Page 87 of The Ring
I guide Weberly downstairs, weaving through a crowd of people to the table I saw earlier, which is laid out with drugs—it’s almost like a buffet. There’s coke, ecstasy, ketamine, cannabis, and some other substances I don’t recognise. I position myself by the cocaine, release her hand so I can take out my credit card and a £20 note, and start rolling it.
“What are you doing?” Weberly asks me.
“I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.” I begin cutting a line with my credit card, then turn to her. “Do you want one?”
She shakes her head repeatedly. “Let’s… let’s not do this. We can get drunk or… go back to Lucian’s and have sex.”
I would typically accept her offer. She and alcohol have been a good way to forget about Cornelia dating someone else, but forgetting that Corneliaisin love with someone who isn’t me—that won’t cut it. I need something stronger to forget.
“I want to do this,” I tell her firmly.
“I don’t. I don’t like drugs,” Weberly says sharply, and somehow, it feels like her dislike for them is personal, but I don’t really care to ask. “Let’s just get out of here.” She pulls on my arm.
I roughly pull my arm out of her grasp. “If you want to get out of here, then off you go, but I’m not coming with you,” I snap at her.
“Fuck you,” she spits out, then turns around and walks away.
I feel like I should go after her. If she were Cornelia, I would. But she isn’t.
I turn around to look at the line of coke I just cut. I wonder for a second if I should. I haven’t done drugs in a while. The last time… well, I shake my head hard, as if that could make me forget. Not… not that there’s much to remember anyway—just a sickening feeling. Movement. Since then, I haven’t touched any hard drugs in years.
Maybe… I shouldn’t.
But it can’t make the night worse, so fuck it.
I snort the line, then take a pill from the pile of drugs. I don’t know what it is, but I feel like playing Russian roulette tonight.
Chapter 52
Cornelia
After finishing the call with Benedict, I stayed outside a little, but eventually headed back inside. I didn’t see TJ anywhere, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have known what to say or how to act.
A little later, I got a message from Annabelle apologising for being a bitch and saying that if I wanted to have more boyfriends, I should go and get them—of course, she was kidding—and added that West was taking her back to the house, but that I should stay and enjoy the party.
I tried to enjoy the party. I spoke to a few people—one was a friend of my brother’s, which made me glad I wasn’t on anything or extremely drunk, so he couldn’t rat me out, and another was a driver who appeared pretty stoned. I hoped he was the one who’d won, because if he hadn’t, I couldn’t imagine how he partied when he did. But no matter who I talked to, I couldn’t relax. Something feels off.
It is probably me. Lately, everything feels a bit off. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d felt completely like myself. It was probably last September.
I decide it’s time to call it a night. I send a message to The Heptad Society group chat asking if anyone wants a ride, though I’m not exactly expecting a response—at this hour, no one’s checking their phone; they’re either too drunk or already in bed. Still, I wait a few minutes, and when I get no response, I send another text to my driver asking him to pick me up.
I make my way to the floor with the exit that leads to the dock where we boarded the yacht. Dodging people and furniture as I move, I spot TJ sitting, almost lying down, on one of the couches. My stomach drops. He looks completely out of it, his head lolling to one side, and Weberly is nowhere in sight.
As I approach him to figure out what’s going on, I can’t shake the sickening feeling that he’s high. But maybe he isn’t. Maybe he’s just utterly exhausted.
I reach him and give his shin a light kick to get his attention. “Hey, where’s Weberly?”
He glances slightly towards me, but when I try to catch his eye, he looks away.
“I thought you hated her,” he says, though it sounds like he isn’t fully aware of what he’s saying.
I don’t respond.
TJ shrugs. “She left.”
I get closer to him and take his chin with my left hand to make him look at me—really look at me. He doesn’t protest. His pupils are dilated, the greyish-blue of his eye barely visible, and there’s a faint trace of white that clings under his nose. He’s high. High as a kite.
I drop my hand, and his head slumps to the side. “Fuck, TJ,” I mutter.
