By Tommy Kennedy IV
I wonder why my mother named me Elusive as I trudge through London’s rain, the city choking on its own filth. The pavements, slick with piss and petrol, shimmer under flickering neon. The air reeks of cheap kebabs and bad decisions. I slip down a basement stairwell off Greek Street, where a club thumps with basslines that could rupture my skull. I stub out my spliff before stepping inside. Why are all these pricks vaping? You’d never catch James Dean or Humphrey Bogart sucking on those sad little sticks. Wankers, every one of them.
I weave through the crowd, twitchy, wired like I’m headed for the gallows. My T-shirt sticks to my skin, soaked with sweat, my eyes darting like I owe everyone cash. Smack still hums in my veins, but it’s fading fast—the itch is crawling back. I need to score soon. What the fuck am I doing here? Something pulls me forward, blind to whatever fate’s waiting. Someone more fucked up than anyone I’ve met.
The DJ drops Alison Limerick’s "Where Love Lives"—a quick hit of euphoria, laced with grief. Across the room, I spot her.
She’s Miss Evasive. Half in the light, half in the void. Mascara streaks her face; blood stains her thumb for reasons I can’t guess. Jack Daniel’s sits in her glass, screaming for a refill. Coke still fizzes behind her teeth. Her jaw ticks. She’s hunting for a thrill—something weird, the stranger the better. She lives for this chaos, just like me.
Our eyes lock.
Boom. Right there.
“Where Love Lives”—the vocal hits like a kick to the nuts.
For a split second, it’s real.
I push through. I’m fucked, she’s fucked, but something in me knows she’s my kind of mess.
“You look like trouble,” I croak, voice like gravel.
She smirks, lip cracked. “And you look like a knob who’s pissed away everything but still thinks the world owes him something.”
We laugh—if you can call it that. A sound choked with venom and suspicion.
“Running from something?” I ask.
“I don’t run. I dance with demons in trainers,” she fires back. “You?”
I nod. “Mine don’t dance. They slink into the corners of my head and stay.”
“I’ve got a degree in psychology,” I say.
She doesn’t bat an eye.
“Which fucking printer churned that out?” she snaps, sarcasm dripping.
Cheeky bitch, I think, but keep my mouth shut.
Her nicotine-stained fingers slip into my coat, like she’s checking if my heart’s still ticking. It is. Just.
“Ever feel like you’re chasing something you’ve already lost?” she asks.
I stare, pupils pinned. “Yeah. Every fucking day.”
No kiss. No names. No promises. Just two misfits on the same broken wavelength—something raw under the bravado.
“We should fuck off out of here,” she says.
I shrug. “Where to?”
She licks the Jack Daniel’s off the roof of her mouth. “Somewhere we can get properly fucked.”
Heatstroke Saints
Three months later, we crash-land in Delhi, trembling, sweating, and smashed with drugs.
I puke through customs. She chain-smokes, eyes wild and wide. India smacks us like a baseball bat—horns, heat, humanity piling on. We don’t give a toss. We need gear.
We score brown from a guy with a hollowed-out Kama Sutra, driving a rickshaw, fleecing foreign junkies like us. We chase the dragon in a squat with rats for mates. Outside, the world spins. Inside, we dissolve into nothing.
No temples. No spiritual bullshit. Just dirt and dope. Jaipur. Pushkar. Goa. We drift, fuck, fight, and shoot up—each hit harder, riskier. I collapse in a hotel toilet. She slaps me back to life, yelling:
“Don’t you fucking dare die, you stupid bastard!”
We hit Thailand. Bangkok cooks us alive. We crash above a go-go bar, lights flickering, fan rattling, mosquitoes everywhere. We chew Yaba. It fucks our sleep. She stares at the ceiling for two days. I punch a mirror, sure it’s mocking me.
Nathon. A brief pause. Quieter. Slower. She’s greyer than ash. We barely talk now—words aren’t needed. Pain does the talking.
“Is this it?” I ask one night.
She nods. “Yeah. We missed the good part ages ago.”
Last Light
We sit by a muddy river. Maybe the Mekong. Maybe hell’s edge. We don’t know. The last bag sits between us. One last needle.
She loads it. I grab her wrist.
“Together,” I say.
She smirks. “Always.”
We shoot up. For a moment, silence hits. No music. No London. No cash, no change, no nothing.
Just that night in the club—Where Love Lives, ringing between us—and the fire we burned together.
I drop first.
She follows.
The world keeps turning.
Doesn’t miss us.
Doesn’t give a shit.
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