There it was. It was something strange and platonically fulfilling.

Now it's history. A tale I can't get the pleasure by telling because I cannot tell it to anyone but just revisit the intimate scenes in the privacy and the loathed lonesomeness of my own mind.

It was the 20th morning and the modern digital clock beeped at a cooperating tone in the early coffee shops.

I walked over and over this lines in my head whilst the empty morning street was gaining a cloud of smoke from my 3rd cigarette. My sketchy sleep disappeared on the end of the first cig but the developed lust to properly celebrate this nonchalantly poignant course of my mind, let my mouth ease into the third one.

The 19th evening went into pre decided caution since I had gotten hold of some of my friends or more accurately, some colleagues I knew for some time. Thus, they didn't disperse from the request of having a night wasted in drinking when I presented the inquiry.

It was a provision, a safeguard that my cynical self was aware to take.

I love my cynical self and abhor him passionately at the same time.

The reason for not staying with Percy and Jordan was simple since if I was too filled with alcohol, my truthfulness and confession would create another cast of problems.

I left the drinking den of the bachelor friend at 2 in the morning with a note on the messy and sticky coffee table where a number of nameless drinks, gins, vodka and what not swam happily.

On the appearance of Jordan's silhouette, I bummed the half burnt roll of tobacco and lobbed it carelessly into the background sidewalk.

I had declined on the birth of the idea when Jordan submitted that I should join their road trip to Seneca. The rejection was in place for a number of reasons. But she stood unwithered and fought happily against my stubborn act even at some point in the night, I raised my voice in defense.

Actually, she was clinging onto the fact that I fell over some unspoken change which had the possibility of being horrible and I was nonchalantly depressed beyond words.

Jordan was immensely cunning and it was one of the traits which she was known by in the social circle. And her adamant tone in her voice awoken me of her care but I crumbled to her request in the end. As everyone did, like it was some unspoken inevitability.

Jordan had picked of all the signs of my troubling shedding, the process of transformation, the theory of scratching out the old and becoming the new. All those clues I started to leave ever since I tumbled myself with Junith.

The absence of drinking, ignorance towards them, the silent smiles, the hum of a catchy song, the scene of myself with a fiction novel sleeping on my lap as I traveled the long hours by myself.

All of this scared her into multiple thoughts and it came to no conclusion to anyone as we made our way out of NY.

Then after an uncertain stop to somewhere lonely, Junith Chambers climbed onto the car with her tiresome, wrinkled eyes and heavy travelling bags which were no doubt filled with the gifts of her well wishers who loved her and who she loved back.

It was safe to say, I was not one of those lucky few since I got nothing in return of my affection rather than a formal glance as she took of her junket sunglasses.

The impact of an intermediate surprise longed over my face which was ignored and unseen by Jordan and Percy as their voice enrolled their excitement with almost little care at anything else in the world.

They talked in sync and without seeing any discomfort in my blunt and Junith's polite face, only their lustrous tune filled the car's air as it left the black, polished, fabricated happiness of the bleak city.

In tow.

About the entrance of dusk, I came to learn that she had also given in Jordan's persistent requests of joining in on the road trip since her home that was established on the cusp of an ordinary town with no distinctive pride in it's name and it was on our way to the promised land.

I restrained myself from the foulness of protest for the sake of my friends and at the same time, accompanied them in the desperate manner so that I would not be alone with Junith, even for a moment for any more argumentative incursions.

But all of this thought were put on hold, as my body wriggled out in pain from the dusty, coarse smell of the cigarette in suppressed pain from my uncared health.

I had not touched a drink in the short duration of a month and it was nothing else than relapse.

I was screaming in the inner voice in pray that it was a slip and not a relapse but it was what it was. After knowing the probable setbacks, I hadn't revealed it to anyone.

Eventually, Percy knew what it was from the moment, I stuttered to speak, gulped down a mouthful of air and threw myself out of the dinner to the outside cobalt to vomit in an revolting manner.

Percy had seen relapse and I had slipped before too but no one needed to utter the flaming urgency of how worse the night of 20th had become since the meals on booth number 9; a half drunk tomato soup and the grilled chicken sandwich were left unattended as the flutter of Oxford soles and uncomfortable shoes danced across the tarmac towards my wriggling body.

Relapse, was it?

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* Relapse : An alcohol or drug relapse is the recurrence of any disease that has gone into remission or recovery. As a chronic disease, addiction is subject to periods of relapse. During the recovery process you may become exposed to certain triggers and other risk factors that increase your risk of returning to substance abuse.

*Slip : A slip is considered to be a less serious occurrence than a relapse.