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chapter song eric clapton: cocaine "if you got bad news / you want to kick the blues / cocaine"
1984
El exited the bathroom quickly and looked around at the hallway full of party goers. She felt all eyes on her even though nobody was paying attention to her. Her skin was crawling and she needed to just go somewhere and be alone.
"Hey, are you joining the party?" Vera stopped El.
"H-Hey, no I think I'm gonna," she started pulling at the ends of her hair, "I need to go lay down. I-I don't feel well."
Vera's face dropped. She knew what this was, but for the sake of saving face and avoiding an argument, she let it go. As far as she knew, El was still mad it her for what she had said the other day and there was no point in making it worse. El was a grown woman and could do what she wanted and if that meant pissing away four years of sobriety, then so be it. At least, that's what Vera thought.
El finally made it outside and she swore she could hear the sky speaking to her. She was becoming unhinged. She felt good. No. No. She felt bad. She felt-. This was the part of drugs she didn't miss. The paranoia. The hair pulling. The incessant need to keep moving until her legs collapsed. Okay, she thought, this is going to wear off in about 30 minutes and then you can sleep. You've just gotta make it 30 minutes and you're golden.
Just as quickly as El was reminded how much she didn't care for the come up anymore, she was instantly reminded how much she loathed the come down. She couldn't stop crying or shaking. She sat outside of the bus so she didn't disturb Del's hookup and buried her head between her knees and cried out to the empty bus lot. She felt an overwhelming sense of longing and emptiness that she didn't know how to fix or fill and she felt like she was going to die.
The bus door opened and a very pretty girl exited with Del following in pursuit, but Del stopped when she saw El sitting all alone out here crying her heart out.
She turned to her hookup, "You go ahead inside, babe. I've gotta take care of this." She rushed over to El and fell at her side. "El! El, what's going on!?" She pulled El's face up to meet hers and Del grimaced at her blown pupils. "Christ," she sighed.
"Del, I fucked up! I'm so sorry," El cried as she placed her head on Del's chest.
"Shh, shh. Don't apologize. It happens sometimes," she reminded her. "Why don't you tell me what happened?"
"I was just so mad and hurt and," she wiped her eyes as more tears kept pouring, "Cato caught my weak spot and gave me an eight ball. He's been trying to get me down ever since he came back and I can't believe I just let him." She was blubbering like an idiot. "As soon as I snorted it, I knew it was a mistake!"
Del combed her fingers through El's hair. "I just want you to do what's best for you, El. Don't get caught up in all this shit again, please. It was so hard watching you kill yourself the last time, and now I've gotta deal with Ezra almost dropping dead at every turn. I can't lose you both." Del whispered as she kissed her friend's forehead. "Maybe you need a break. If the rest of the tour is anything like tonight was, maybe we should just fucking cancel. Send Ezra to rehab and get all ourselves taken care of. The band cannot go out like this and Ezra cannot let himself die this way. He's a bastard and I hate him, but he's also my brother and I love him. Just like you do." Del explained.
"I just want to go home," El cried.
"What do you want to do when you get home?" Del was looking for any subject to try and ground El's emotions to get her to calm down.
"Nikki wants to buy me a house. Or wants me to buy him a house. Or wants to buy a house together, I'm not really sure," she hiccuped.
"Is that something you want?" Del asked.
"I wanna marry him, but he's gonna be mad at me for this," El was shaking like a leaf in Del's arm.
"No he won't. He can't get mad at you for doing the same thing he's doing," Del reasoned. "C'mon, let's get you inside," she said as she headed to the bus with El hunched over herself.
-
"Hi, I'm Nina Blackwood and this is MTV News. Could this be the end for The Sycophants? Last night, the band was booed off the stage by concert goers in Kentucky after drummer Ezra Everly had some major complications with being able to properly perform the songs. Sister El Everly was the first to walk off the stage in a 'blind rage', sources tell us. There have also been unconfirmed reports that the band has issued the idea of canceling the rest of this tour and calling it quits. Next up, Chrissie Hynde and-,"
Nikki turned down the television in a rush as he reached for the phone. He dialed El's bus number, but nobody answered. He waited a few minutes and dialed again. This time, Del picked up.
"Hello?" She mumbled through a mouth full of food.
"Hey, it's Sixx. What the fuck happened last night?"
"Ugh," she moaned, "you don't even want to know." She threw her applesauce container in the trash. "Do you have any free time soon?"
"Uh, not really. But I think you and I are getting ready to cross paths here in the next week. Why?"
"El needs to see you, like soon." Del told him which worried him a little.
"Is she okay?" He asked.
"Okay, if I tell you this, you have to promise not to rat me out or get mad at her. I'm just concerned about her and you're her boyfriend and the only person she seems to like right now."
"Scout's honor," Nikki replied instantly.
"She relapsed, Sixx." Nikki felt his blood turn cold. She warned him that if she didn't get the fuck out of there with Cato around and the stress of her brother, she would use again. "She threatened to fire Ezra last night and she was so upset and frustrated that she caved as soon as Cato offered her an eight ball."
"I'll kill him," Nikki replied instantly.
"Which one?" Del joked.
"Cato. He has no idea what's coming to him. As for Ezra, he's slowly finishing the job for me. That fucker could rot for all I care. Don't tell El I said that," he said.
"I feel the same way. Ezra used to be so cool. Now he's a dick to everyone and I kind of hate him."
"Yeah," Nikki agreed, "I kinda hate him, too."
Nikki hung up the phone after he and Del worked out a plan for him to see El soon. He wasn't angry with her at all for relapsing. How could he be when he had been shooting up and smoking heroin whenever he could? Maybe, if El confessed to snorting a few lines, he'd tell her about the smack. Actually, he didn't know if he could do that. He didn't want to risk losing the best thing in his life. He didn't want to see the look of disgust on her face when she realized the type of person he really was. Surprise, baby! Everything you've learned about me in the past couple years was a sham! I'm really a self-absorbed, narcissistic asshole who lets drugs ruin anything moderately good in my life! Thanks for being a good lay and letting me crash at your house, though!
No, he couldn't do that to her because he loved her too much. She was already unraveling at the seams and he absolutely did not want her to see that he had already ripped out all of his thread and was trying to piece it back together with one needle at a time.
