text: The wine makes my head spin, cheap stuff, cleanskins. I can feel it roiling in my stomach, the TV makes my mind curl onto itself, sleep an impossibility. The voices from around the room collide into a sea of noise that hurls itself against me as if to knock me off balance. Chas sit next to me, a warm anchor. She chats to someone, and they chat back. I nod along whenever they talk to me. I finish my drink, the warm white-wine tasting like feral grapes, gone bad in the sun. But I don’t say anything, the wine was Jono’s shout, and he’s unemployed. So am I, I guess. Drifting from job to job, retail and other bullshit. ‘Adam, you okay?’ Chas leans round to look at me, her eyebrows knitting together. I smile dreamily at her and say, ‘yeah, just a little fuzzy headed.’ She smiles, as if that’s an acceptable answer. ‘I’ll go fetch you another, okay? Hold tight.’ I nod and grasp the couch. She laughs. In her absence, the girl left next to me keeps talking to me. She asks me how my degree is going. I inwardly cringe and say, “yeah, it’s alright, I guess. Haven’t failed yet”. At least, that’s what I think I say. Sometimes words get jumbled and don’t come out as I intend. At any rate, she laughs, almost as if to say it’s some kind of grand joke that every twenty-something and under in the room is in on. They all know my struggle. At least, I think they do. At least, they think they do. ‘Just have the second when you’ve finished that one, right?’ Chas smiles, places two cups on the coffee table in front of the couch. The first one is black and bubbly, coke and something. Probably, I know how Chas thinks. Normally it comes down to a narcotic, with her. I think the other one’s water. Isn’t it? The conversation continues, I drink and drink and half-listen as I stare around at the people passing. Chas still sitting between the other girl and me. She’s holding my arm now, keeping me afloat. We’re in the garden now, cold spring air stopping me from feeling my toes. I don’t know how we got here. There’re a few other couples out her, swaying to music. I can’t really tell what it is. My mind stops me from comprehending. Or is that the grog? ‘Smoke?’ Chas pulls out a Mentos tin and flips open the top. Inside are home-rolled cigarettes. Irregular lumps running up and down the white-sticks, which in a perfect world would be utterly smooth. ‘I...uh,’ she shakes the tin at me and I fumble thoughts and words out of my mouth. I can’t make heads or tails. Some small part of my brain, drowned in fermented liquid screams at me not to. To not partake in it. ‘Yeah, that’d be good,’ I say. Then, she lights us up. The acrid smell of smoke hits me. I cough and splutter at the first drag and Chas snickers at me. ‘You’ll get there eventually, love.’ She turns around and leans her back against my chest. I put my arm against her midriff and sway back and forth. Whether to the music, or to something else, I can’t really tell. I watch he bring the cigarette to her lips and pull in a breath of smoky air. I do the same. ‘How we getting home?’ I ask. ‘Dunno, she says.’ She cranes her head backwards at stairs up at me, then scratches at my stubble. ‘Thought you knew.’ I shrug, and look at the moon. ‘We’ll get there. Eventually.’ We’re in her share house now, the transition from the garden to her, is even blurrier. I think it involved half a bottle of Jack that Chas got from someone or other. The smoke still tickles the top of my esophagus, and swirls around my molars. Its long since passed, but I can still feel it there. Lingering, grasping at my tonsils. ‘You got a condom?’ ‘Yeah,’ I say. I can almost hear her house-mates groan. Her room’s still a mess, but I don’t really give a shit. Was like that at her parents as well, before she moved out. Never really stopped us then, either. ‘Come on, Adam, time to close it out, yeah?’ ‘Yeah,’ I mumble. Clothes fall off, then we fall into bed. Then, as half of our nights seem, we fuck like animals. Short, quick and messy. Nothing really fun about it, if I’m honest with myself. It’s just what we do. She falls asleep first, softly snoring. Then I stare at the ceiling for half an hour before following. When I wake in the morning, my head hurts, my throat hurts, and for some reason that I can’t quite piece together, my toe feels like it’s gone through a wood chipper. Chas is still asleep. I get dressed, find my keys after then minutes of searching and stop by the kitchen. I nod downwardly at Chas’s house-mate. He nods back, but doesn’t say anything. Pound a glass of water, check my phone for battery, find it’s still on twenty percent, and fumble my way out the door. On the six kilometer walk to my car, however many streets over, I tell myself that I won’t do it all over again the next weekend. Then I try to figure out what I did that was worse for my health. Then, I put it out of my mind, because I have a six kilometer walk. I also swear at some nearby magpies because I don’t have my fucking headphones, because I told myself that I’d bring them this time. In short, I’m a fucking idiot.