// tws: explicit drug use, descriptions of social anxiety, allusions to a shitty childhood

The music reached Rosemary’s bones, thrumming so deep she feared a few molecules of calcium had been vibrated loose. What a joy, to be out of the silent tomb of the ICU ward and into the phantasmic glory of sweaty bodies dancing beneath the summer sky. The outdoor music festival breathed out energy and she drink it in to invigorate her mind.

Her friend plucked the joint out of her hand and took a long hit, winking, then passed the half-finished remains back. One wink later and she disappeared on the arms of two beautiful ladies, and Rosemary couldn’t see her through the crowd. Nor could Rosemary hear her past the bass knocking her head like a bell, but that was alright.

She hadn’t been left alone. She still had her weed, and the drug’d been a more constant presence in her life than any one person. Not even—especially not—her parents, neither her absent father or her unstable mother.

Rosemary exhaled the last of her weed. The roach disintegrated between her fingers, but she was so used to smoking down to the last that her callouses endured the embers without pain. If only she could callous her mind the sam way, teach her anxiety to stop fearing people, but that hope smashed to pieces when a drunken pack of fratboys shoulder-checked her one after the other.

She had been left alone. And she was so scared she thought she might die.