Paul jerked forward, snorting a fresh line –the sting hit sharp and quick. The floor trembled with bass, smoke and neon drowning everything in a half-dream haze. For a second, it felt like déjà vu – same table, same lights, same noise.
Or maybe he never left at all.
He blinked slowly, pupils shaking under the colored light. Around him, the crowd twisted and melted – laughter, perfume, the sour burn of alcohol.
"How do ya feel?"
Roxy leaned against the table, voice rough, grin easy. His sleeves rolled up, wrists banded with sweat and silver.
"All good," Paul muttered, sniffing lightly, rubbing under his nose.
"Seriously?" Roxy's grin widened. "Didn't think you'd come back the very next day."
Paul gave a faint laugh. "Yeah, well… what can I say."
The silence stretched. Only bass. Roxy's cigarette glowed orange.
Then Paul leaned forward. "What happened last night exactly?"
Roxy tilted his head, like trying to read something behind Paul's eyes. "Like what?"
"I don't recall shit after you went to take the five."
Roxy's grin widened a little. "That so? Huh." He dragged another breath of smoke, watching it coil. "Let's see what happened yesterday... After I got back, you were still sitting right there – same damn spot. Like you hadn't moved an inch."
Paul's eyes twitched slightly.
He's right.
The same table, the same untouched beer, strobe lights cutting across his face. His hand gripping the glass too tight.
Then blank.
"Then," Roxy continued, "we hit another line. Beers empty — refill. Talked random shit about your friends, school, whatever came to that fried brain of yours."
Paul's gaze flickered.
Friends? Did he mention anything about Sara? Simon? Julian?
Fuck. Did I slip more than I think?
"Yeah. Said something about people watching you. Guess that's your thing now." Roxy chuckled, but his tone was half a question.
Paul tightened his grip on the glass. "Go on."
Roxy went on, "Then came the last round — we hit the dance floor."
Paul raised an eyebrow. "We?"
Roxy barked a laugh. "Yes, you bitch, we. Can't forget how wild you were back there." He jabbed his thumb toward the crowd, where light painted every moving body gold and blue.
Bodies pressed close, sweat, heat, Paul's hand gripping someone's wrist. Her hair — dark, tangled — spinning under the light. His pulse syncing with the beat, and then—
Blank again.
Paul took a long sip of his beer. "Fucking hell. You're making this up at this point. I don't believe it."
Roxy smirked. "Well, mate, it's up to you. I'm just telling ya what I saw."
He chuckled, voice half swallowed by the noise. "You got some moves back there though."
Paul shook his head, still half-smiling. "What about afterwards?"
"Then you disappeared," Roxy continued. "Left me hangin' mid-crowd. When you came back, you had a drink in your hand — not the one I bought. You kept starin' at it, like it was whisperin' to you."
Paul swallowed. The memory hit half-formed — his hand trembling, foam spilling over his knuckles, a voice (maybe his own) saying, 'Don't drink that.'
"After that, you sat by the counter again," Roxy said. "Words slurrin'. Callin' for a refill you didn't finish."
The room blurred around Paul now — the counter stretching longer, the bartender's face blanked out by strobe lights.
"Only I can tell how handful you were," Roxy went on, voice dipping into amusement. "Didn't wanna go. Kept tellin' the cabbie to take the long way. You even tried lecturin' him about somethin'— can't remember what."
Paul blinked slow. He could feel the cab rocking. City lights streaking through the window like static. Someone's voice — maybe his own again — saying, 'Keep driving, don't stop, they're behind us.'
Roxy smirked. "You calmed down after. Quiet. Like a switch flipped. I left you at your place. Door was open when I turned back."
Paul's gaze sharpened. "Door was open?"
Roxy nodded. "Yeah. Just swingin'. Figured maybe you forgot to close it. Or maybe someone else was waitin' for you inside."
The words hit too soft, too casual.
But Paul's pulse spiked.
Because when he tried to remember walking through that door — the shape of his room, the way the air smelled — there was nothing there.
Only the echo of Roxy's laugh,
and the sound of the door creaking,
slow,
steady,
open.
Paul's pulse was slower now, but his head was a crowded place. Fragments of last night, of faces and lights, all kept turning over like wet cards.
How much had he said?
How deep had he slipped?
"Did you hear anything weird from me or somethin'?" he asked.
Roxy gave a half-snort. "Weird? Mate, your whole talk was weird. Full-on paranoid shit. I didn't sleep right 'cause of that."
Paul nodded, eyes on the table, the dull lines of spilled powder catching light. He didn't answer.
Roxy leaned back, rubbed his nose, then said, "One thing clicked me though."
Paul's mind tightened — that's what I wanna know too. "Like what?"
"The way you were goin' on about not wanting to go home. Cursin' the driver. You were tense, man. Proper tense. Now that I think about it, you weren't talkin' about your apartment."
Paul's jaw twitched.
Roxy tilted his head, watching him. "It's like something from that old town was calling you back. And you were runnin' from it. Fear. Guilt. Somethin'. What was it?"
Paul gave a small laugh, the kind meant to kill conversation, not join it. "You're reading too much into it."
Roxy didn't back down. "I know what I heard. You said you liked that town. You said it like a prayer. Then you asked me why people leave things that good behind. You said you missed your friends. Family. Even your girl— that one you liked so much."
Silence sat heavy.
Paul's hand trembled as he reached for his beer. Missed the glass. His fingers brushed the rolled note instead — his one quick way out. He held it like a lifeline, but Roxy's hand came down, stopping him.
"Why'd you leave, Paul?" Roxy asked softly this time. "Why'd you really leave?"
The note slipped from his grip, rolled across the table, and stopped between them.
Paul let the breath drag out of him. "You really wanna know?"
Roxy didn't move.
"I…" His throat clicked dry. "I was tired."
He looked up for a moment, met Roxy's eyes, then dropped his gaze again — back to the beer, the table, the nowhere that waited under both.
"The old town was perfect," he said slowly. "Too perfect. Everyone smiling, same streets, same people. The same f*cking days on repeat. You know that kind of place? Where even the air feels planned out for you?"
Roxy didn't answer, just watched him speak.
"I felt like I was being strangled by peace," Paul said. "Like everything was so clean it'd wash the color off you. I know it sounds stupid — running from something good — but I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted out. I wanted to be free."
His voice cracked somewhere between a confession and a whisper.
"But when I left," he added, almost to himself, "I didn't realize freedom comes with noise. You know? Noise that doesn't stop. You can't sleep, can't think. And every time I close my eyes, I see that town again. Quiet. Still. Waiting for me to come back."
Roxy smirked faintly, but his tone softened. "You sure you left it behind though?"
Paul didn't answer.
He just stared at the table, the note, the empty glass.
Roxy's voice faded into the bass. The club's lights pulsed red, blue, white—each flash carving a new version of the room. People blurred, their faces too smooth, too bright.
Paul blinked, and for a moment the crowd moved in perfect rhythm.
Too perfect.
Every smile, every sway, repeating the same motion.
He rubbed his face, tried to ground himself. But the music didn't sound like music anymore—it thudded like a heartbeat from somewhere under the floor.
He looked toward the bar. The crowd thinned.
Someone was sitting there.
Long hair, pale neck, head tilted down.
It was impossible to see her face from here, but the way her fingers tapped the counter—slow, patient—felt familiar.
No. That can't—
The light shifted again and she was gone. Just a glass left behind. Condensation trailing down its side like veins.
Paul's throat went dry.
"Yo, you good?" Roxy's voice cut in, a little distant.
"Yeah," Paul muttered. "Just thought I saw someone."
Roxy smirked. "You always do."
Paul didn't reply. His eyes stayed fixed on the bar, but it was empty now.
Still, somewhere under the pounding rhythm, he swore he could hear a whisper—light, almost sweet:
> "Welcome back, Paul." <
He froze.
The bass hit again, drowning everything. Roxy was talking, but the words didn't reach him. The lights spun faster, colors bleeding into each other.
Paul reached for the glass—his or hers, he couldn't tell anymore—and drank.
The burn steadied him for a second.
Then, like before, the silence started humming in his ears again.
That same silence from the old town.
Waiting.