I can’t though. Nothing is normal. Nothing is ever going to be normal again.
I look at the mobile in my hands. Silent. Flaccid. No help is coming. I’m going to have to open this door, go and tell Mum everything. Ruin Dad’s party, ruin Mum’s life. Destroy everything.
I can’t imagine Mum’s face when I tell her. When I start to explain what I’ve done . . . and what I had to do. Why I had to do it.
My mobile flashes up with a message. The response I was desperate for:
What’s going on?
S.O.S
Seconds later, my phone starts to flash with a silent incoming call.
‘What’s happened?’ I thought there’d be comfort in his voice like there had been in Mum’s before, but no. Just hearing his voice makes it real, makes it terrifying.
‘He’s at my flat,’ I whisper. ‘I think I killed him.’
verity
Now
The music is too loud.
Yes, it’s a party, and yes there is a lot of space to fill with people and music, but it’s all relative. They don’t need the music to be this loud. Music is like air, it expands to fill the space it is in. I bet I could write down on one of the glass walls that looks out over the sea a formula that would explain that, that would convince the DJ to please turn this racket down.
Every beat is scraping itself over my raw nerves, each bar is scoring itself into those nerves and every note is drilling down into my mind. They’re playing golden oldies, music from Dad’s youth that we grew up on. I know every word to every Tupac choon, Run DMC can’t get by me without me noticing something new, Public Enemy are old friends of mine. They’re the sounds of my childhood because they were what Dad would listen to around us, but tonight they’re torturing me. Everything is tormenting me because I don’t know what is going on.
He said he’d call me when he’d sorted it, or he’d show up at the party like he was meant to and we’d be able to talk without anyone being suspicious. But it’s been hours and nothing. Maybe Logan wasn’t dead. Maybe he’s at the hospital now, being taken care of and telling the police what happened. What I did. How he came to be hurt. I didn’t know what Howie, my other best friend, was going to do. He’d said he’d sort it for me, and when I’d asked how, he’d said he’d tell me afterwards. ‘He’s probably not dead,’ Howie had whispered. ‘I’ll go make sure. It’ll be all right, Vee, it’ll be fine.’
It is not going to be fine.
‘Drink?’ Zeph asks, stepping in between me and the view of the sea that I have from standing by this pillar. The Sea Maiden, this place Mum’s chosen for Dad’s ‘surprise’ party, is a mass of contradictions. It is right on the seafront, literally step outside the floor-to-ceiling glass doors and you’re on the promenade; a few more steps and you’re on the top of the shingle leading down to the water. It’s a beautiful curved building, 1930s art deco in shape, modernistic glass and white and wood in design, and just completely soulless.
No matter what the incarnation – and it’s been through a few over the years – no one seems to have been able to configure it so the building has warmth, personality or draw to it. Sure, it’s the people who come here that make it ‘happen’ but even these partygoers, gathered together to celebrate one of the best people they know, can’t make it do anything but surface sparkle. The happiness, atmosphere and general good humour exist only in the vacuum that the building creates, they don’t seep into the walls, the windows, the attitude of the staff. When we leave, the good times are going with us.
My best friend since I was five holds out a flute of fizz and I want to snatch it out of her hands and down it in one. I want to climb over the bar, grab all the bottles of all the drinks and down all of them, too. I want to drink myself into oblivion and forget the last year as well as today ever happened. But I have to keep a clear head, I have to act normal.
‘Thanks, Zeph,’ I say and accept the glass.
‘I love your parents, Vee, you know I do. They are the coolest and I’ll fight anyone who tries to chat shit about them, but God can they stop calling me “Zephie”? Even your brother, who loves to wind me up about the way I breathe sometimes, doesn’t call me that any more.’
I laugh. The days of me correcting them about her name are well gone. ‘They can’t help themselves,’ I remind her. ‘You know I’ve told them a million times that you dropped the “i” and “e” but they forget. It’s like they’ve got a blind spot about it.’ I grin at her. This is cool. This is normal. This is what it’s like to be OK with the world and not carrying secrets, not feeling as though your whole life is a lie. ‘Where are your folks?’
‘Mum’s over there somewhere’ – she points behind her to the buffet area – ‘smouldering because I’m drinking and in her mind I’m still six so I shouldn’t be. And Dad’s over there –’ she points in the direction of the dance floor – ‘trying to dance away the fact that they came to pick me up earlier and he saw condoms in the bathroom cupboard.’
‘Oh.’
‘Do you know how well those things were hidden? For exactly this reason. It’s not like I’ve got any use for them so I stashed them really well. The man comes to my house, hunts out my birth control and then starts to have a reaction.’
‘I bet the drive over was fun.’ I shudder at the thought of it. My parents are mostly cool, but that, I could not handle.
‘Super fun,’ she laughs. ‘So much fun I think I’m going to do it again every Saturday night for the foreseeable.’
I laugh again and the anxiety that has been weighing down my chest lightens.
‘Where’s your man?’ Zeph asks. She’s pretending to scan the room, but I can see her eyes, made up in a spectrum of silver colours to match her silver, thigh-length dress and silver platforms, are watching me, ready to detect any lies.
‘Who said I have a man?’ I’d so love to down this drink right now. I know one drink can’t hurt, would probably be good for me and calm me down, but one would lead to another and until I hear, I can’t.
‘The out-of-office you’ve put on our friendship says you’ve got a man,’ she replies.
I lower my glass and turn completely to her. ‘Do you really think I’ve ducked out on our friendship?’ I ask her.
She shrugs in that way that says yes. ‘It’s no more than I deserve, the amount of times I’ve done it to you, but yeah, you’ve not been there.’ She shrugs again. ‘Good for you, I guess.’
My frown deepens. ‘I’m sorry,’ I state.
Zeph shakes her head. ‘Don’t say sorry. My ass needed you to do it. At the very least it’s made me get up and go out there and find more friends; at the very most it’s made me realise all I did was take, take, take.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘It is. I’m not saying I wasn’t there for you, or I don’t love you like the awesome dudette that you are, but yeah, I was selfish in our friendship. I wasn’t always present, supportive, able to put you first.’