"The Relapse"

It has been said that love is like a drug, and with drugs, it’s ever so easy to relapse, especially in an environment that encourages alcohol-fuelled behaviour.

It was another Saturday night, and there was another 18th party I had to show my face at. The invite had said “Noah + Guest” so it was inevitable that Ella would be coming (and I was hoping in more ways than one, much to my disappointment we got nowhere). Hayley and Brooke had invited Kayla as their guest so; 15 minutes before the party started we made our way to the Carmientti household, collecting Ella along the way.

After downing two mini sized bottles of Jack Daniels, and Kayla downing that of vodka, we climbed into the taxi and headed to the party.

Arriving at the party, we noticed a distinct lack of something…people. After my first vodka and coke the place seemed to get busier and I made the friendly hellos and the polite obligatory “I haven’t seen you since you dropped out of college last year, how are you?” I was also introduced to several new people, those people I’d never met, and after meeting them, I'm glad I hadn’t.

Hayley grabbed me, “Noah, this is Katie, Katie this is Noah.” It was the standard and civil introductions that could have been taken from the movies.

“Hi.” I said, smiling.

She looked at me and walked off.

“Because that’s not rude!” I shouted after her, downing the rest of my second, or third, alcoholic beverage. I think by that point at the party I’d switched to double vodka and cokes.

As my alcohol intake increased, so did my affection towards Ella. I had this new wave of feelings for her like from when our relationship first began. But this time it was different. Every other time I’d been drunk with her, she kind of irritated me, just like the way she sometimes does when we’re sober. So, we did the usual drunk person behaviour of making out in front of everyone, grinding against each other on the dance floor and, no matter how many times I said to her “I don’t want to be one of those couples who take pictures of themselves kissing,” that is exactly what we did.

The next morning Kayla and I heading into the city to walk, and talk, and walk, and talk some more, while mostly trying to avoid working.

“Did I tell you that last night Ella had started with the whole ‘Noah, you know my feelings on gays, well…’ thing? Well she said. To which I replied, ‘Ella, you know that two of my close friends are gay?’ She seemed stunned, and apologetic.”

“What else would she be? Like Hermione had told you, what she doesn’t realise she’s doing is, by sort of indirectly offending Ashley and Adam, she is offending you.”

“I suppose so.” I wasn’t so sure as I took a bite from my toasted chorizo and cheese sandwich. I had subconsciously decided to try, operative word being try, to forget about Ella’s differences and try to focuses on what positives there were, even if my previous decision was to ultimately end things with her.

After the party the night before, I realised that I had what a lot of other people wanted, but I just seemed so dissatisfied with what I had. It was a relationship where I was cared so much about that she didn’t want to let me go.

I had a thought: was I suffering from what was known as a relapse? Had the feelings I first had for Ella suddenly returned with the injection of alcohol, and even afterwards once the alcohol had warn off?

While I was contemplating my future with Ella, Kayla was telling me about the one night stand she’d had. She’d met him in a bar and his name was Kyle. He was a university student and after a hard night’s partying at several bars with him, she was invited back to his for a coffee, or two. Next thing she knew she was laying on his bed, wondering what the hell she’d just done.

“How was it?” I asked her.

“Well, a lot of alcohol had been consumed, so, not too amazing.” She replied, with a look in her eye.

“So you didn’t cum?”

“No.” She said, shaking her in while doing so.

“Oh Kayla.”

“What? What?”

“What’s sex without cumming? It’s like decaf coffee, coffee without the caffeine, the whole reason for coffee’s modern day existence!”

“I guess so.”

“So are you seeing him again?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Maybe. Oh check you out you non-cumming repeat offender.”

While I had definitely relapsed, I wondered whether Kayla would too with Kyle, even if her rewards weren’t fruitful, to say the least. Then I realised, maybe love wasn’t a drug after all because if it were, relapsing wouldn’t feel so good. So, I asked myself: what was so bad about relapsing with love anyway?