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It was late into the morning as unwelcomingly bright and artificial lights assaulted his eyes and Logan awoke with the taste of stale vomit still lingering in his mouth. His head pounded, his stomach was empty and twisting itself into knots. He groaned and pulled himself up into a sitting position and through half-opened eyes looked around. He was in a vaguely familiar place, one that smelled like piss, vomit, and of men in desperate need of a shower. How exactly he’d ended up in the drunk tank was a void that alcohol had carved from his memory. He laced his fingers together behind his head and used his forearms to cover his ears as someone nearby sang loudly, and off-key, an obnoxious song. 

For most people waking up in a human cage without any recollection of how they ended up there would be concerning. Not for Logan. For him blacking out meant that when, and wherever, he passed out he would get to sleep without dreams. Or he wouldn’t remember those dreams which was pretty much the same thing to him. That easily made it worth the early morning confusion and splitting headaches the next day. He’d just gotten back into town the day before, and he was already sitting on the world’s most uncomfortable excuse for a bed because the thought of spending an entire summer back in Edenridge was more than enough to make him want to drink his memory away. 

It would be a lie to say Logan was in any way glad to be home. Edenridge, when it wasn’t busy being an absolute magnet for every goddamn tragedy one could imagine, was absolutely fucking boring. Living here was like being in that cartoon about the dog that lived in the middle of nowhere, except instead of weird shit, it was endless grim melodrama. In Logan’s opinion, anyone who chose to live here had to be out of their mind. But after a year of aimless partying at university and barely managing to not fail most of his classes, he had to fix something. Leaving hadn’t made a difference, only made sense to try the opposite now. So that was the plan; spend one miserable summer in a place so obviously cursed and figure his shit out. Then leave it all behind forever without the need to keep looking back. Spending a chunk of his day in the drunk tank wasn’t exactly a step in the right direction but only an absolute masochist would want to experience Edenridge fully sober. 

Eventually, he was released, handed back the handful of items he’d come in with, and only given a warning about the whole underage public intoxication issue. Surviving a high school massacre had very few perks but generally, people cut you more slack, and Logan was more than willing to exploit that. He slipped his cell phone, car keys, cigarettes, wallet, and an old worn zippo all back into his pockets and staggered out back into the outside world. 

The summer sun was an even more unbearable harsh assault against his eyes but his sunglasses were in his jeep that still sat in a small lot by a local bar. It wasn’t a very long walk so he lit up a cigarette and headed that way. Logan took long indulgent drags from the cigarette, which helped with the foul taste in his mouth, but only further aggravated his bone-dry throat. So, on his way back to the bar he stopped at one of those always opened corner stores and flicked the rest of the cigarette into the street before heading inside. He wandered around through the aisles, grabbing a bottle of aspirin, one of those small travel-sized mouthwashes, and an overpriced bottle of water promising electrolytes. With the knowledge that the best cure for a hangover, other than a morning joint, was a bit of the hair of the dog he also picked up a six-pack of the first beer that grabbed his attention and headed to an open register. 

He set his stuff down at the register and looked up at the cashier. It took a minute but he recognized the guy, someone he’d gone to high school with, he was pretty sure they had graduated together. He tilted his head and offered a half-hearted smile. [i]Shit.[/i] He thought. It wasn’t like he wasn’t expecting to run into people he went to school with, but when buying beer with a fake ID it did make things a bit more obvious. Of course, his ID was a pretty good one, worked just fine in most places, where the person checking it didn’t know him. Well, now it would just look weird if he grabbed his stuff back up and went to a different register. 

[color=59B9C1]“Hey it’s uh, Owen right? How ya been?”[/color] He glanced around at the cigarettes behind the counter and then back at Orren who he thought was called Owen. He hadn’t known Orren very well, but it wasn’t a huge stretch to say he looked rough; like one of those anti-heroin posters kind of rough. Then again, here he was wearing yesterday’s clothes and smelling like last night’s bender, so not like he could judge. 

[color=59B9C1]“Gimme a pack of camel lights too.”[/color]