Page 40 of What It's Like in Words
Is it…?
She nodded. Dark rum with an MDMA bomb. Do you want to?
DidI want to? I wasn’t working tomorrow and getting high might help me take my mind off him.Fuck it.I took the flask and drank. The rum was sweet, but there was that familiar chemical bitterness. Ruth took my hand and led me back inside.
Ruth came up first. Her eyes became wide and black, and her arms shot above her head. She told me that she loved me. I was so worried about you going to Kenya, you know?
I know.
And you barely messaged when you were there, so I was worried that you were having a bad time. Because I love you so much and you’re my best friend and you deserve to be happy and, like, if he makes you happy then I’m happy for you, you know?
I know.
Butdoeshe make you happy?
I drew back and looked at her face shining under the lights. Sasha played a remix of “Summertime Sadness,” and the beat rose in my chest. Ruth knew that something was wrong, but she would wait for me to come to her like a wounded animal.
Is there any left?
She grinned and handed me the flask. Come on, she said, voice sailing, and she moved my arms to the music. By the time the song changed, tingles were shooting up my limbs, but the high never came. Sasha joined us on the dance floor, and Ruth kissed them on the lips. Your set wasgreat, she said. As we danced, someone touched my waist. A dark-haired man was smiling, shimmering pink on his cheekbones.
I signed to Ruth that I was going to the toilet.
The lock was broken, so I leaned against the door. Toilet paper was strewn on the dirty floor, and there was urine spattered on the seat. Someone was vomiting in the next-door cubicle. I called him again. I didn’t think that he would answer but he did.
Hey, honey.
His voice.
Hi, I said, sinking into the word like it was a pillow. He asked me if I was drunk in a tone that made me feel adorable. I told him that I was dancing with Ruth and teased that we were surrounded by men.
God, yeah, it must be a nightmare going out with Ruth.
And instantly I wasn’t adorable; I was plain and invisible. That was the real reason he was losing interest. He had looked at me under bright beach lighting. He had seen through me like an X-ray.
The door hit my back. One minute!
I asked how he was, and he said that he was fine. I asked him how writing was going, and he answered the same. I asked if his tan had faded, and he said it had. I asked when he was coming back, and he said that he wasn’t sure. He left small beats before each answer, and his cadence was a typewriter’s.
The door hit me again.One minute!
I asked if everything was okay, and he answered this question so quickly that the end was shaved off: What do you mean?
I swallowed, then swallowed again.
Between us?
He said that everything was fine and suggested that we talk tomorrow. I dug my nails into my fingertips. Butwillwe talk tomorrow? He asked what that was supposed to mean, and I said that we had barely spoken. You would tell me if there was something wrong?
There was a pause. I wondered whether he had hung up, but then he said: Honey, I was at dinner when you called yesterday. And this morning I was out, and, look, I’m not going to list my activities for you. Go have a glass of water.
We hung up the phone. Or he did.
On the wall, graffiti from someone else’s bad night read:Bitch, he doesn’t want you.
I took the elastic band from my bag, put it around my wrist, and snapped it twice.
At the sinks, I washed my hands between two women. One, an ice blonde with laminated eyebrows, was telling her drunk friend that she was fighting her fiancé for a videographer. They’re, like, three thousand pounds but totally worth it, she chirped, eyebrows high.
