❝there's a times square throng and a toning bell. when the ball dropped down,
all went to hell.
i'll have a happy new year next year.❞
— violent femmes,
happy new year next year

♥

SOMEONE TOLD ME ECSTASY WAS A CLUB DRUG.

I'd never believed them until now... until this moment of chaos.

It was fucking madness, a frenzy for a year that hadn't even started, a feeding ground for hungry motherfuckers like us, who needed 2020 to better than the bullshit we'd barely survived in 2019. Everything was shaking, trembling, pulsing, and I felt my heartbeat in my head, desperately trying to catch up to some electronic track that sounded like robots having sex.

"Nick!"

There were flickers and flashes of flesh and bone, shimmering in sweat, glittering in a haze, sinking in a fiery ocean of light.

"Nick!"

Her lips were red.

"Nick!"

I didn't know where we were, or how we got here, but I was preeeetty sure I was alive.

Maybe. Only 18% sure.

Because someone had unleashed hell in this bourgeois ass club, and there was a possibility... that I'd fucking died.

"Nick!"

I blinked, blinked, blinked, and there she was, in a tempting halo of light, flames caressing dark curls, sparks flaring in her eyes, a smile burning, burning, burning into my soul. I felt her fingertips, licking up my bare arms, searing through fabric, and branding my skin with something so fucking sinful. She was reeling me in, quick, quick, quick, to the beat of something electric, grinding against my cock, and everything felt right, but... wrong.

It was hell.

I was in hell.

"Levi," I gasped, whirling around, staggering into bodies, bodies, bodies, slick skin against mine, brushing, grazing, caressing. Every stroke felt too raw, too painful, too hot, and I was inhaling smoke and ashes, and I couldn't fucking breathe. "Levi."

If I was in hell, Levi was with me.

No. Levi wasn't just with me; Levi was the reason I was here.

"Nicholas!"

Everything was spinning.

Levi.

Dizzily, I found my brother across a sea of silhouettes, sweaty skin flashing through streaks of light, looking like he was wading, swimming, drowning in a blur of bodies, swallowed by tight fabric, pink fingernails and blonde hair.

My stomach lurched. Where were we? How were we supposed to leave? How did we get here? "Levi, I think we're in hell."

"Nah, this is heaven. It's like Spring Break in Miami, baby," he shouted, glassy eyes glinting with laughter. "Girls gone wild."

"I need... I need to..."

A hand brushed against my arm. Fingers curled around my wrist. Knots of nausea unfurled in the pit of my stomach, and as I peered down at her, swaying on my feet, sick and so fucking... fucked up, I needed her.

Her brows drew together in that adorable way, almost in confusion, or anger, or worry. I'd seen it a million times, and somehow, I still couldn't find the right emotion in her expression. "Kay, I'm so sorry. I need—"

"Kay?" Something flashed in her eyes. "Okay, you need air."

Yeah. Air.

Air... felt good. It felt real. It washed away the sensations, crashing over my head, tugging me under, leaving me in icy water. I squeezed my eyes shut and dry heaved, clinging to something cold as I tripped onto the empty sidewalk. "Fuck," I muttered, swallowing a string of bile. It felt like everything inside of me had been twisted, tightened, or torn apart. "I'm gonna fucking—"

"Nick!"

My vision dimmed. "Levi, I'm..."

"Hey, it's okay, Nick." Soft footsteps slowed behind me, and a hand pressed against my shoulder. "Just purge, dude. I've got you. You're good."

I moved too slowly, swiveling around to find him, to blink at him, to look at him—the asshole that I'd literally die for. Before I could even drunkenly express it, Levi reeled me in for a hug. "Levi, I am so fucked up."

"I know."

"Levi, I'm going to get alcohol poisoning and die!"

"I know, bro." He patted my back. "I know."

"Levi, I ruined New Year's!"

"Nah, it's been a wild ride," he snickered, ruffling my hair as he pulled away. "I'm pretty sure I met my wife, Nick."

Wife. Wife. Wife. Wife.

My head spun with the one word. "I was... I was going to marry her."

I'd rather get alcohol poisoning and die.

Levi froze. "What?"

Fuck. I winced. My throat tightened, but too many words unraveled on the tip of my tongue, and suddenly, I couldn't stop them from tumbling out recklessly. "I— I was going to propose to her when she... she got pregnant, but then— then— the baby, and I... she..."

"Jesus Christ, you knocked that bitch up?"

"Levi," a soft, shaky voice called from the doorway. I recognized it, but I couldn't remember the name of that fucking blonde that was waiting for my brother. "Levi, just leave him."

And Levi whipped around so sharply that I reeled back, stumbling into the cold, hard wall with a curse. Fuck, I was dizzy. "Shit," he muttered, twisting to catch me before my knees buckled. "Nick, it's all good."

"It's okay. I'll just... I'll just go home," I tried to say, but it came out in a long, long, long slur. "I'll..."

"I think you should let him go home."

"Don't tell me what to do with my brother."

"I could take him home," another voice chimed, dragging my gaze to the blonde... and the soft-spoken, heartbreakingly beautiful brunette that I should've been kissing right now. Vaguely, I wondered who the fuck she was.

"Yeah, okay," Levi snorted, swiveling to glare at her. "My brother barely even knows his own name right now. I don't trust you with him."

Hesitantly, I admired her in the late-night darkness, mesmerized by her dark, tangled hair, her flushed cheeks, her red lipstick, buried beneath faint city lights. There were billboards above us, around us, closing in on us, flickering silently, and with every single flash, a new color cut across her eyes, jagged and sharp, shards of ice that seemed... so fucking cold.

For a long, long, long moment, her gaze lingered on me.

And then it cracked, broke, and shattered into a million fucking pieces. Those dark eyes swung to Levi. "He called me... Kay."

I did?

"Yeah." Levi heaved a sigh. "I guess you do look a little bit like her."

Really?

My brows furrowed. I squinted at her, but she wouldn't stay still, or I wouldn't stay still, or the world wouldn't stay still. She was beautifully blurry, and I was... lightheaded, so fucking lightheaded that I felt weightless, floating somewhere in this fucked up city. "So much for rebound sex, bro," Levi drawled, steadying me when I swayed. I needed to move. "Believe me, there's no coming back from that. It's right up there with fucking her sister or something."

What?

"Wait, do you have a sister?"

"I need... I need to walk," I think I said, but when I staggered out of his hold, I heard something else, loose and long, a string of incoherent words tangling into a knotted conversation around me.

"Is he okay to walk?"

No. I was staring down at the sidewalk, and it was... sliding beneath my feet, sheets of fluorescent light streaking across gravel, a glitzy, gritty treadmill, pushing me back, back, back, and before I could fall on my face, Levi caught my arm. "Yeah, don't worry."

Fuck, I knew where we were.

It was the tourist trashcan of New York.

I didn't want to die in Midtown.

"Nick is just... a hot mess, babe."

Yeah, maybe I could set Midtown on fire, and then it could represent the trashcan fire that was my fucking life.

"I'm not a hot mess."

"Yeah, okay," he snorted. "Shut up, Nick."

"Here."

I peered up at the sound of her raspy voice, dragging my gaze from those sexy stilettos to those perfectly painted lips that held a hesitant smile. Something thick gathered in the back of my throat, and something heavy hung on my heart. A dull ache pulsed through my forehead. I didn't fucking know her, but when she reached for my hand, I wanted to.

A dizzy spell crashed over me, waves and waves of an endless ocean, just wrenching me into a beautifully numb haze. Fuck, she was gorgeous. "What..." I blinked in confusion. "What are you?"

"I'm a Scarlett," she said softly.

A Scarlett? What?

Sober me would've said something stupid, but instead, I suppressed the asshole response and let her reel me in closer, closer, closer. I let her steady me. I let her lead me through the shadowy streets of the shittiest part of this fucking city... to a confetti graveyard.

Icy lights blazed around us, like lightning, striking in the most mesmerizing moments to capture the cold air echoing in her eyes. There were no words, no language that could combat the surreal silence left behind, lingering in the epicenter of a catastrophe. It wasn't just ecstasy; it was euphoria. I found myself sinking, struggling to swim, slowly, slowly, slowly suffocating, seeing everything beyond a foggy filter—a minefield of memories, a crossing of worlds, a million strips of colored paper strung across an empty space.

New York City had never felt so dead.

I'd never felt so empty.

"Times Square," she murmured, softly stilling in the sea of stolen air. "It's the heart of New Year's Eve. It's beautiful when it's... empty."

Another ripple of lights swept over her, caressing her cheeks tenderly, and for a wild, wild, wild moment, she looked fucking unreal, like she was glowing, inhaling life and death, just bathing in the electricity that held the city together.

My lips parted, but I couldn't find the words to explain it. I couldn't tell her that she embodied emptiness, that she was a beautifully, broken tragedy. I couldn't even call her beautiful... when she looked fucking divine.

A soft smile graced her lips. "Can you feel it?"

I couldn't feel anything.

Something flashed in her eyes, dark, deep, desperate, and vaguely, I knew that she was hurting. "There's so much good energy in the world, Nick."

My heart seemed to slow. "Is there?"

"It's here," she said, she said, she said, so fucking quietly that it barely existed. "You can feel it, Nick. It's in the air... this energy, lingering from thousands of people, millions of people, who were connected, living and breathing together tonight. It's always here."

It was dizzying. I didn't understand spirituality or power or energy, but there was heat, a stroke of heat, electricity, chasing through my bloodstream, and it was a dark sensation, a lonely feeling, like knowing that you're alone, but hoping... that you're not.

Levi would laugh. Levi would tell me that I wasn't alone, that I'd never be alone, because he'd always be... with me, starting a knife fight, pissing off bartenders, and almost getting killed.

Her lashes fluttered, cascading over her pale cheeks, casting soft shadows, dressing her into a fucking daydream. I'd never seen someone so young and beautiful and sad. I'd never known someone that could make loneliness.. and emptiness... so... powerful.

"Feel it, Nick."

"Feel it."

"Feel."

—WOW. THIS WENT TO A WEIRD PLACE. BLAME IT ON NICK'S BAAAAAD TRIP. From experience, I just want y'all to remember that ECSTASY CAN BE A BAD TRIP. It can make you super fucking anxious and panicked, and it can also trigger some pretty nasty hallucinations.

But Times Square IS mad beautiful on NYE, a few hours after the ball drops, when it's empty, but still... alive. FR, I was Scarlett this year, drunkenly rambling like this, and the energy is WILD. ❤️

ALSO. ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE REAL MOMENTS. It was New Year's 2016, and I had this conversation with a friend. He's literally dry heaving on the sidewalk, shaking, apologizing for getting so fucked up that he ruined New Year's, and I'm over here, drunk AF, smoking a cigar, living my best life, and this MF drops this pregnancy/marriage bomb, and deadass, I was Levi in that moment. LIKE WTF you mean you KNOCKED THAT BITCH UP??? 😱😱

UPDATE: I did get a response from ONC about which of my stories made it through Round Two. It was NOT this story. I kinda saw it coming, as I got a few comments in the FIRST chapter from an ambassador about this story being UNNECESSARILY vulgar. LOL. I figured it wouldn't make it, but I really don't want to censor any of these people, so... HERE WE ARE. I am a little down about it because the vulgarity of the characters is actually a very big part of the important things this story touches on, such as consent and abuse and feminine empowerment and A MALE GAZE. I am in no way saying all men are like them, but yes, this story is captured in a really shaky lens, through the inner ramblings of a heartbroken, drunken 20-something-year-old guy. It's wild, it's vulgar, it's brutally honest, it's a million 'fucks' in the first three chapters, it's contemporary cluelessness in a world that is always evolving, it's assholes like them that really do these things/say these things/think these things, it's bar story after bar story, it's blackout drunk, it's shitty decisions, it's people I know, conversations I've had, and nights I've lived through. 🤷🏽‍♀️

So. I'm continuing it.

Thank you to everyone who chimed in to keep this story alive. I love each and every one of you so much. ❤️❤️