❝'cause you are water twelve feet deep,
and i am boots made of concrete.❞

❘❘

JULIAN WATCHES ME CAREFULLY. The weight of his gaze is heavy, so heavy that it could drag me down; even if I writhe and thrash, cry for help, gasp for air, the trace of metal and gravel in his dark eyes could capture me, drive me, skidding, swerving across a fatal scrape of black ice.

Somewhere on the surface, a flicker, a glint, a spark blinds me.

Like flint against steel, a fire to ignite whenever and wherever we please, it's an indestructible feeling that I always embrace around Julian—that invincibility that comes with his proximity, those sensations that sear me into infinite impulses.

I can't quite tell which is him, and which is me, and as we stir in silence, in a crackling, tense quietude, I start to believe maybe we're the same.

Maybe we're both iron and carbon, steel, torched and twisted metal, heavy-hearted and cold-blooded, cursed to forever be grounded.

Anchored.

That inked anchor keeps me in his grasp, drowning in the lies that keep stealing breath like salt water, spilling through cracks of walls in a capsized ship. I'm frozen, arctic anxiety paralyzing me into hypothermia; I'm losing heat too fast to find more, and I think I might stop breathing. 

Because with each gentle caress of his fingers against mine, the temperature drops. With each fucking second of sleeted silence, my pulse weakens, and my breathing...slows...and my...heart...

"Are you okay?" 

Worry flashes in his eyes when I finally pull my hand free, but I reach for my glass of water silently. 

"Did he hurt you?" 

"No," I say numbly, even if I know that the throb in my wrists isn't from the imaginary shackles tied to concrete boots. Because instinct tells me I should never confess. "I'm not hurt." 

Julian curses under his breath, collapsing back against the booth with a clenched jaw. I follow the action warily, a pinch in my chest loosening when his shoulders slump. "Debería matarlo."

As the words roll off his tongue nonchalantly, I stiffen again. Panic ices my limbs, my blood runs cold, a blistering gust of winter air crushes my veins and collapses in on me.

I'm shivering.

"Neva, hey," Julian says quietly, reaching across the table. Warm palms swallow my freezing fingertips, pry them from the icy glass. "Hey, are you okay?"

I don't know. I don't know what it is. It feels like fear, the kind of fear that locks everything in place as you wait to...die...una muerte fría.

"He didn't...pay you," I breathe, peering up at him timidly. "So you trashed the bar."

A weary smile ghosts across his face. "I just had to scare him a bit, Neva."

My bottom lip sneaks between my teeth, and I nod cautiously, feeling too small across from him. I'm not afraid of Julian.

"But if he doesn't pay you, you'll really kill him?"

Julian stills. "Me pagará."

His stealthy escape of answering doesn't sit well with me, and a million questions tumble up my throat, stale and stiff with worry. What if he doesn't? Would he kill Jesse? Julian gave me a few grams, and I didn't pay.

Would he kill me?

I glance back down at our hands, softening slightly when Julian threads our fingers together. "No te preocupes, mamita."

Faint footsteps approach, and when the waitress stops in front of the table, Julian gives her a charming smile, nothing like...un asesino. We detach just long enough for her to set the plates of pancakes down on the table, make eye contact, and then turn on her heel.

Quick and cute, Julian captures my hand and shoots me the same smile. Demasiado dulce. "Estás callado," he lulls patiently. "What's wrong?"

I shrug. "Nada."

"Were your classes good?"

The topic of classes could lead right into the dangers of new customers—that I never found. Swallowing, I try to swerve the conversation around it. "I missed you."

And just like I wanted it to, the three words soften everything in his expression. From his eyes to his smile, any trace of violence is gone.

Julian Rivera is nothing but teasing. Loving.

"I missed you too, Neva."

As we both surrender to the simple sentiment, lies or not, something thaws between us. That patch of black ice spiraling in his eyes dims to a hazy brown, and the ice in my veins melts into a subtle affection that I can't deny. I did miss the singular type of attention Julian gives me.

Julian is a warm promise of something cold and beautiful, and there's this destructive part of me that finds it irresistible. 

I can't escape it, and in some masochistic moment, I don't want to. It reminds me that I can feel fucking fearless. Maybe I'm numb after, but in the fleeting summer haze, there are faint memories of feeling completely daring and dangerous, a threat, unafraid and unashamed. 

A world beneath me. 

Julian Rivera leads me those snowstorms, and I'm not ready to let go of it, so I sink into easy conversation with a tepid smile. 

"What do you mean it's too hot?" Julian chuckles, a warmth in the sound that casts away chills. "You think it's too hot right now?" 

I smile. "It's too hot to be September. Global warming." 

"Climate change," he shoots back playfully. "Do you think we'll go out that way? We'll burn up?" 

"I don't know. I always thought that sea levels would rise high enough to flood us," I admit with a shrug. "I guess we could burn, though." 

His fingers tap against the table.  "I think...the world ends in fire, Neva."

"Not ice?" I tease, twisting my fork at him in challenge. As I capture a piece of my soggy pancake, I shake my head. "Do you really think that?" 

"Sí." 

"Do you think it will happen in our lifetime?" 

Julian grins. "Not us. Maybe nuestros hijos."

What? 

I completely fucking freeze—with my fork halfway to my mouth, with my lips parted in surprise, with a hiccuping heart and a fried brain. My piece of pancake falls to the table. 

"Neva." Julian quirks a brow at me. "I'm kidding. Chill." 

How can I chill when he says shit like that? 

"Julian..." I shake my head, wincing at the somber tone in my voice. Julian Rivera doesn't understand. "I..." 

"Do you want to go out tonight?" Julian asks suddenly, abandoning everything heavy in the air easily. "We could hang out." 

Hang out. It comes off so casual that I nod before he even finishes. "Yeah, we should hang out." 

"I have to meet a few people at a club in Williamsburg, but then we can do anything."

"Where are you going?"

"We," Julian emphasizes, "are going to speak to someone about dealing with Jesse."

❘❘

Everything shakes.

My knee won't stop bouncing, my fingers won't stop tapping, and I can't find one thing to look at. I'm stuck between all the colors—the hazy, blue denim I keep grazing, the crisp, white t-shirt my nails twist into, the hot, black interior that reminds me of late nights, and the diluted, grey sky that just keeps falling and falling and falling.

It's a bone-crushing collision, paper skin and weak muscles taking the brunt force of a fatal fall. Everything fractures, and tear-stained streaks of ink mar my vision.

Maybe I'm not steel; maybe I'm not iron or carbon, maybe I'm barely even air. I'm a collection of veins and brittle bones beneath the weight of a million lights in New York—surrendering at the bottom of the city, suddenly too sober and too small.

I shrink into Julian with the insignificant feelings, senseless anxiety riding over me. Defeat sinks into my bones, and I nearly flinch at the deadweight keeping me chained to the backseat—when all I want to do is fling myself from the car.

Julian must sense something because he reaches around me to roll the window down. I sigh in relief when a fresh breeze licks at my warm cheeks. His hand catches my knee; his lips meet my ear. "Why are you so anxious, Neva?"

It starts in my chest, a strain that keeps growing and growing until I can't even find myself within it. "I..."

Is it my heart?

I feel it in my chest, deep, deep, deep, like it's tearing into my lungs, like I'm wasting breath, like it's not even worth it to breathe.

"You're not normally like this," Julian says softly.

I swallow hard, turn my chin up, meet his questioning gaze to give him a half-lie, bared into a confession. "I'm not an anxious person. I don't know...why..."

"Loosen up, mamita." Julian drags a hand over my neck, sweeping hair from sweaty skin. The car rolls to a stop as he dips to kiss me. "I didn't mean to freak you out earlier."

I register his comment vaguely, but I don't know which moment he's talking about; I'm already drowning in the taste of his lips, willingly and without regret.

"That's what you need, huh?" With a chuckle, Julian slips me closer, and I fumble over his lap. His fingers thread through my hair. "You need to be fucked."

Maybe. Maybe that really is what I need to destroy the uncertainty and mistrust eating at my thoughts.

A million restless roses flutter through me, petals lost in watered down blood, thinning and budding into bruises that clot every emotion escaping my pores. I can't find a sentence; I can't even find a thought. My own motions feel jarring, but slow, as I thrash through time with a tender heart and a dizzy drainage of color.

When I stumble out of the car, when I crash through doors, when I burn into the paper crowds and pulsing lights, I only leave ash and air in my wake—an echo of all the nights that start in clubs like this, but end up lost in smoke. 

I think I'm finally motionless, but my head is still spinning. There are people in front of me, there are three people, there are men. 

Men I know. 

The pressure looms like an avalanche; it expands, slips, keeps me standing, and still shoves me to my knees. I blink, desperate to find the strand of conversation that is tying into knots around me, ligaments and tendons of words that keep tightening and tightening and tightening.

Julian is tight—a chokehold around my shoulders, a bloodthirsty wring around my neck.

My throat feels dry, cotton built and breathlessly ripped apart. Another twisting vengeance blocks my airways, music and masses smothering me until I can only find smoke and steel—two warring weights of freedom and resistance.

It doesn't snap, it sways, and when I start to sink again, a flicker of consciousness returns. My vision sharpens, and then blurs again.

Because lounging on a black couch in front of me—above me—there are three men staring at me like I'm nothing.

"Don't look at her like you want to fuck her," Julian snaps, and the vice grip tightens even more. "Neva is with me."

I can remember the dark curls that I pulled, but the dim light casts exposure on things a blackout high destroyed—a dusting of hair along his jaw, a small earring toying beneath his curls, coal black eyes that glint with mischief.

Mickey grins, but shakes his head and looks away, like I didn't choke on his cock eighteen hours ago. "Is that better for you?"

"Fuck off."

I stir in his grip, catching another familiar gaze on me. "Julian, stop."

"What?" Julian hisses. "You're coming home with me tonight. Not him."

"Says who?" I wrench away, staggering free of the suffocation. "Don't be a fucking dick."

"What a mouth your girl has," Mickey teases. His stare feels hot on my exposed skin, and all the fringes of clothing that he peeled off of me last night, but I refuse to squirm beneath it. "You put it to good use, Jules? If you're not, I can."

My teeth grind together, but before I can say anything, Rio stands from the other side and pulls Julian into a quick handshake. "What's going on? You deal with Jesse?"

"Jesse?" Low and sharp, the question comes from the only man in the back of the club that I haven't fucked. All his attention is on Julian, and I find a sting in my chest at the fact. "Who is Jesse?"

"Jesse Harmon," Julian says, hooking me into his side again. "Some mamabicho in Ridgewood. Pussy. I gave him until the end of this week."

"Oh, you're just too nice," Mickey drawls with a loose smile. "Jules, when will you ever learn? Don't give freebies."

Julian snickers. "Freebies don't exist, Mick. It all comes at a cost."

It all comes at a cost.

Suddenly, the prices are whirling by me at the speed of light, those prices I can't possibly remember for burn in my purse, for the facade of fearlessness, for the fierce fog flickering flashing frying—

I twist away from Julian, and as a cool breeze floods between us, I find my trembling fingers, blurring in my vision.

"I..."

"Neva?"

A wave of heat washes over me.

"Neva?"

It comes in another ripple; a cast shadow of anxiety, somewhere around me, above me, inside of me. The black hole starts to swallow, starts to soften, starts to shed and strip away the sheen of sweat.

"Neva?"

Arms steady me. I don't know if they're mine or a stranger's, but they feel warm, and I feel too warm, and I'm sick, and I'm sinking, sinking, sinking.

"Do you feel okay?"

I'm heavy, so heavy that my heart hits glittering ground between my feet. Low. I feel low. 

"I...yeah, I feel fine. I'm...I have to go to the bathroom."

Because somehow, the bathroom is the only solution.

Colors streak by me as I fumble, and I count them, determined to focus on something, anything, even if it's the achromatic shards of light that stifle the coasting crowds.

A glittering, silver mirror finds me; a matte black door closes behind me.

White snow flutters in front of me.

Shaky hands and shaky breath, I take a bump, and then steady.

My nails dig into the cold porcelain, fingerprints branding me into the moment that I struggle to rise from the ash grey tiles of a club bathroom. Will I ever be back there, or will I keep crash landing in bathrooms? 

I sniff, squinting at the monochrome portrait that stares back. Everything is reduced to grey matter, molecules, atoms, elements of basic life that I can't fucking find.

Where am I?

I'm inside, I'm outside, I'm halfway to the stars, half-lidded and half-hopeless. A little bit more should give me a little bit more.

I tip the bag to the little ledge at the mirror, rip out a card from my purse, and gather a line hastily. Only a dull throb of music accompanies me, distant and detached, like me, like me, like me.

Alone.

...rolling a bill, ducking close, tucking hair back...blinking, blinking, blinking...indulging in something soft, and surreal, a raging snowstorm dressed up behind glass...blinking, blinking, blinking...wondering how much time has passed, wondering how much time will pass before I just...stop...existing...

"Oh, look at this."

I spin, sniff, and stare silently. Silent as death. Did I die?

"What are you doing, baby?"

Something magnificent and fucking fierce propels me across the bathroom; a powerful, precious possession of what can make me feel invincible. No, I didn't die. I'm alive, and I can do anything.

I could kill him.

"Listen." I slam him back against that matte black surface. A door? "Just because we fucked doesn't mean you can talk about me like...like you did."

"I don't need to," he drawls. "Half of the men here already know how you suck dick."

I quirk a brow; stifle the stirring shame. "So?"

"Does Jules know that his girl is a slut?"

"What is your problem?" I hiss, fisting his collar angrily. "We had fun last night, yeah?"

He hums, slides a hand into my hair and pulls. "Mmm, do you want to have more fun?"

I scoff, shaking my head in disbelief. Amusement. "That was your come on? Insult me and call me a slut?"

A crooked smile tips his lips, tips me over, tips whatever is threatening to spill inside of me. I feel dizzy, and somehow, we're one, and I know. He's high.

High as fuck, sweet as sugar, and cut like fucking glass. "It works on you, doesn't it?"

"Fuck you."

"You already did, sweetheart."

I glare at him, at all the inky reminders of last night, at the light skin and dark eyes, and watch the challenge burn and burn and burn; it sizzles between us into a blazing inferno, pushing me to my knees to embrace everything I know about myself.

Easy. I'm easy.

Maybe that's why I go down on him in the bathroom with no shame, and maybe that's why I don't flinch at all when he walks away from me.

Maybe that's why I go to him—because Julian Rivera has known it from the first fucking kiss.

And when I find that cabrón, it's like he was waiting for me to crash and fall. Our eyes clash, a small smile twists at his lips, and everything from before seems like a distant dream.

We're not steel; we're ice.

We'll float, as long as we don't melt, and as long as we don't crack.

"Let's go," I say, yanking him away from the wall, and the men, and the music, reeling him in for a bruising kiss. "Home."

Because home is someone else's bed. Siempre.

Tonight, it's Julian's.

Tonight, Julian is everything, and I'm nothing.

Just like I've always wanted.

❘❘

**Get high, write trash. That's what this is. 

I feel really nervous posting some of this stuff because there are so many conflicting feelings that don't make sense to me, so I'm always wondering if they make sense to anyone else. Embracing sex, being called a slut, shame, fear, anxiety attacks, people that you know will never, ever do anything but drown you, everything that comes with hot and cold, and wanting to be smoke, not steel, wanting to float, not sink, wanting to die—wanting to be high.

Thanks for reading, everyone. 💕