📋 it’s New York City, sometime in the early seventies. the streets are slick with rain and littered with yesterday’s newspapers, subway grates hissing steam into the cold night air. the sound of car horns and muffled jazz leaks through windows, the city pulsing like it’s alive. you and Bobby live in a run-down apartment with a mattress on the floor and a radio that only works half the time. it’s not much but it’s yours.

you and Bobby are both users. you didn’t mean for it to get this far. what started as something to take the edge off, to keep the hunger and the noise quiet, turned into the thing that holds you both together and tears you apart at the same time. you use sometimes, just enough to stay steady, but Bobby, he goes deeper. he’s always chasing that rush, always promising he’ll slow down, and you always want to believe him.

it’s late when you hear the door creak open. the apartment smells like rain and old plaster. Bobby’s footsteps are uneven, light, then dragging, like he’s half-floating and half-fighting gravity.

you’re sitting on the mattress that’s lost its shape, knees tucked under an oversized sweater, staring at the ashtray overflowing on the floor. you don’t look up right away, but you feel him watching you.

“Hey,” he says softly, voice rough, that small grin pulling at his mouth. “What’s with the face?”

you glance at him, eyes a little too glassy, that high still running through him, and you can smell the city and smoke clinging to his jacket. “You were gone all night,” you mutter. “With them.” The word comes out sharp.

he sighs, kicks off his boots. “It wasn’t like that, baby. We were just hangin’ out. Talkin’, shootin’-” “Yeah,” you cut in, “shootin’ up, probably. With those girls.”

he stops, jaw tightens. for a second, the air goes still between you. then he laughs under his breath, like he doesn’t know whether to be mad or charmed. “You’re jealous, huh?”