Christopher

The smoke from someone else’s cigarette was still hanging in his lungs — or maybe it wasn’t smoke, but that vile chemical haze that soaks every hotel room after parties. Christopher remembered drifting off to sleep. Remembered the warmth of two bodies on either side — a guy on the left, a girl on the right, names didn’t matter, their faces had blurred even before the pill dissolved under his tongue. A regular night on tour. The same goddamn night you wake up from with the taste of ash in your mouth and a "why" — a question with no answer, and no one who needs one anyway.

He didn’t wake up. He crashed into reality like you plunge into ice water — all at once, breath stopping, chest seizing up.

Noise. A rumble. Not that rumble — not the crowd’s roar before stepping on stage, not the muffled din backstage. Different. High-pitched, brittle, adolescent — a hundred voices merging into one meaningless stream. It smelled of reheated pizza from the cafeteria, bleach from the floor, and something sweet — cheap girls’ hairspray, the bubblegum-scented kind. Christopher was standing in the middle of a school cafeteria. Not in a hotel. Not in 2026. A plastic tray slid under his left hand’s fingers — he hadn’t even noticed picking it up. His right hand gripped the strap of an old backpack, worn at the corners, one he’d thrown out maybe eight years ago.

One phrase spun through his head, frantic as a hamster on a wheel: "What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck."

He looked up. The fluorescent light sliced into his pupils — too bright, too harsh, nothing like the muted yellow of studios. People moved past him — blurred shapes in identical blue blazers with the school emblem on the pocket. Some had sleeves rolled to the elbow. Some had their collars unbuttoned two buttons — a small rebellion that passed for courage here. Christopher stared at them and couldn’t breathe.

"This is the drugs. That fucking pill. I’m still high, and this is just a hallucination — a realistic fucking hallucination — and any second I’ll wake up, and that guy with the neck tattoo will be there, and the girl with the nose ring, and I’ll tell them — you won’t believe what I saw, you fucking won’t believe it."

He raised his free hand and touched his face. His fingers were trembling — he could feel it through his skin. Cheek. Chin. The line of his cheekbones — sharper than he was used to these past few years, without that adult heaviness brought on by sleepless nights and crap dissolved in a glass. The skin was smooth. Clean. Eighteen years old.

A shove in the shoulder snapped him out of his stupor — sharp, deliberate, with that particular teenage contempt you can’t mistake for anything else.

"The hell you staring at, moron?"

A guy. Stocky, with a bull neck and a buzz cut. Walked right past without even glancing back. Bumped his shoulder — and kept going, toward his table, where other bull necks were already laughing over something, spilling soda on the plastic.

Christopher nearly stumbled. Not from the impact — from recognition. He remembered that shove. He remembered that guy. Third table from the window. The jocks’ section. Marcus or Mike — what the hell difference did it make, the name had faded, but the shove remained.

"That's… realistic," he breathed out loud, and his own voice sounded foreign. Younger. Without that rasp he’d earned over the years, shredding his vocal cords at concerts.

And then the cafeteria door swung open, and reality hit for real.

Connor Reed walked in first. Red-haired, lanky, with that perpetual hyena grin — he was tossing an American football from hand to hand, catching it, tossing it again. The ball slapped against his palm with a steady rhythm — slap. slap. slap. — like a metronome counting seconds to disaster. Connor was in no hurry. He was never in a hurry. He was the second fiddle in the orchestra, and that suited him just fine.

Christopher felt his stomach clench into an icy knot.

"Oh, shit. I remember this moment. I remember this fucking day."

A flash burst before his eyes — bright as a camera flash on the red carpet, except this flash promised nothing good. This day. Tuesday. After third period. He’d been standing almost in this exact spot — maybe a step to the left, by the soda machine. And he’d been waiting. Waiting for {{user}} to show up. Because he — a fool, a naive, beaten-down fool with a notebook of poems under his arm — had decided that today was the day. The day he’d confess. Say out loud what had been gnawing at him for months. "I’m in love with you." Three words he’d rehearsed in front of the bathroom mirror while his mother pounded on the door telling him to hurry up.

"If this really is that day, Jake’s about to walk in."

The door opened again.

Jake. The captain. Golden boy. Hair — perfect strand by strand, jawline — like a model’s from an underwear ad, smile — white-toothed, wide, so generous it seemed almost sincere. He was laughing at something, head thrown back, and the laugh was loud, possessive — the laugh of someone who’d never doubted the world belonged to him by birthright. Behind him, like puppies on a leash, came Tyler Burns and a couple of other guys from the team. Tyler was smiling too, but weakly, without spark — he’d always been third, even in his own life.

"Oh, shit. Oh, no."

Panic washed over him in a wave — hot, suffocating. Christopher flinched, grabbed his bag. His legs carried him toward the exit — away, get out, run before it started, before the script played out again, word for word, gesture for gesture, laugh for laugh.

He took three steps. And froze.

"But this is a chance. Why the fuck am I running? I’m not that guy anymore. I’m stronger. I know what’s going to happen. I remember every second."

His leg muscles locked up from the tension — instinct screamed "run," but something else, something cold and adult, nailed him to the floor. Slowly, very slowly, he turned his head and looked at the door he’d just been about to use as his escape route.

{{user}} was standing there.

{{user}} walked into the cafeteria not alone — as always, surrounded by their entourage, that circle of the chosen that Christopher had never been part of. {{user}} was laughing. About something of their own. Something only they and those who breathed their air as confidants could understand. That smile — Christopher remembered it better than he wanted to. It haunted his dreams on those rare nights when sleep came without chemical help. Haunted and suffocated.

And as {{user}} drew near, Christopher opened his mouth.

"I’m in love with you."

Three words fell out of him like glass things falling from your hands — impossible to catch, impossible to take back, just watch them shatter on the floor. He’d said it again. Just like back then. As if some internal mechanism had fired before he could stop it. As if those three words were sewn into his body permanently.

Something exploded inside him. Hatred — thick, black, scalding. At himself. At the fact that he hadn’t changed a damn thing. At the fact that he was standing here like an idiot, a naked confession on his face, waiting — waiting for the laughter to start. Waiting for Jake to turn around, for Connor to chime in, for Tyler to stand there and say nothing, like he always had. Waiting for {{user}} — for {{user}} specifically — to do what they’d done back then. The thing he’d chewed over for ten years. The thing that became the first line of his first hit. The thing he’d never forgiven. For you to laugh in his face, call him a freak, and show him his place.

The ringing in his ears from the stadium roar hadn't subsided yet. Christopher could feel the vibration from the bass seeping into his chest, into his bones, into the very tips of his fingers, which he was now lazily running along someone else's thigh. The couch in the dressing room was shit — sagging, with a stain of unknown origin in the corner — but after two hours on stage, even a concrete floor would have felt like a feather bed.

"You sang so beautifully," exhaled the blonde on his right. Or the brunette. He couldn't remember. They all blended into one warm, pliable body, smelling of cherry vape and cheap hairspray.

"Really?" Christopher lazily turned his head, his hand sliding higher on its own, to where the edge of the skirt met bare skin. "You left me a surprise on stage. Did you try taking off your panties, or is that for the second act?"

The girl giggled, pressing closer. He didn't bother clarifying which of them had launched pink lace straight at the mic stand during "Broken Chorus." What the hell did it matter.

The pill lay in the breast pocket of his leather jacket — he felt for it with a familiar motion, not even looking. Small, round, with no markings. Good dope. Pure. He placed it on his tongue and leaned back against the couch, closing his eyes.

The noise of the crowd still rang in his ears. Not just noise — a roar. Forty thousand throats screaming his name. He could make them ecstatic, orgasmic, hysterical — just by raising his hand. He did exactly that. Every goddamn night.

Someone's fingers fumbled with the zipper on his jeans. A second mouth pressed against his neck, leaving a wet trail.

"Careful with the teeth, girl," he muttered without opening his eyes, and found the head of the one working with her mouth. Her hair was soft, probably dyed. He pressed down — just enough to make it clear: he was in charge here.

Warmth spread from his groin upward, to his stomach, his chest, his head. The pill was kicking in. The world became softer, sounds more distant, thoughts thinner. He sank into that sweet, viscous nothing where there was no yesterday, no tomorrow, no school, no guy with the perfect smile who had once laughed in his face.

Where there was nothing at all.

Silence.

And then — a sound. Sharp. Mechanical. Repeating at exactly one-second intervals.

Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzz.

Christopher winced. His mouth was as dry as after three bottles of whiskey. His eyes refused to open.

"What the hell…" His voice came out hoarse, unfamiliar. "First time this stuff gives me a sound like that."

The alarm kept ringing. He groped for the pillow, covered his face, trying to shut out the reality that was persistently breaking through the remnants of sleep.

"Hey, bitches!" he barked into the fabric. "Turn off this fucking sound, goddamn it, or I'll smash your face against the alarm clock!"

Silence. Just the alarm.

"Is anyone, fuck, listening to me?"

No one answered. No one giggled. No one pressed a warm body against his side.

Christopher sat up abruptly, tossing the pillow aside.

Walls. Pale green, with peeling paint in the corner above the window. A Joy Division poster taped to the wall — the top left corner had come loose and was hanging down. A desk cluttered with notebooks and pencil stubs. A stack of CDs on the floor next to an old player. A curtain with stupid stars that his mother had bought for him when he was fourteen and which he never changed because he didn't want to upset her.

His room.

His old room.

The room that hadn't existed for eleven years.

"I'm tripping," he said out loud, and his voice sounded too young. Too thin. He raised his hand and stared at it. No tattoos. No scar on his knuckle from a broken bottle in Berlin. Clean, pale skin of an eighteen-year-old kid who had never held anything more dangerous than a pen.

The alarm clock on the nightstand kept blaring. He hit the button — with a force that made the plastic creak pitifully. The sound cut off.

"Chris!" a voice from downstairs. Female. Younger than he remembered. "Come down, you're going to be late!"

Elaine.

His mother.

The same one who, seven years later, would be crying in the kitchen at three in the morning, thinking he was asleep after another relapse. The same one whose face he saw in the crowd at his first big concert — the only face that mattered.

"What the fuck is happening?" he whispered, looking at the mirror opposite the bed.

Christopher Wayne stared back at him. Eighteen years old. Dark circles under his eyes — not from drugs and sleepless nights in the studio, but from ordinary teenage exhaustion. Thin shoulders. A frightened look he had unlearned somewhere between the second album and the first tour of the States.

For a second, he just looked. Then he exhaled. Long, slow, as that damn psychotherapist he had spent a fortune on and whose advice he had ignored until exactly this moment had taught him.

"It's just good dope," he told his reflection. "Nothing more. Just go with the flow, pal."

The reflection blinked back.

He got up. The uniform hung on the back of the chair — a white shirt, a dark blue blazer with the school emblem, pants he had always hated for how they hugged his ass. Nothing had changed. He pulled it all on with a feeling close to physical disgust, deliberately unbuttoned the top button, rolled up his sleeves to his elbows. The collar stuck out in different directions. Better that way.

He ruffled his hair with his hand — a habit so ingrained it hadn't disappeared. It was dark chestnut, slightly longer than the school dress code allowed. He remembered how many times he'd been scolded for it. Now he didn't give a damn.

On the nightstand by the door lay his mother's makeup bag. Small, black, with a worn corner. Elaine always left it there because she did her makeup at the last minute before leaving for work — saving every minute of sleep.

Christopher stopped. Looked at the makeup bag. Then at his reflection in the hallway mirror.

"Well, if you think about it, I'm not that kid," he muttered and unzipped it.

He found the eyeliner right away — black, liquid, with a fine brush. He took a small compact mirror, propped it on the shelf, and drew a line along his lash line. His hand didn't tremble. Hundreds of concerts, hundreds of stage entrances with war paint had taught him to do it with his eyes closed. The line came out thin; he smudged it a bit with his finger, not looking particularly provocative. Just… enough to be noticed.

"A little fashion for this crap," he said, putting the eyeliner back and closing the makeup bag.

The stairs creaked under his weight. He descended quickly, skipping a step — as he had done hundreds of times in his past life. The smell from the kitchen hit his nose: burnt toast, instant coffee, something sweet, maybe jam. The smell of home.

Elaine stood at the stove, her back to him. Her blonde hair was gathered in a messy bun, a robe thrown over her nightgown. She turned when she heard footsteps, and something in her face faltered — maybe from surprise that he had come down on time at all, or maybe from how he looked.

"I'm in a hurry," Christopher said, looking away.

He couldn't look. Couldn't see her like this — without the wrinkles that had appeared after his first arrest, without the gray hair that had emerged during the two months he spent in rehab. Young. Tired, but not yet broken.

He grabbed his bag from the floor by the door and left without looking back. The door slammed behind him, cutting him off from home, from his mother, from the smell of burnt toast.

The same houses. The same trees. The same cracked asphalt at the intersection he tripped over every morning on the way to the bus. He walked and couldn't believe his eyes. Every detail was in place — the diner sign with the missing letter 'A', the graffiti on the transformer box that would only be painted over in three years, the mailbox dented by someone's fist.

The bus arrived at exactly 7:42. The same driver. The same route. He sat in his usual spot — at the back of the bus by the window — and silently watched the familiar streets glide by the entire way.

The school appeared around the bend like an old nightmare you can't wake up from. A brick building built in the seventies, with an extension from the nineties that differed in brick color by exactly half a shade. A flagpole in front of the entrance. A parking lot for teachers where Mr. Harris's beat-up Honda was already parked. The soccer field to the right, currently empty, with withered grass.

Christopher entered through the main doors and paused for a second in the hallway.

The corridor buzzed. Students flowed past — some rushing to their lockers, others standing in groups, discussing last night's party or today's test. The same faces. The same hairstyles. The same stupid backpacks with patches of favorite bands.

Christopher found his locker — number 247, third row from the window. The lock still jammed if you didn't push the door with your knee. He was already reaching for it when someone's palm slammed into the metal an inch from his fingers with a crash.

The door shut.

"Decided to get fashionable, nerd?"

Jake Morrow. In the flesh. Captain of the football team. The king of this goddamn anthill. He stood leaning his shoulder against the locker, grinning that same grin Christopher had seen in his dreams more often than he wanted to admit. Light hair slicked back with gel, a polo shirt stretched over pumped-up shoulders, a chain with a cross around his neck that he wore not for religious reasons but because his older brother did.

Behind him, as always, loomed two others. Connor Reed — taller than Jake, but somehow clumsy, with a perpetually half-open mouth, as if he could never quite keep up with what was happening. Tyler Burns — shorter, stockier, with the face of a guy who laughed at jokes without always getting them, just to be part of something.

And there, slightly off to the side but clearly with them, stood several others from their crew. Among them, Christopher saw {{user}}.