THE FIRST THING I KNOW IS COOL TILES, soothing the burning skin on the backs of my thighs, but I'm blinking blearily, dazed, flooded by a dirty halo, and I don't know; I only know rough surfaces, fogginess, angles rotating awkwardly as I lean up again. Hazy swaying, swimming, scrawling Sharpie...

It's a long, disorienting limbo. Dizzying. Everything liquid, sloshing quietly. My skull throbbing, bringing back a drum beat, an aching hangover: I wonder if I'm reliving a bad trip, Russian Doll-style. I wonder if I'm dead, if the trenches of Bushwick are the epitome of Hell. If I'm drowning in somebody else's existential dread, governed by laws left behind on walls of trashy bathrooms in Brooklyn.

I've fucking been here, I know, I know.

I... am in... Bushwick, I think.

"No, no sé, no sé—"

His Spanish is faint, quick, rambling off, and I hear it echo in English. I don't know, I don't know. My head is fizzy. I sit up and wince as I recoil, whiplash-woozy, wavering in a queasy orbit, lilting... off... uneasily. Darkness dampening again. Lights dimming a din sheen, a shaky lens, a vague manipulation, mise-en-scène I've already seen—a torn shower curtain, mold-caked grout, a splattering of graffiti—SOMETHING ENDS HERE.

Blood.

"—covered in blood, cabrón, I don't know."

Nausea lurching, rampant against my ribcage, blotted, briny. My eyes screw shut. Did he... call somebody? Did he call for help?

Chelsea.
"Bathroom."

I'm, like, so drunk I'm numb, Nola.

Bitch.

I can hear her, see her—

"Respirando."

Did he call 911? Fuck.

What is...

I blink again. My stomach swings, and I buckle before I can catch anything. His voice low, somewhere else, anywhere else, far... away. Sour. The world flickers, flashes, convulsing as I spring up, lips clamped, burnt bile spilling up silently. Tears blurring my vision of a stained sink.

It stings. It trickles down, down, down in an opaque yellow hue, a cocktail of acid and regret, stringy from my bottom lip. My shivery palms, rusty smudges, rubbed-away writing, spidering... cracks... chipped porcelain, bloody... pores...

"Unconscious?"

His voice is warped, underwater, sinking, sinking... sinking...

My head lolls, hung over the rim of the sink heavily.

A toy ring, its diamond caked in glittery-dry blood.

No. No. Not...

I force myself to steady. Lightheaded, glaring down tiny holes of a drain, yellow-ish, slimy scum, as I retch, dry-heaving open-mouthed, begging my body to calm down.

"Ah, no, creo que se desmayó," he's saying.

Suddenly, I jolt upright, blinking away a floating feeling; remnants of rosé flecks glinting. Pink. It's haunting. Light ricocheting, flaking off my fingers, papery skin stained, a heart, and...

I squint as I ease my gaze up a dusting on the inside of my forearms, grimy, greasy... residue I hadn't... seen yet. Jesus. What am I doing?

My head pounding, pulsing, as I lift it. Every slight shift a heavy, delaying pang, searching for a pin-holed angle of myself in a foggy mirror. Beneath an array of peeling stickers and a skein of tags, incised by long, jagged cracks, I'm here, but I'm a fucking mess: splotchy cheeks and inky rivulets; wet lashes, bloodshot dazed; raccoon-esque sluttiness for Chelsea's Instagram. Always.

Square. Background a greying blur.

My hair is...

I reach up, behind, and brush a clotted knot—a sticky-hot haze dripping down the nape of my neck, a damp, fraying collar of—

Denim. I'm distracted by a dark jean jacket, slung off a shoulder, half-draped; I hitch it up delicately. My fingers fiddling at its fraying collar as I sway. I wasn't wearing it. No. It's...

"Sí, sí, sí..."

His.

Okay. Fuck it.

I spit into the sink.

Furiously, I roll my shoulders back and catch my bleak expression, ignoring inevitability—tags tattooing my reflection in some rundown bathroom in Brooklyn. Handwriting I recognize. Sharpie.

siempre puta, nunca inputa

I've been here.

My fingers crawling along cracked porcelain, curving a broken nail under a rank of damp duct-tape, a reddish, rusty blotch scraping off. His voice is quiet, a tangled tremble of Spanish fluttering too quickly, too quickly, too quickly.

Everything shakes, sink-shimmying, as I reach for a knob. Water spurts crystal clear, weakly, clogging, dredging up vomit, but I don't—can't—wait, and I'm cupping my hands below it, scrubbing an icy raw chill into my skin, digging into flesh, buffing off a bloody glint. Nausea flirts up my throat slowly.

siempre puta, nunca inputa

Nothing but a corazón, a dull pulse of irritation, a ghostly impression of sangre en mis manos, of a glittery gash o—

I jolt as I splash my burning cheeks, slow as I wipe my fingertips under my eyelids, but when I pull back, pushing away stray strands of damp hair, I find again, inches from my forehead, imperfectly placed, an old corona Chelsea loved to wear.

siempre puta, nunca inputa

Bitch.

The Love. Bushwick.

I know where I am.

Where is Chelsea?

His voice is...

Gone.

Ah, fuck. No.

Panic hikes my breath as I cinch his jacket around my body, pushing back into a dark graveyard of beer cans and cigarette butts: The Love, in its aftermath of a party I can't fucking remember.

It's eerily quiet. He...

My gaze sprints away—a flash of a glittery hard-shell, a cased iPhone. My iPhone.

Everything. Okay. Go.

I snag it (from where I dropped it) as I skid quietly, passing by a curtained doorway. Then I sling open a door, pound down a dimly lit stairwell, crash onto Lexington Ave.

Okay. Yeah. A J. I need to catch a J.