My eyes were glued to the TV screen but I wasn’t really processing what I was seeing. A while ago, I had turned on a movie on Netflix to watch, but I couldn’t even remember what I had put on. It was like my brain was disconnected from the rest of my body. I was doing things I didn’t really have control over and I couldn’t do other things I really wanted to. My sense of reality was hazy.

And it was for a good reason.

There were three bottles of wine on the coffee table. Two were empty and the other was half empty. One glass had been knocked over, the last bit of wine spilling out, while the other looked like it had been untouched and never had even had anything in it. But we all knew that wasn’t true.

There were tears streaming down my face as I sat up angrily and grabbed a pillow to hug tightly. At that moment, everything just sucked. The Netflix movie sucked, the wine sucked, the pain sucked, my life sucked.

“Charlie,” I managed to choke out between sobs, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he said back and leaned over so he was hugging my legs, his chin on my knees. We were both sprawled out on the couch, no longer having any real personal boundaries.

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing with my life!” I groaned out in frustration and hit my head with the pillow and tears continued to spill.

“Don’t we all?” He sighed and pried the pillow away from me. “Like, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, Carter doesn’t know shit either, maybe John has his life figured out, but I’m pretty sure Taco is just as confused.”

“I’m in pain,” I whined and dropped my legs down so they were parallel to the couch again, causing Charlie to go down with them.

“I would offer more painkillers, but I’m just as responsible as you are right now.” He looked up at me and didn’t even bother to move.

I frowned with a pout before throwing my head back and huffing in frustration. My life obviously didn’t suck as much as I thought it did in my drunken stupor. I mean, Charlie wasn’t any more sober than I was, but now it was my time to complain. First of all, I was on my period. For some reason, I was hit with the terrible cramps this time. Secondly, I was upset that Jack had left again. And thirdly, I hated my own job for rarely letting us see each other. I kept switching between the things when voicing my complaints. It was a jumbled mess, but Charlie was following me just fine.

“I don’t know how much longer I can fucking do this,” I continued to grumble. I was just ready to end it all. No, not end my life, but end all my ‘misery’. Honestly, I would have just picked up my phone and quit the band just so I could get a plane ticket to wherever Jack was, hopped on his dick and gotten myself pregnant. It would have been more than two birds with one stone.

“We need pizza,” Charlie changed the subject, making me completely forget about my stupid elaborate plan. I would never just quit the band, and I especially would never want to get pregnant.

“I agree.” I nodded and started to wipe away my tears.

Rather than using his phone, he sat down on the floor and reached out for my laptop, which was on the coffee table not too far away from the spilled wine. He pushed it open and took some time to focus on the screen before trying to enter my password. Although knowing what it was, it took him a few attempts. The webpage I was on before everything went down was still open. Charlie didn’t just ignore it. He took a good look at it, reading everything.

“Oh my god, Ireland!” He gasped and looked at me with wide eyes, pointing at the email I had gotten from my dad.

“What?” I mumbled and held my head as it kept spinning.

He grabbed my laptop and sat back on the couch, pushing my feet away so I could join him looking at the email. “You have to enter this!”

“Hmm? No.” I shook my head. There was a reason I never replied to the email. “My work’s not good enough.”

“Umm, excuse me, that is the biggest lie I’ve heard. You’re going to fucking enter this and fucking win this shit.” He proceeded to open finder and shove the laptop on my lap. “Where the fuck can we find your photos.”

“I don’t want to enter some stupid contest.” I shoved the laptop from my lap—luckily not off the couch.

“Bitch, this ain’t some stupid contest,” he encouraged and pushed the laptop back on my lap. “If you win, you get to have your own fucking exhibition. If you want to get your photography out there, this is the way to do it.”

“But it’s all shit. There’s a reason I never made it as a photographer.”

“Bullshit. Plus, you’ve been taking a lot of photos on tour, there’s gotta be some juicy shit in there.” He gave me a nudge, making my entire body shake. “What do you have to lose? If you don’t win, you tried. But if you do… imagine that!”

I stared at him as if his facial features would give me a revelation. His words continued to swirl around in my head until they fully made sense. What did I have to lose? There was nothing wrong with trying. How would I ever know if I didn’t try? I knew I wouldn’t let myself live it down.

“You know what, fuck it!” I announced and threw my hands up in the air.

“Yes, girl!” He shouted back with just as much enthusiasm.

I opened all the many folder of photography I had on my laptop. There was more on a hard drive, but I didn’t think of it when drunk. It mainly contained back ups and older photography, so it wasn’t going to my best work either way. We soon decided that we weren’t going to choose any of my basic modelling photography to showcase what I could do. Charlie told me it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t truly me. I was so glad to hear him say those words. In my career, I was always pushed in that direction, but I never loved it. So then my nature and life photos remained. Although they were very different, we decided to make two sets, because why the fuck not. There were definitely some ‘life’ photos I would not have sent in if I were sober. They contained some explicit imagery from other times we had gotten too drunk to function properly. But, hey, we thought they looked good, so they went into the portfolio.

In hindsight, I maybe shouldn’t have let my drunk self select the photos and send the email. But was done was done.

We sent the most magnificent email either of us had ever sent in our lives. Or, at least, that was the way we both felt. The grammar must have been horrible and a shitload of typos must have been made. We were both trying to type, so some of the sentences must have intertwined. But we thought we had nailed that shit.

And just for those few moments, I actually felt happy again. All of my drunk worries were gone. My mind was taken off my pain and I stopped feeling sorry for myself. Just looking through my pictures and choosing them with my best friend was all I needed.

Notes

I forgot I wrote this. I must have written this ages ago.