Drop (31 page)

He’s wide-eyed, wallet between his teeth, attempting to carry two beer bottles in each hand.

He acknowledges me with a nod and strides over, on a mission. Greg gives Georgia two bottles and takes the wallet from his mouth.

“Hey, baby.” She greets him with a big lip smacker.

“Queue’s fucking ridiculous. Got two beers each for us, but here you go.” He hands me a bottle. “Thought you weren’t coming.”

“Changed my mind. Where’s Slinky?” I ask.

“Dancing like a nutter. Some dude gave him something. ABCs or JCBs?”

“B2Ms?” I ask.

“Yeah, that’s it. Fuck knows what they are but he’s off his head and he only did half. Hope he doesn’t do a Leah Betts.”

“She drank too much water. It wasn’t the E,” Georgia interjects. “I’ve got some if you want – B2Ms.”

Greg gulps from his bottle. “Not sure I want to do something I know nothing about,” he says. “Could be bloody rat poison.”

“The dealer wouldn’t get many return customers if it was dodgy,” Georgia says.

“True.” He shrugs. “Carla, you want?”

“No, not doing it any more. Have you seen Isaac?”

“Not since this afternoon on the beach.”

“Maybe I’ll do a recce. Back in a minute,” I say.

On the dance floor Finn is snogging Violet. It was going to happen sometime and although it makes my heart ache, it’s not jealousy, it’s over what we could have been. If he’d told the truth. If he’d been real. But it was all my own fantasy.

Violet breaks away from Finn and strides over, an expert stilt-walker on six-inch heels. I just know she’s coming to rub it in.

“I told you Finn and I were solid.”

“Whatever. Fine. I concede. Lucky you.”

“Look, let’s not argue. I actually… I wanted to apologize for, you know, being a bitch before. I was out of order,” Violet says.

“You’re apologizing to me? You must’ve had a skinful.”

“Take it or leave it, I’m offering an olive branch here.” She flicks her hair. “Let me buy you a drink.”

“Um, thanks, I guess.”

I’m wary of this new Violet, but perhaps now she’s snagged her man she’s got no reason to be pissed at me. And I could do with an easy life next year at school, so I let her do what she’s got to do. At the bar she gets me a beer.

“No hard feelings, OK?” she says.

“Sure. Thanks.”

“Cheers!” she says, and we clink bottles and drink.

I don’t mean them to, but my eyes wander the room, the sea of people, searching for a lifeboat. I don’t want to be left alone with Violet, even if she has turned a leaf.

“Do you want to come dance?” she asks. With her and Finn?
Is she totally mental?

I can hardly say no since I’m Billy No Mates… But luck shines upon me and Georgia sidles up, and let me tell you, I’ve never been happier to see anyone in my life,
ever
.

“Hey. Eyeliner emergency. Need your expert drawing arm,” she says.

“OK.”

I follow Georgia to the toilets, where Greg’s waiting.

“Your eyes look fine,” I say.

“I know. Cheeky line time,” she says.

I definitely
won’t
be partaking though.

We pile into the cubicle, Georgia and Greg making more noise trying to shush each other than we would if we were carrying on a normal conversation. Boundaries, limits, the concept of volume, time and morality all disappear when you’re wasted. So, loud as you like, we’re bashing about in the cubicle like marbles in a pinball machine.

“Oi!” booms a voice. A fist thumps, rattling the door hinges. “Oi! One at a time.”

Bash, bash, bash…

“Shit.” Greg frantically tries to push the powder back into the baggie with his bank card. “Shh
iiii
t!”

Another aggressive shout resonates. “Open up. Now.”

Bash, bash, bash…

Georgia and I exchange petrified glances, then hear laughter.

“It’s only me, numbnuts. Open the door,” the voice says.

“It’s Slinky. Fucking hell.” Georgia unbolts the door and lets him squash in, compressing us to sardines.

“Fuck’s sake, Slinky,” Greg says. “You scared the life out of me. What if I’d flushed the lot?”

“Ssshhhh! Someone will hear,” Georgia and I warn in unison.

“You having a good night?” Greg asks Slinky.

“Fan-bloody-tastic. I dropped half a pill and I’m bouncing off the walls. You all look like angels. You girls are utterly, totally, completely one-hundred-per-cent
gorgeous
. Have I told you that before?”

“Good work, Slink,” Greg says. “What about me?” he jokes.

“You, son, are a prince among men. The best of men.”

“Was it a pill you had, or magic beans?”

“Who the hell cares? I’m high as a kite.”

Greg’s licking the coke from the edge of his bank card. He turns to me.

“Are you medicine or medic-out?” he asks.

“Out.”

“Ooh, laa-de-dah. Miss Sensible.”

“That’s me.”

Back on the dance floor, I feel a sudden rush, a jolt like a stalling car.
Vrrooom. Thud. Restart.
Cruise along at a new fast pace, straight down the motorway approaching ninety, rapidly gaining speed.

“Whoa. Something’s wrong,” I say, gripping Georgia’s arm. Everything’s spinning. Chemicals go BOOM ALERT AWAKE in my body, my brain, my jaw.
But I haven’t done any drugs.

I start to shake. My heart thuds in my ears, Grand National gallop.

“I need to get out of here,” I say, tugging on a tassel of Georgia’s oh-so-vintage Twenties red-fringed flapper dress.

“She OK?” Greg asks.

“Not sure. I’ll take her outside. Find Isaac.”

Leaving Greg and Slinky to swim in the sea of wreckheads, we go to the smoking area. Georgia kicks the fag butts aside and we sit on the ground, backs against the wall, careful to avoid patches of sticky spilled beer. Georgia lights a Marlboro, staining the butt with her ra-ra rouge lipstick. Even though I’ve quit, the urge to smoke is overwhelming, so I ask Georgia for one. Hands trembling, I try to light it but I keep missing. She does it for me.

I taste the tinniness of blood on my tongue, mingling with smoke and beer
. I’m grinding my teeth …
biting the inside of my cheeks, shredding my lip
. Stop it. Please stop it.
Sick and panic rise.

“You don’t look so hot. What have you taken?” asks Georgia.

“Nothing. I haven’t done any.”

“Mate, you’re chewing your face off. You must have dropped something.” A burly bouncer heads our way, ready to cattle-prod us inside, or worse, kick us out. “Better go back.”

Stumbling back in, the people around and in front of me seem to move in slow motion. I see a boy moving faster than everyone, a blur sliding past. He slows from a wave of colour and solidifies in to a recognizable human shape.

“Carla?” Isaac says, pulling me to the edge of the corridor and whipping me around to face him, his hands gripping my shoulders. “You all right?” he asks, his eyes two dark bullets fired from a double-barrelled stare.

“She’s wrecked, mate.” Georgia pats Isaac on the arm and heads back in. “Stay with her. I’ll get some water.”

“I’ll take her to the toilets,” Isaac says.

In the cubicle, he fiddles with my belt loop, twisting it around his fingers. I grab him by the waist. His eyes gleam in the bright artificial light. Isaac looks at me, confused, and shakes his head.

“You took something,” he says. “Your pupils are massive.”

“I didn’t, I swear. I don’t know what’s happening.”

What the fuck is happeningwhatthefuckishappeninginging…

“I was right from the start. Finn’s still managed to mess you up. God! I would’ve taken care of you.” In that moment I see him give up on me. My stomach freefalls. Isaac slams his fist on the door, angry like he was with Finn at the start of Georgia’s birthday party. Fuming like he was at school.

“I swear … I don’t … can’t…” It’s difficult to concentrate. My thoughts are disjointed, angular. I don’t know how else to describe it. In my head I see adrenalin release, like an explanatory film on a biology programme, like the “here comes the science” bit on a shampoo ad, or the close-up of a bullet-into-brain on
CSI
. In my body I feel the rushes. Fight or flight.

He stares at me, eyebrows raised and patronizing, his tongue shooting daggers. I don’t dodge them, I swallow them like a circus performer.
I don’t want to fight.

“What have you done?” he asks.

“Nothing! You said you wouldn’t leave me!”

“The car broke down. You were
with me
. I had to get it fixed.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Took longer than I thought. I texted you to say I was late… Probably no signal in here.” He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Rubs his forehead. “I leave you with them for five minutes and you go and do this. You promised you were off it. You lied to me. You’re just as bad as Finn. You two deserve each other.”

Isaac’s face screws up and I can see hurt in his eyes and I want to cry out that he’s the one I want and that I didn’t touch any drugs but I can’t get my mouth to move because I feel so wrecked and sick and confused and I snap into another personality, into the girl I wanted to be way back when I started at Thorncroft. I can’t help it.
The drugs are taking over
. They’re running the show now, whether I like it or not.

“Come on, let’s go. You’re wasted. You must’ve been dropping pills like the fucking cookie monster.”

“I’m a monster, raaa! Raaa! You know what? I’m a fucking tiger! I’m a tiger! I’m Finn’s tiger. Raaa!”

“I’m taking you home.”

“No!” I scream. “Not with you!” My face contorts. I throw my bottle to the wall. It smashes. Beer glugs onto the floor. I wish it were me crashing against that concrete and my head shattering into a million little pieces.

“I can’t deal with this.” Isaac waves me away. “You totally lied to me,” he says, his temper well and truly frayed.

I slide down the wall, to the gross, tacky floor of the cubicle, my head in my hands. He steps over my legs, unbolts the door and leaves.

“Sort it out, Carla!” he spits, and lets the door slam back on its hinges.

* * *

I seal myself in, unzip my bag and take out my eyeliner.

On the cubicle wall I draw pictures of Finn, Isaac’s face, Greg’s hand – all those contours lit up like a map and the
X
– the pill on it, waiting for me to find it and change into the confident girl.

I try to tidy myself up. I wipe the black from around my eyes and try to smile into my compact mirror, but I look like a china doll, pale, dead. My face, a moment of
déjà vu
that I’m familiar with, fades to non-existence in the same instance.
Who are you?

I recognize hints of emotions, flickers of smiles, remnants of lust and anger and joy and excitement, but they vanish, evaporating like water in heat. I try and draw it on the wall. I sketch outlines of my features, unable to fill them in.

I’ve caught myself drawing on the wall with crayons…

I pack up and swim through the crowds towards the exit. It’s getting light. I exit the sweaty box without saying goodbye, just leave through the mouth of the crocodile and walk to the pier. I sit, hugging my knees for warmth.
What’s happened to me?

I let my legs swing to and fro over the edge.

I take my results letter from my back pocket.

Now seems as good a time as any. I rip open the envelope and unfold the paper. It’s hard to focus my eyes on the jumble of letters and numbers, but I manage it with great effort.

“Fuck me, it’s cold.”

Finn looks at his watch, then pulls the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands, clasping them in place with his thumbs, forming fists. The birds tell us it’s morning. Daylight is beginning to draw the shapes of the big wheel, the rollercoaster, the carousel. The water is shaded in, waves edged with silver highlights. The roads are pencilled in, rough lines sketched by the dusky light. The street begins to animate again.

“You OK?”

He waves, his hands like dancing puppets against a backdrop of painted sky. The sunrise is a wash of inky colour, intensifying rapidly with the haste of day, but gunmetal clouds are gathering.

“Hello? Carla?”

Finn unwraps his fingers and knots them with mine. “You’re freezing.”

“It was her. She spiked me.”

He sits down on the bridge, his legs dangling over the edge. He’s smoking. A silhouetted chimney. He leans in and I feel a cold shiver as his breath tickles my ear.

“You’ll never be able to prove it.”

“Time to let go,” I whisper. I close my eyes. When I open them again, he’s gone. Back to the party.

Adjusting my chemically widened pupils to the daylight I wonder if my mind’s been playing tricks. Have I made the last year up? Have I been playing games with myself because I’ve been so mind-fuckingly desperate to be noticed … so desperate for love? Was my Brainy Plain Girl invisibility
so
painful that this,
this
semi-crazed confusion was better?