Nobody in Particular(83)

Cora holds up her hands. “Hey, it’s one less person for me to worry about. Just don’t let her choke on her vomit.”

Once we’re inside my room, I help Danni out of her jacket, then she collapses on my bed. I gently take her shoes off, and then cover her with the blanket before retrieving a bottle of water for her from my mini-fridge. “Drink as much as you can,” I urge her. “You’ll thank me in the morning.”

She gives it a try, but keeps missing her mouth with the water, which drips right down her neck to pool on the sheets. With a disgusted scoff, she passes the bottle back to me.

I kneel in front of the bed and methodically stroke her hair. I remember the sensation of being far too drunk well; the nausea as the world tips and keeps tipping. The roaring in my ears, and the unquenchable dryness in my mouth.

“Take deep breaths,” I say. “How are you feeling?”

“Ugh.”

I turn off the bedside lamp, plunging us into darkness. Then, I climb onto the bed and lie behind her, our bodies running parallel with only an inch between us.

“You should have come to find me,” I whisper, running my fingers through her soft hair. “Why did you go off alone?”

“I was fine. And I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Danni, I…” I sigh. “You could never bother me. Promise me you’ll always come to me if you need me. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. You know that, right?”

When she replies, it’s surprisingly lucid. “No,” she murmurs. “But that’s okay. It’s enough.”

Frowning, I rub her back in a slow, steady pattern. Her breathing becomes gradually steadier and deeper, until I’m sure she’s asleep.

I’m quite certain, I realize as I look down at her rising and falling shoulders, that I’ve never hated myself as much as I do in this very moment.





THIRTY-FIVE

ROSE




I message Molly when Danni falls asleep. As quietly as I can, so I don’t wake her, I tiptoe out of the room and down the hallway to Molly’s bedroom, where she’s waiting for me.

“It was like that night,” she says as soon as we’re alone.

I nod and sit heavily on the edge of her bed. It’s unmade—I think she might have been trying to sleep when I messaged her. She sits at her desk and draws her knees to her chest.

“I wanted to kill her,” I say, and she doesn’t need me to clarify I mean Harriet.

“You were afraid,” she replies. “I know exactly how that fear feels.”

Only her fear ended in an outcome far worse. Unimaginably worse.

“The thing is…” she says, studying me. “I don’t think you’ve felt anything that strongly in a long time, have you?”

I swallow, and my breath quickens. “Every time I try to think of that night in Amsterdam, I can’t hold on to it,” I say finally. “It’s as though I know on an intellectual level what happened, but I can’t see any of it at will. It comes up in flashes when I don’t want it to, instead.”

“I get those flashes,” Molly says softly. “I’ll be fine, and then something reminds me of it, and it’s like I’m right back there.”

“What’s it like for you?”

She leans back on her elbows and looks at the lamp. “Like falling,” she says, the light reflecting in her eyes. “But I never hit the ground.”

“For me, it’s always been like stepping into an empty elevator shaft, but then the ground reappears beneath me straightaway.”

Molly huffs a breath through her nostrils. A humorless laugh. “But not tonight.”

“No,” I say. “Not tonight.” I lie down, flat on my back. “Molly? Do you think you could talk me through what happened that night? From the beginning?”

She surveys me in surprise. I can imagine why. How many times did she try to recount that night, months ago? How often did I interrupt, or suddenly become extraordinarily busy, or remind her in a terse voice that I was there, and I already knew?

Tonight, though, it feels different. Tonight, instead of the nothingness I’ve grown so used to, I locked eyes with fear. And, for the first time, it found me unflinching.

Although I was raised to believe that unflinching meant to remain stoic in the face of terror and despair, I’m starting to consider that perhaps it’s quite the opposite. To see fear approaching and avert one’s eyes is little more than hiding. To allow pain to engulf you when it arrives—to invite suffering now, rather than delegating it to a future version of yourself to grapple with—and still climb to your feet once the wave has washed past? That is what it truly means not to flinch.

So.

“We were at your lodge,” Molly says. “Florence had gone home early, and Harriet wanted everybody to go to that party your friend was throwing, and so you all had some pre-drinks before we left.”

Closing my eyes, I force myself to picture it.

I remember Oscar. His auburn hair cut a little shorter than he wanted it to be. The top he wore with the Renaissance art print, and the white-gold necklace with the cross on it. I remember him locking eyes with me when everyone was getting ready, and the way he cocked his head in a silent request for me to leave the room with him. And how we’d ended up walking down the street a little so we could be perfectly, completely sure we weren’t overheard.