Broken

21.5 Retrospective - The crave

A glimpse to the past
Summer 1994, somewhere in Europe

Francesco had a hard time focussing on the paper sheets in his lap. His hands were shaky. It was already a month since he had left that pub in Paris with Deep Rift, and he had managed to perform quite well on the local festivals in Europe, despite having barely any time to learn their songs.
His new band mates, Alejandro, Nico and Raj had assured him that, at least.

But it was also a month passed, and not even once she had picked up the phone.

Not. Even. Once.
And now someone had picked up, but it was someone else. And they told him that the previous tenant had moved back to America.

He slammed the notebook on the floor.

Alejandro, who had slept so far in the other bed, awoke with a jump.

Francesco bent over, covering his face.

"I need a shot..." he pressed out, muffled.

For about a minute the the air fan's sound was the only noise.

"No you don't", Alejandro replied casually. "Not after almost a year."

Francesco jumped up and was about to snap something mean at him.

"Hey, hey, calm down." Alejandro was fully awake now.

"Try these instead." Alejandro pointed to the drawer on the other side of the room, to a pack of cigarettes.

Francesco hesitated a bit, then got one out, lit it and took a deep breath.

The crave didn't get better, but the act of inhaling the smoke still relaxed him a little.

Ever since Alejandro had caught him talking to a local dealer a week ago, he had watched him carefully. "It's not hard to find a singer while on tour and yours bails on you", he had told him. "But to find a good one, is. I'd like you to stay, so you stay clean, okay?"

And if he was honest, Francesco was grateful for that. He didn't want to go down there.
He was glad he had realized just in time how close he had been to become addicted, and to be able to quit early enough, though some things seemed to still trigger him.

But he knew he wanted so much more than he had had before. And now he had a chance to finally achieve his dreams, and go back home eventually. He had been incredibly lucky.

He wouldn't give up.

"Fuck her", the curse slipped quietly out of his mouth.

"Try fuck someone else instead", Alejandro said, almost asleep already.
Francesco had to chuckle.