Party 'til you pass out / When the party's over

Oliver's POV

9.56am, April 10, 2012

Photo studio in Sheffield

*

'Oli, would you please hurry up! Photographer just arrived!,' Tom yelled at me through the closed door. 'Jesus, is straightening your hair taking that much time?' I heard someone snicker and I mocked Tom while I prepared myself to take another shot of ketamine.

It had started a while ago, when someone at a party introduced me to the stuff that made me feel better on days I woke up feeling like shit. You would say that ever since my band took off and became popular, since we got booked and we'd done tours through Europe and beyond, and since we got known and had built a wide fan base my insecurity and anxiety would disappear, but it hadn't. It had only increased by the amount of attention we'd gotten; it made me realize everyone would judge us, form an opinion about us, about me. Thoughts like that had embedded themselves in the back of my head; they kept whispering, and I wasn't able to silence them unless I took something like ketamine. Alcohol would do the trick too, but I'd need a lot more of that and the feeling it gave me wasn't as great as ketamine did.

So here I found myself, snorting another line of ketamine once again before doing a photoshoot for my clothing brand Drop Dead. Waiting for the high to kick in, which wouldn't take that long, I walked around the dressing room, my fingers running along the fabric of clothes.

'Oliver!'

'What?!' I sighed in annoyance and unlocked the door, looking into the piercing blue eyes of my brother Tom.

'Hurry up!'

'Look, I'm finished!' I made a pirouette and rolled my eyes at him.

'Finally. Took you long enough.' I pushed past him, but he pulled me back by my arm. 'Why are your eyes looking like that?'

'Like what?'

'Like you're high, or something?'

'Would you fuck off and stop pointing out my wrongs?' I pulled my arm away and walked to the set, where a few other models were waiting to start.

The photographer Tom had hired was unpacking her things, setting up the lighting and the camera stand. I leaned against the wall with my arms crossed, enjoying the rush the ketamine ran through my body.

'Hi Oli,' a sweet voice said. I looked next to me and smiled when I saw a brunette standing next to me.

'Ey Am,' I answered. Amanda had been modelling for Drop Dead a few times before, and she had been quite an easy hook up. I bet tonight wouldn't be any different. I didn't necessarily care for her, but if I could do her and feel nothing for a while, I'd chose her over being alone and feeling miserable.

'You ready for today? You look like you are,' she smirked, staring intensely into my most likely dilated pupils. I nodded and looked back towards the set. The young woman who would take today's pictures was done setting up, and she looked around until she found Tom, who started an animated conversation with her.

There was something about her that drew me towards her; maybe it was her fiery, auburn brown hair, which was pulled back into a messy ponytail, or her fierce grey eyes that stood out against the porcelain skin of her freckled cheekbones and nose. I had a feeling that I had seen her before, but I couldn't place her, so I shook my head and tried to listen to Amanda asking me if I had any plans for tonight.

'I don't know yet,' I answered, not taking my eyes off the girl a few meters away.

'Do you want to -' I held up my hand to silence Amanda as Tom motioned me to come over.