When I woke up that next morning, I really didn’t know what to expect.

It was dead quiet; the only sound I could hear was the air gushing in through window that made the curtains fly up ever so slowly. I sat up on the bed and ran my fingers through my hair before standing up to stretch. It felt like a ton of bricks fell on me in my sleep.

If I ever wondered what rock bottom felt like; this was it.

I took a shower and then started to pack up. It was still really early in the morning and we had to be on the plane in about an hour. It wasn’t a lot of time.

I was packing up the last of my things when David dragged his feet through the door. He looked awfully tired like he hadn’t had a minute of sleep last night.

I didn’t even remember how I got to the hotel.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Don’t get me started” I chuckled and zipped up my suitcase. “So, what happened last night?”

“Don’t get me started.” He leaned against the wall and looked at me. “Do you really want to know?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well, you took acid, Emma. Rick and I brought you here and then you wanted to go back to the party… you got pretty violent.”

A shot of guilt hit me and I felt fucking terrible. “Oh” I managed to say.

“Why’d you take it, Em?” he asked me.

“I don’t know, I just thought that it would be fun, I guess. I thought it would make the night better, you know?” I replied.

He shook his head disappointingly. “You know who Syd Barrett is, don’t you?”

“Yes-”

“Then you should have known better” he concluded.

The fact that he compared me to Syd was aggravating. The fact that he even brought him up in the conversation was wrong all together. Sometimes I think that people only see him as the “one that took too many drugs and went crazy.” And the fact that David knows him and still brought that up, seemed wrong to me.

If only everyone actually knew who he really was.

A person came into the room and grabbed our luggage before taking it outside to the car. Rick came in after the man left.

“Oh good, you’re alive” he smiled. “Ready to go?”

David turned around and I followed them out of the hotel. I was so glad to be leaving America, finally.

--

I kept my mouth shut the entire flight back. I sat against the window, looking out at everything around us. It was a beautiful sight.

But I felt alone. The band was playing cards and laughing away as I sat silently all by myself. It felt like they were all mad at me because I did the drug that ruined their best friend.

But LSD was one hell of a ride. It made me so happy, and just completely in love with everything. It made the world seem like a better place, to put it plainly.

A few hours later we finally made it back to the city I’ve missed so much. I just wanted to get home and curl up on my couch and sleep for weeks and weeks. Honestly, I was embarrassed by last night, and I don’t even remember half of it.

I got into a car with David and still sat silently for a while before he sparked up a conversation.

“I’m not mad at you” he told me.

“You’re not?”

He smiled, “No, I can’t stay mad at you.”

“So you were mad then?” I asked.

He laughed and pulled me in close to him. “I just wish you didn’t because Roger told me that the party got fucking crazy!”

“I’m sorry” I rested my head on his shoulder.

“It’s okay, my love” he kissed my forehead.

I felt so relieved. A simple conversation like that eased my nerves so much that all I could do was smile the entire ride home.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, babe” David kissed me goodbye before I shut the taxi door.

I unpacked all my things as soon as I got up to my flat. It smelt just like home. Everything was exactly how I left it.

I flipped through the records on my record shelf and oddly enough, pulled out “The Madcap Laughs.” I placed it on the turntable and had shivers trail down my spine when Terrapin started to play.

“Emma!” I quickly jerked my head at the call of my name.

“Holy shit!” I got up and jumped into Courtney’s arms. I hadn’t seen her for months even before I left for the tour.

“How have you been?” she asked kindly.

“I’ve been better” I laughed.

I told her every single detail that happened on tour as Syd’s voice filled the background noise. She wasn’t surprised at anything, until I told her that I did acid.

“What was it like?!” she seemed so interested.

“It’s like being locked in a room with everything you hate, but you fall in love with it all” I replied. I was smiling at the memory of it but it quickly faded once I remembered what David said.

I got up and searched through the pile of clothes I emptied out of my suitcase and looked for the outfit I wore to the party. I reached my hand into the pocket and pulled out the remaining 2 cubes. I had 4, took 1, and apparently lost the other one.

“A stranger randomly gave it to me” I recalled, shuffling the drugs in my palm.

She looked at me and then grabbed one. “I want to try it!”

“That probably isn’t a good idea, Court” I warned.

“Why not?! C’mon, Em! Take it with me!”

“David will fucking kill me!”

She smiled and put the cube in her mouth. “David doesn’t have to know, right?”

She tried to convince me to take the drug for a while until the hallucinations got a hold of her. I threw the cube onto my dresser and let Courtney experience it by herself.

I wasn’t going to take it and piss David off, and I wasn’t going to lie about it to him.

While Courtney was passed out after long trip, I sat on my bed and looked out the window at the beautiful sun that was setting behind the trees. The sky had these perfect pink and orange clouds with the light blue sky around it. It’s moments like those that made me feel completely at home. It was difficult to get a peaceful moment on a tour.

I checked up on Courtney a couple hours later and noticed how she was sleeping in the funniest position on the couch. I hit her with a pillow to wake her up.

She hung around the flat for a bit before leaving at about 11pm. I changed the record and put Bob Dylan one on, just before the phone rang.

“Hello?” I answered it.

“Hey baby.”

Whenever David and I didn’t spend a night together, he would call me and we’d talk on the phone for hours. And the best part about it, is that we never ran out of things to say.

“You know what will be great?” he asked.

“What’s that?” I curled up on my bed with the phone pressed against my ear. The room was dark except for the moon light that shun in through the window.

“I won’t have to call you when we live together, I can just stay up with you all night. I can’t wait, Em.”

I smiled and before I got to say anything, he continued. “And then I will be able to play a song for you every single night.”

“I’d love that.” I was still smiling like a fool.

I loved him so much that it was honestly sickening. Those cute things he says or does is so fucking perfect that it’s disgusting. He made me giggle and blush like I was a young teenager. Sometimes, I had to stop and think to myself if loving someone that much was even healthy.

But I loved it. I loved everything about us.