eagles
It’s party central, and you’re standing on the balcony rail at a house you don’t know the owner of. Chants erupt from below as the people — your people — await your next move. Slamming the last of a can and dropping it into the crowd below, you stare ahead at your very near future. It’s a nice pool, a good upper-class suburb kind of pool, the kind that’d usually be the play-place of young kids still in swimming lessons. Instead, it’s yours.
Despite not remembering any of the people you saw on the way up here, countless people begged you to pull “one of your usual stunts, man.” So you’re here, making what looks like a five-foot jump into a six-foot deep pool.
Bad idea? Yes.
Sick as hell idea? Totally.
The jump itself is fine. You throw in a front flip for flare. It’s almost like time slows, the way people stare, total and complete adoration. You are the fucking man!
The impact ends this feeling pretty quickly. Your head hits first, and you feel your neck crack. That’s enough of a shock that you forget rule one of pools — don’t try to breathe underwater.
You let yourself sink — this needs to look cool. Nobody’s impressed if you try to claw your way back up. Just let it happen.
Another body splashes in next to you. You feel an arm hook around your chest, pulling you back to the surface. You’re shoved back up onto dry land, and you open your eyes to the girl of your dreams. The cheers aren’t for you anymore, they’re for her, as they should be. Kumiko gestures for you to follow her. You don’t have anything better to do.
‘Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes, darlin’.’ Kumiko glares, elbowing you in the ribs.
‘Thanks for the lift, Doll. Next time I’m planning a swan dive from some fuck’s balcony, I’ll warn you nice and early.’
That earns you a smile. She walks you inside and points at the couch, commanding you to sit. You don’t disobey.
An hour later, you’re throwing up chlorine and whiskey, and Kumiko finally feels the need to order you a taxi. Past getting shoved into the taxi, you don’t remember anything — except for just how hard it gets to breathe. Really, really hard to breathe. Your lungs burn. It’ll be fine. The driver’s not gonna know the difference between a passed-out drunk and a corpse. Don’t make a commotion, close your eyes and let go. Kumiko will take care of you.
You wake up in Kumiko’s bed, sinuses still burning. The chlorine is still fresh on your tongue, but your neck’s fine, and you can breathe again. You take on your classic Aussie “she’ll be right” attitude and move on with your day. You’ll thank Kumiko later, when she’s not wiping streaks of eyeliner off her cheeks.
At the next party, you’re dressed as a pirate and riding a motorbike. You don’t know how you got here, and you’ve never ridden a motorbike in your life. But hey, lack of riding experience notwithstanding, you’re looking at the ramp, and you’re pretty sure you can’t mess up too badly.
You survey the crowd, the adoration…the energy! You’re no doctor, but you’re just the guy to hit the defib on a bored crowd. Just a minute ago, everyone was bummed, and now you’re about to learn how a motorbike works.
Somewhere in the crowd, dead eyes scrutinise your every move with silent disapproval. You don’t need to see her to know it’s her. You hit the throttle, speeding off and leaving any pang of guilt you may have felt in the dust. Up the ramp, over a group of people aiming for a spot in the Darwin awards, and straight down a small incline…into a ditch. The crowd hollers. They can’t see you in the ditch, and thank fuck for that, because you never figured out how to stop the bike.
With one second’s hindsight, it occurs to you that throwing your weight to topple yourself, and the still-moving motorbike to the ground, isn’t how people usually stop these things.
Stabbing pain shoots through your leg to your skull. There’s no way that leg isn’t mangled. You’re lacking severely in the muscle department, so you’re trapped, which is definitely not how you were meant to stop the thing. At least it didn’t explode like in a video game. The pain factor of impromptu fireworks aside, whoever owns this bike will be pissed.
Platform boots crunch rocks and dirt. Here comes the silent lecture. You’d never met a woman who could scold you without a word until you met Kumiko. You’ll just have to break out the charm. She can’t resist it.
‘Babydoll, please…gimme a hand ‘ere?’
The girl of your dreams hovers over you, dressed in a nurse costume. Your ribs crack as she slams her boot into your chest — sweet, sweet release. Kumiko always takes care of you.
You wake up in your bed, wheezing, and struggling to sit up. A text from Kumiko reads, ‘Never make me do that shit again.’ You’ll thank her later. A few crushed ribs are worth a nice thank you note, at least.
On your way into the shower, you notice somebody threw up in it. There’s not enough blood in there for it to be your doing. You’ll have to clean that up.
Another weekend, another party. The crowd writhes, you’re staggering through the mass of bodies, trying to find its heart. Seems there’s been a transplant, though, cause you can’t find any trace of her, and all eyes are on you. She said she’d be here, didn’t she? She wouldn’t lie to you.
Wandering from the backyard to the front, looking for a stray goth girl smoking away from the party, you end up on the road. Not even halfway across and some prick slams right into you, running a tyre over your throat in the process. Maybe all black wasn’t the best fashion choice, but the fuckwit should’ve had his headlights on. Lucky for you, the bastard hits and runs. No police to worry about. Unlucky for you, Kumiko really was out the front. She drops her cigarette, dry retching and choking on air. You don’t know how you missed her, but she hasn’t missed you.
Having your throat crushed is a special kinda pain. If this wasn’t the third time, you probably would’ve blacked out from the pain.
Your vision’s fading, and Kumiko’s running to you, eyes livelier than you’ve ever seen. Her movements are frantic. She’s kneeling at your side, scooping your head into her lap. She shakes, her jaw drops open, and her eyeliner drips onto your face. You can’t figure out what she’s so scared of, there must be something across the road. That’s alright, Kumiko can take care of herself, you’ll just shut your eyes and let her.
You wake up on Kumiko’s couch, head still in her lap. She must’ve sat you like this once you got here and not moved, because her makeup’s ruined and her hair’s still spiked with a salon’s worth of hairspray.
‘You look like shit, Dollface,’ you chuckle.
She doesn’t take the joke like you’d hoped she would.
Another weekend, another party. Another weekend, another party. Never-fucking-ending, isn’t it? You’ve gotta stop going to these things. How many times have these bullshit parties killed you? Ten, fucking twenty times? Unless Kumiko wants to haul your ass out, that’s the end of it. Every time, without fail, you’re victim to some cosmic bad luck.
Are parties always this dangerous, or has your survival instinct finally realised it’s unwanted? If it’s still rattling around in there, taking on a guy twice your size holding a freshly empty bottle wasn’t its best moment.
You’re stumbling through the crowd, it’s getting colder, and the blood loss isn’t helping. If someone notices, you’ll figure it out. You’ll say you couldn’t hold your liquor. It’s not blood. Why would it be blood? The perfect lie. But nobody notices. Nobody ever notices.
You fight your way through the crowd, not recognising a single face. Do you know any of these people? Was your vision always this blurry?
Breaking through the crowd into the streets, you need to find an alley, a shed…anything. “Anything” turns out to be some poor bastard’s unfinished pool.
Picking chunks of glass out of your stomach, the stars blur into a white burial shroud to cover you. You forgot how slow blood loss can be. Maybe that’s what she meant when she said she would never do this for you again, never watching you slowly fade out again. She was bound to get sick of you. Nobody’s Saturday night is best spent picking glass out of a dead body. Nobody wants to watch you play Russian roulette with your weekends. Nobody’s meant to witness that much death. She doesn’t deserve that.
You wake up in that same pool, your shirt stiff with dried blood, and your skin back in place. You look a right mess, and she’s nowhere in sight. Normally she would’ve dragged you home by now, to her bed or yours. Normally you would wake up in a clean shirt. Normally you’d wake up warm. It’s so cold out here.
You want to call her. She told you once her ringtone for you was alarm bells so that when she heard it, she’d know to come find you without having to look at her phone. Last time you rang her phone, she was near enough for you to hear it, some song you’d never heard before. If you called her, she’d know that you miss her, that you need her, that you’re sorry.
You’re so fucking sorry. You were too stupid for her, and you’re sorry you burnt out the self-preservation instinct she tried so hard to maintain.
You can hear her trademark text-to-speech now, mocking you.
‘Isn’t this kinda pathetic. Even for you.’ It’s not a question, it’s a statement.
If she were really here, you’d agree. If this isn’t a new low, you were clearly too plastered to remember or count the last one.
No wonder she abandoned you.