“So, what do we think?” The arm comes down upon my shoulders again, hot and heavy. “Best woman, eh, Emsie, and me. A fucking usher.”
I step to the side, but there is no escaping him, so I just stiffen and lean as far away from his hot, slurring breath as I can. I try to take a deep breath, to slow my racing heart. Because he’s just drunk. And it’s just Tom. It’s Lucas’s Tom. Present at so many of the birthday get-togethers we’d have as teenagers. Friendly, funny, cheesy Tom. Always too loud, too clumsy after too much to drink. Big, idiot Tom. That’s all. Nothing to panic about.
“I’m—I’m honored,” I say.
“Nah, nah, me too, babes, me too, I swear. I mean, I’d have loved to have been best man, but seriously, you and him…” His heavy eyelids close. “You’re fucking family, you know? The man adores you, and that’s… that’s sayin’ something.”
“And I adore him,” I say, attempting to free myself from him but failing.
“What?” he shouts into my ear.
“I said and I adore him!” I shout, leaning to move away from his hot breath, his arm like a heavy weight, and I can feel I’m starting to sweat, starting to fluster.
“Hard not to,” he says, then he pulls me tighter to him and shouts across the bar, “Eh? Eh, Luke? Ain’t that right, baby? We love you!”
He bellows so loudly that, even over the loud music, people hear, stopping what they’re doing and turn to look at us, at me, stuck to his side, his other arm flung into the air. Our booth sees us too—Lucas, Marie, Eliot, and Ana. Even Lucille and Mr. Aftershave Ad turn. Lucas’s face explodes into a grin and he holds his arm in the air, with his thumb up. “Love ya, Tom!”
And with that, Tom cheers, then squashes his sweaty, stubbly cheek to mine. Breath hot, aftershave-soaked skin pressing into mine. Panic. It rises like water in a hose. I pull away from him.
“Come on, you,” he laughs, oblivious, pulling me clumsily into him again, and I can feel it. Hot, raw panic, the thumping of my heart in my ears, in my throat, hands and feet tingling. I stumble away as he goes to put his arm around me, the way someone might duck at an incoming Frisbee.
“Don’t,” I say, and I can feel them all looking at me, and the music feels too loud, and the air too thick with alcohol and the smell of other people’s bodies. He puts his arm out again, grinning, as if this is all one big game, and as I stride back, he puts his arm out, like a barrier, trapping me between him and the shining, black bar. Then, grinning, he says, “What’re you doing, Emsie? Come here, talk to me. Plus, you know what they say, me the usher, you the—” And before I have even thought about it, my instincts, my fear, my panic, act on my behalf. As he moves toward me, I shove him. I put out two hands, one still holding my lemonade, and shove him hard in his hard, broad chest. He stumbles back, grabbing on to the bar to steady himself but knocks a number of drinks onto the floor with his arm. His hand grips the bar, hairy knuckles white, and two strangers help him stand again. And Tom is livid. His face fallen, eyes as wide as orbs, and his mouth open. He can’t believe it. He is in total shock that I have reacted in this way. I can barely get my breath, my head rushing with blood.
“I’m… I—I told you not to…,” I start, but my voice is lost in the music, and I see then that Eliot is there, looking at me, brow furrowed, standing behind me.
“Emmie?”
“What the fuck was that?” says Tom, and he steps forward. Eliot puts a large hand flat on Tom’s chest.
“Dude,” he says, “let’s just go back to the table, yeah?”
“She fucking hit me, man, did you not see?”
I can’t listen to any more. I can’t bear to stand here, knowing he can see me. That Lucas watched that. That Ana saw. That Eliot and Marie saw. So many people are watching me, so they must have, too, and I cannot bear to turn around and see their faces, so I turn and walk away. I walk at speed, an almost-run, crashing into the one of the double doors that I push to open, but it’s bolted closed, and a woman touches my arm.
“Are you okay?” she asks me, and I ignore her, pulling the heavy door open, tearing outside, and stumbling onto the street.
* * *
Why did he do that? Why didn’t he listen to me? I had to, didn’t I? I had to push him away. I don’t even remember when it was that I lashed out, but it was the arm across the bar. It was the arm, the wristwatch, the not being able to get away, the hot breath, the sweaty skin pressed against mine. It felt like back then, for a second. Like being trapped in that classroom with Robert Morgan, his rough, sweaty hand squeezing my thigh, his fingers grazing the edge of my knickers, his words in my ear. “Come on, Emmeline. You think about this, don’t you? Don’t you? I do.”
“Emmie.”
I jump, look up, my chest rising and falling, my cheeks pounding with heat. Eliot. Eliot and his serious, judgmental face. Eliot, asking Tom to go back to the booth with him, as if I was some wild animal who needed to be restrained. His face. It’s the same face as that night of our nineteenth. He’d told his girlfriend. The girl with the ponytail and the drunken, spiteful smile. Eliot had told her about what happened to me. Everything. And she had let me know. The face he had in the bar—confusion, disappointment, judgment—was the face he wore back then as she told the whole party.
“Emmie, are you all right?” He steps forward now, ducking to look into my eyes, and I step back. “You’re shaking.”
“I’m fine. I know I shouldn’t have—I shouldn’t have pushed him, I know that. But—”
Eliot scoffs. “You should have. I wish I had. The man’s a dick. He was being a heavy-handed, inconsiderate dick.”
I look up at him and I want to cry because someone is being nice to me; is on my side.
“I panicked, Eliot. I know it’s just Tom, and he would never, but I—I just panicked.”
“Yeah well, he was fucking out of order, Emmie. Look, do you want to sit down? You look like you need to.” Eliot looks around quickly, at the length of tables—all full—lined up outside the hotel entrance, hand at his chin, as if working out a conundrum.
“I’m okay. I think I just want to head back.”
Eliot nods, dark brown eyes on mine, the lashes thick and jet black. “Well, Ana and I were thinking of going too, to be honest. I can call us a taxi. You can jump in with us.”
“Yeah, thanks. That’d be good.” I stare past him to the door, willing Tom to stay inside. I don’t want to look at him. Embarrassment surges through my bloodstream. Lucas. I want Lucas. I want to be back at the guest cottage like we used to. Like the night we went to a bar not far from here and sang karaoke—two days after Adam broke up with me. I sang a Bon Jovi ballad that I cried into the microphone. I want to go back and lie beside Lucas and watch quiz shows. The French ones I don’t understand a word of, Lucas translating them, tipsy, working his way through a pile of toast, and laughing every time I answer “Jason Donovan”—our default answer when we don’t know the correct one.
“We can walk, if you like, while we wait. I know with me, sometimes walking can help calm me down, and you must feel—”