The whispering and clamor of people sitting in a Michelin-filled, three-star restaurant late at night, waiting for the New Year's chimes for elite gastronomic specialties, was getting more and more annoying with every fucking second. Huge ceiling with a weighty jeweled chandelier, a slightly yellowish tint giving a more savory, intimate ambiance. Exquisite to the needle, which is infuriating in its ironed perfection.

It's as if the whole crowd is mocking you. A woman, a beautifully dressed woman on New Year's Eve pining at a reserved table alone, boredom circling with her finger the edges of a glass with the remnants of dry wine from 1960, which hugged the pink haze of the inland shores, - "Pfft," you snorted lazily propping up your chin with the palm of your hand, watching your own reflection of your face painted on a porcelain white plate. Alone among strangers, or strangers among one? Your eyes fluttered open, turned now to the tender feelings that had never before found an application, frustration that made the loneliness all the harder to bear. Muttering was the only thing that saved you from unwanted eyes following your curves in the tight fabric of your flowing dress, and drooling mouths," I thought he wouldn't ruin the day. Stupid."

His right hand reached for his purse while the other brought the glass to his mouth, preening the burgundy poison as if he were a vulnerable lover. A red veil clouded the mournful gaze, playing up between his fingers the crystal trembled, reflecting the lights, and his soul mercilessly seemed to float in the abyss. The rose-colored glasses always shattered inward. Each sip dulled the betrayal that was brewing, and the wine on your tongue grew bitterer with each sip. " , where's that phone?" you hissed, setting your companion aside, rummaging through your purse: wallet, gum, Band-Aids and tissues, a small forgotten bag of cocaine at the bottom, forcibly taken from Keegan. Just try not to pick up the phone," your eyes lingered on the drug for a moment, plunging back in time.

The overdose, the fear, the smell of phenol filled your lungs.

A daze gripped you that day, your eyes roving the bedroom, noting the mess, the spilled vodka on the nightstand mixed with the remnants of the white carpet at the edge. He lay there twitching convulsively, gulping air in short gasps, your whisper was muffled by his neck, pressing his cramped body against yours, "I called an ambulance, just bear with me a little longer, please," your tearful whimper covered his neck with a soothing chill, he could feel you close by, the world around him spinning like a merry-go-round of cyclic headaches. For him, the wound was deep, the unhealthy addiction had replaced real life no matter how much you helped him get back on his feet. The only thing he could do in response was to call it a day, and keep going. Stir the grief, pour it in a spoon, and dissolve it in a drop of anger. Then inject it into a stinking festering vein, or snort it up his nose, and carry on again. Not to stop, to get up, to go out, to give himself over to military duty, to pump himself up with grief while waiting for the day when laffa will end.

Because it doesn't matter how much he's saved up, or how much he's stolen: he never has enough. No matter how often he goes out to give himself to important business, tearing himself to pieces until his bones crunch. Every time he has to get up and go on again.

Filled with indecision, you make about twenty phone calls and get no answer, stand up proudly, straighten your back with a nonchalant facade, toss a couple hundred dollars on the table for a bottle of wine, and walk away. Putting on your fur coat, in the enveloping Christmas night, when the sky was sprinkling sparkling flakes of snowflakes, you walked on the crisp ground, humiliated and insulted. The dress flowed with shimmering sequins from beneath the faux fur coat. The black velvet encased her supple figure, creating a dramatic contrast to the white snow that lay around her. With two fingers holding up your wide-brimmed hat adorned with a plume of white feathers, you headed for the apartment, heels tapping on the snow-covered sidewalks.

Gritting your teeth, you began to curse the now deeply hated Keegan, as you had recently called him, in imitation of some particularly gossipy coworkers. The wind hit you in the face with a mess of snow particles frozen on your eyelashes, forcing you to pull the tip of your hat down and look carefully under your feet.

A man running past you caught your shoulder and a familiar scent enveloped the warmth of your stabbed naked heart. "Excuse me, I'm just in a hurry to meet someone," he said sternly, but no less awkwardly, as indicated by the lower-than-usual semitone, raising his eyes upward. Abnormally black pupils like expensive pearls glistening at the bottom of the ocean, a slight side-to-side stagger as he rubbed the balaclava on the back of his head in imitation of scratching his hair-all the things you'd been running away from with him for months. And here it was.

The bitch is here again.

- " , I can explain. - he squinted his eyes at your shoulders, "Hear me out. It's not what you think." Your Rage-flamed cheeks moistened with cool tears framing an already broken grimace. Blinking tears in the dark of night, the last gleam of affection escorted him to retreat," You're a liar, Keegan.

He chose drugs over a lifeline as a gift.

Perfect, everlasting, purified love exists only between the addict and the drug. Nothing more. And now you're convinced of that.