18

I want to die.

It’s the only option.

Everything hurts.

My head, my stomach, my arms, my legs, my back.

Even breathing hurts.

 

I dare to open my eyes. This is easier said than done because they’re glued together with a thick layer of gooey sleep and it hurts to even lift my arms off the mattress to wipe them clean. When I finally do I’m surprised to find myself looking at the familiar crack on my bedroom ceiling.

Hang on a second, why am I not at Stella’s?

I tentatively turn my head to the left. The room is empty. The silver dress is hanging neatly over the back of my swivel chair, Stella’s studded shoes tucked beneath it. I pluck up the energy to peek under the duvet. I’m wearing yesterday’s knickers and my ‘It’s All About Mia’ T-shirt.

What am I doing here? I seem to remember lots of noise, maybe even shouting. Did Stella and I argue? Is that why I didn’t stay over?

Too many questions. They make my head ache even more than it already is.

I close my eyes and try to put everything I remember in order. I get as far as the cocktail with gold flakes in it that reminded me of a snow globe I had when I was little. But then what? After that it all goes blank. It’s like that section of the evening has been wiped clean away. The sensation should feel fresh and clean but it feels the opposite – like my brain has been flooded with a thick grey fog.

I can hear people moving about downstairs, the buzz of the kitchen radio, the ‘pop’ of our ancient toaster.

A wave of dread washes over me, pinning me to the mattress. How drunk must I have been not to even remember leaving the bar? A lot drunk, that’s how much.

An image crashes into my brain.

A car.

Yes! I remember being in a car; lying on the back seat and seeing the moon, big and full and yellow, through flickering eyelids.

But whose car?

Mum and Dad’s?

Please God, no. I’ll be grounded for life, especially after what happened on New Year’s Eve. I get a flashback to the dark weeks of January and February, the disapproving looks I got every time I walked into the room, the constant phone calls and texts once I was finally allowed out again. Only this time it would be worse, way worse.

Why can’t I remember? If I had the strength, I’d punch the wall in frustration.

I can hear a distant beeping. My phone. Of course, I should just ring Stella. She was there, she can tell me what happened. Maybe it wasn’t so bad. Maybe I just got a taxi home and crept quietly up to bed. But why would I do that and risk Mum and Dad seeing me drunk when I’d already arranged to stay at Stella’s?

I reach for my mobile phone but it’s not on the bedside table where I usually leave it to charge. Instead, there’s a pint glass of water, two aspirin and a folded-up piece of paper with ‘Mia’ written on it in unfamiliar handwriting. I open it up.

Hey,

Hope you slept OK. I told your parents you didn’t feel well and so came home early this morning from Stella’s.

Sam x

I read the note twice, my useless brain aching with confusion, then prop myself up on one wobbly elbow and down the water and aspirin.

I trace my beeping phone to my handbag on the floor at the end of the bed. It takes me three attempts to reach it. As I flop back on my pillows, a series of pictures explode in my head in quick succession like a film trailer on fast-forward.

A glass smashing.

A security guard standing over me.

Stella crying.

Being carried down a long corridor.

The cold night air hitting my legs.

I try to join the dots but the gaps are just too wide and the dots keep moving.

My phone is almost out of battery. With trembling fingers I plug it in to charge. I have seven missed calls, five voicemails, three texts and ten WhatsApp messages, all from Stella. Without listening to or checking any of them, I call her back.

She answers after one ring.

‘Thank God for that!’ she cries. ‘Why haven’t you been answering your phone? I thought you were dead or something!’

‘Dead?’ My voice is torn to shreds.

‘Yes!’

‘Why would I be dead?’ Ow, ow, ow. Every word makes me feel like my throat is being attacked with industrial-strength sandpaper.

‘Are you actually kidding me, Mia?’

‘No.’

I tell her the dribs and drabs I’ve managed to cling on to.

‘That’s it?’ she says. ‘That’s all you’ve got?’

‘Yeah.’

She sighs heavily.

‘Stells, what happened?’ I repeat, a wave of dread rippling up my body.

‘Where should I start?’ she says, her voice thick with sarcasm.

‘The cocktail,’ I say. ‘The one with the bits of gold in it.’

According to Stella I drank at least five of them (‘like they were Ribena or something’). And that was only the beginning.

‘I kept telling you to slow down,’ Stella says. ‘But you wouldn’t listen. It was like you were on this crazy mission. And that Miles guy didn’t help. He just kept buying you drinks and telling me to stop being a “such a spoilsport”. Then all of a sudden you went completely floppy. It was like your bones were made out of mush, Mia. And I was so bloody scared. It was like New Year’s Eve all over again, but worse because we were all by ourselves and in that massive club so far away from everything. I thought they’d drugged you or something. And I was hitting you round the face and stuff and trying to get you to wake up but you wouldn’t even open your eyes. And then fucking Miles was saying he was going to put you in a taxi.’

My heart starts to beat very fast.

‘I told him that wouldn’t work because you were staying at mine, and he just kept telling me to stop worrying and that we could sort all that out later which I knew was all bullshit because he didn’t even ask for my address.’

‘And?’ I say. ‘Then what?’

I realize I’m whispering.

I realize I’m scared.

And not just because of the trouble I might be in. I’m scared of what I can’t remember, of the memory of Miles’s hands on my body and what might have come next.

‘By this point the woman with the clipboard had appeared and was being all pissy about you being in such a state in her precious club, and Miles was saying he was going to take you home. He picked you up and was heading for the exit, and I was screaming at him and telling the woman to stop him, but by then I was really drunk too and crying and my words were all coming out in a muddle and I wasn’t making any sense and Miles kept talking over me, sounding all sober, and telling her that he had it under control, and she seemed to believe him, that you were with him and it was OK. And shit, Mia, I was so scared he was going to leave there with you and I’d never see you again, but then the clipboard woman was saying she was going to call the police if I didn’t stop making such a fuss, and that must have spooked Miles and Greg because suddenly they just bolted, like one minute they were there and then they weren’t. And that’s when I called Grace.’

‘You did what?’ I cry, finally finding some volume.

‘I had to, Mia! Flux were about to call the police on us!’

‘Jesus, Stella.’

‘Don’t get snarky with me. You’re the one who got so drunk you couldn’t even stand up. What was I supposed to do?’

Silence.

‘Exactly. So anyway, I called Grace but Sam answered instead and said he’d come get us.’

‘Sam?’

I glance at the note. Things are slowly starting to make sense.

‘Yeah. Grace was asleep so he picked up instead and said he’d come get us. He was there in less than twenty minutes, Mia. I swear, he must have driven soooooo fast.’

‘Then what?’

‘Sam wanted to take you to hospital but I literally begged him not to because I knew they’d probably want to ring your mum and dad. He only agreed when you came round and chucked up for about a minute straight.’

I close my eyes.

‘The door people were being all shitty about it, making out they were going to try and bill you for vomming all over their fancy upholstery or some shit like that, and that’s when Sam went mental at them, asking them why they were selling alcohol to sixteen-year-old girls in the first place and demanding to speak to the manager about their admission policies.’

‘Shit.’

‘I know. If he hadn’t been there we’d have been screwed.’

A fresh wave of fear hits me. ‘Does that mean Grace knows?’ I whisper. Because if she does, there’s no way she won’t tell Mum and Dad.

‘I dunno,’ Stella says. ‘Sam didn’t say much in the car.’

There’s a pause.

‘I told you those blokes were bad news,’ she says. ‘I told you, Mia, and you wouldn’t listen. You just kept saying you were having a good time, and the next thing I knew you were a total vegetable.’ She bursts into tears.

I shut my eyes in an attempt to block out the guilt that’s attacking my entire body. Stella may be a drama queen but she only cries when she’s really upset.

‘You’re just so bloody selfish sometimes, Mia,’ she continues, her voice all jerky.

‘I’m sorry. I was drunk. You know what I’m like when I get drunk.’

‘That doesn’t make it OK. That’s not your get-out-of-jail-free card, you know. I was really fucking worried.’

Her crying has been replaced with hiccups. It makes me want to hug her, to put things right somehow.

‘I’m sorry,’ I repeat, meaning it. ‘I didn’t want to worry you, I swear.’

She doesn’t answer, just blows her nose loudly down the line. I chew on my tatty fingernails and wait.

‘How are you feeling anyway?’ she asks finally.

‘Like my head’s been stamped on.’

‘Good,’ she says.

It’s not really very funny, but we laugh anyway. It hurts.

‘He was really angry then?’ I say. ‘Sam?’

‘Yeah. With the Flux people though, not with you. He was really sweet with you.’

A flashback. Sam rubbing my back as I threw up out of the window of his car. ‘There you go, that’s it, get it all out.’

Another. Sam scooping me up like a baby, and carrying me up the stairs, my feet catching on the rungs of the banister.

I peek under the covers again, at my T-shirt and knickers. I vaguely remember holding my arms up over my head like I used to when I was a little kid, and something soft and clean-smelling slipping over my torso. I sniff my T-shirt. It smells of washing powder.

I can hear footsteps on the stairs.

‘Stells, I’ve got to go.’

‘OK. Ring me later?’

‘Will do.’

‘I’m glad you’re OK, Mia.’

‘Me too.’

‘I’m still mad with you.’

‘OK.’

I hang up and pretend to be asleep until the footsteps have passed my door and disappeared into the bathroom.

 

The next time I open my eyes, the light in the room has changed and over an hour has passed. My conversation with Stella feels like it happened in a dream.

Thirsty and desperate for the loo, I force myself to get out of bed. In addition to the series of small smudgy bruises on both legs, there’s a massive monster bruise on my right outer thigh, purple and painful. I poke it with my finger and wince. I pull on an old pair of jogging bottoms I used to wear for PE and dare to venture onto the landing. In the bathroom I pee for ages. According to the chart that has been sellotaped to the tiles for as long as I can remember, I’m firmly in the ‘dehydrated’ range.

Gingerly, I head downstairs in search of water and carbs. Mum is in the kitchen, tapping away at her laptop. I can smell Dad’s famous jerk chicken in the oven. Audrey is at the kitchen table, homework spread out in front of her. Out in the garden, I can see Grace in downward dog position, her belly almost grazing the lawn.

‘You OK, sweetheart?’ Mum asks, confirming my hunch she doesn’t know what happened. ‘Sam said you were feeling poorly.’

My body floods with relief. She doesn’t know!

She places the back of her hand on my forehead. It feels nice to have her attention for once, and for a second I almost wish I had the flu or something for real.

‘You don’t have a temperature,’ she observes.

‘It’s a stomach thing,’ I say quickly, hoping Sam hasn’t been too specific about my symptoms. ‘Maybe a virus.’ I reach for a glass from the cupboard.

‘There’s been a lot of that going around,’ Mum says. ‘Here, you sit down, I’ll do that.’

She takes the glass from my hand and fills it up with water from the filter jug. I don’t protest, sitting down at the table opposite Audrey, who is looking at me oddly, her head tilted to one side.

‘What?’ I ask.

She just shakes her head and returns to her homework. A few minutes later Grace wanders in from the garden, her rolled-up yoga mat tucked under her arm, her cheeks flushed.

‘Gorgeous day,’ she declares, propping the mat up against the side of the fridge and reaching for a banana from the fruit bowl. She notices me at the table, hunched over my water and the dry toast Mum insisted on fixing me when all I really want is a greasy old McDonald’s breakfast. I brace myself for her full repertoire of disapproval; the stare, the raised eyebrow of disappointment, the sad shake of the head, but instead she just smiles and says, ‘How you doing? Sam said you weren’t feeling well.’

‘Oh, a bit better, thanks,’ I stammer.

‘That’s good,’ she says, peeling the skin off her banana and humming.

‘Where is Sam?’ I ask.

‘He’s at work,’ Grace says. ‘Why?’

‘No reason.’

Dad comes in from washing the car, his jeans and T-shirt damp and soapy. ‘I hope Sam doesn’t mind but I gave his a quick going over too,’ he says. ‘Some dirty bugger was sick all down his passenger door last night.’

Mum groans. ‘Some people really are animals, aren’t they?’ she says.

‘Disgusting,’ Grace agrees, pulling a face.

I look down and concentrate really hard on my toast.