I know that today is going to have serious consequences, but right now, I don’t give a shit. I want to enjoy this moment for as long as it lasts.
I spin around again. Alistair cheers, also dancing around the room.
“Whisky’s great!” I announce, turning toward him. He raises the bottle to me. I have no idea where his glass has got to.
“You never spoke a truer word,” he agrees. “You’re very wise when you’re drunk, Ruby.”
“Excuse me,” I say. “I’m very wise all the time.”
Alistair grins. “Again, very true.”
I don’t know how it happened, but right now, Alistair seems to be the nicest person in the world. I feel so at one with him. Itfeels as though we have things in common that I was far too blind to notice in a sober state.
“Wren,” I say, pulling my phone out of my blazer pocket. “Take a photo of Alistair and me.”
I hold it out to him. He takes it with a grin.
“Ready?” he asks.
“Hold on,” Alistair calls, flinging his arm around me. The two of us beam into the camera. “Now.”
“One, two…three.”
I pull out of Alistair’s embrace and head over to Wren to look at the photo. It turned out great, although it’s a bit blurry, as we evidently weren’t able to hold still.
I thank Wren, about to slip the phone back into my pocket.
“Erm, you have approximately two hundred messages and missed calls,” he says softly. “Maybe you should take a look at them before people go out of their minds with worry.”
The seriousness in his words gets through to me, booze or no booze, and I pause. Hesitantly, I lift the phone up again. The screen seems blurry, and I have to blink a few times before I can register what it’s showing me: five calls from Ember and Lin, three from Mum and Dad. And a total of seven messages.
“Crap,” I mutter. I’m swaying slightly as I try to jab the first message with my finger to open it.
I heard what happened. Want to talk? Shall I come round?
I gulp hard as I read Lin’s words. I know I ought to answer her, but I can’t right now. This is the first time since the morning that I haven’t felt like bursting into tears on the spot. The alcoholhas helped me repress the terrible day, and if I speak to Lin, she’s going to want to analyze every last detail of it. Same goes for Ember, who has also texted me.
Sorry, I was busy! What happened? And where are you?
I don’t want to tackle the problems that are waiting for me at home. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. And at this moment, I don’t want to know.
I shake my head and slip the phone back into my blazer without reading the rest of the messages. I avoid Wren’s pensive gaze as I throw the blazer down on the sofa. Then I roll up the sleeves of my blouse.
Alistair comes over, takes my hand, and gives me a twirl, as if he’s sensed my change of mood. I can’t help grinning, despite myself. He spins me around again and smiles back at me. He seems to understand exactly what I need right now.Maybe he has his own stuff to repress, I think, as I follow his eyes, which are resting, for the thousandth time this afternoon, on Keshav’s back.
For the first time in ages—or even ever—I let everything go. I shut my eyes and move to the music. I’m not holding on to what happened today, and I’m letting Alistair help me to forget it all. After a while, I’m not even thinking about it—my movements are happening of their own accord. I can faintly hear scraps of conversation between Wren and Keshav in the background, but apart from that there’s only the melody and the feeling of weightlessness.
I don’t know how long Alistair and I dance for. I’ve lost all sense of time—and of how much whisky I’ve drunk.
“Another slug?” Alistair asks, holding up the bottle. I’m about to hold my empty glass out to him when a voice breaks in on us.
“What’s going on here?”
I whirl around. James is standing in the door to Alistair’s room. Wren must have let him in, because a brief moment later, he appears behind him. “It’s nothing to do with me, just so you know,” he murmurs, walking past him to the armchair where he was sitting earlier.
James’s gaze rests on me, and for a heartbeat, we only have eyes for each other. I can see all the emotions on his face.
Guilt. Regret. Anger. Grief. Fear.
