CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
BUD LEROY
It’s giving you the warm and fuzzies, isn’t it?
JULIANA THE DEMON HUNTRESS
I feel neither this heat you speak of, nor this strange texture.
Vampire Falls. Season five, episode twelve – “Blood’s Thicker Than Disorder”
I tell you what, if you’re having trouble sleeping, I highly recommend spending a few hours panicking about a cosplay competition, followed by a performance channelled by sheer adrenaline, then getting hammered so your best friend has to carry you fireman’s-lift style up to your room afterwards.
I slept like an Undead Corpser from the moment my head hit the pillow, after the hair-grip removal and micellar-soaked cotton pads and moisturiser, lest my skin not rejuvenate after the heavy make-up, thank you, Roxy.
The bedroom door closes behind Roxy with a soft thud as she returns from breakfast laden with coffee and every pastry she could stuff in her onesie pockets. I close my pen inside my notebook, still tucked up in bed, and beam at her.
“I had the best dream last night,” I say, stretching my limbs out like a Penumbra Hellcat waking up from its death sleep.
“The Damon Van Schwartz appearing in the common room in full Viggo costume one?” she says, popping the coffee on the bedside table.
I nod and she gasps.
“What’s wrong?” I say.
“Your notebook, babe!” She puts her hands to her cheeks. “I haven’t seen you write in it in for ever.”
“I’m not really writing,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Just like, sparking, maybe.”
“Sparking is good. Is it Never Leave?” I look at her, and she takes my non-response as the change of subject request I’d meant it as. “OK, I’ll shut up, but it’s good to see that creased little treasure of your warped imagination again, babe.”
I roll my eyes again, but it does feel good just having it on my lap.
“How you feeling?” she asks.
A hangover looms, but my soul is the most buoyant it’s felt since we arrived here.
“Goood,” I say, wiping a crust of drool from my cheek. She sits on the edge of her bed and sips her coffee, smiling down at me. “Amazing. Knackered.”
“I’m not surprised, babe.” Her eyebrows lift and she nods her head a fraction. Classic Roxy seal of approval. “You were incredible.”
“We were,” I say. “No way I could have pulled any of that off without you.”
“Awesome Team Awesome,” she says.
“Awesome Team Awesome,” I repeat. I cross my legs, thinking about the routine from last night. “Fake McKinley showed up with his sword skills. Wasn’t expecting that.”
“Right?” Roxy lifts an eyebrow and fans herself.
“I asked if he would help because, well, I was desperate, and he agreed, no worries. I showed him my original plan which was just you with the swords. Cool, but probably wouldn’t have stood up to Vivian’s thing.
We talked it through whenever we got a moment, but he made all the other suggestions.
The drums, the water. Even Dorothy and the fire, I mean, what the fuck? ”
“What the fuck indeed.”
“It was all him,” she says, sipping her coffee. “My song suggestion though.”
“Obviously.”
“Obviously,” she repeats.
“Has he done something like this before do you think?”I ask, picking up my coffee.
“Said he did a lot of theatre at college,” she says, “but we had so little time to plan we couldn’t really get into it. He mentioned stage combat though, but then loads of people here have done stage combat.”
“True.”
I think about how naturally he moved around on the stage, and his little pep talk before I went on. There’s no chance I would have gone on without his words pushing me. I pick up my phone.
“I wonder where he’s from. I can’t work out his accent,” I say.
Roxy pulls up Insta, then rolls her eyes.
“We’ve never asked his actual name, have we? That’s so bad,” she says, shaking her head. “We’ll hang with him more.”
I nod and grab a pecan twist from the napkin on the side table, reminding myself to ask him what his real name is.
“Whoa.”
“What?” I ask, looking up from my pecan twist. (OK, lies. The pecan twist is not there. I ate it up in one mouthful.)
“Nothing . . . nothing . . .” she says.
Not remotely convincing that she’s looking at nothing, Roxy’s eyes zigzag across the screen, her thumb moving around like she’s in a texting competition. I open Insta and frown at the little red dots over the heart and the paper aeroplane thing; I never get any notifications or messages on Insta.
“Vivian’s tagged me in a photo?” I say, a feeling of desperation suddenly giving me the urge to pee (my bladder is like the canary of my general wellbeing).
“No, I mean, yes, but not in the way I know your imagination and bladder is leaping to right now.” See. “She’s posted pics from last night.”
Roxy holds up her phone, showing a photo of me from behind, sitting at the drums, lifting my drumsticks high above my head. I’m the focus of the photo, and the droplets of water hanging in the air plus the illuminated phones everyone’s holding up makes me look like I’m headlining a concert.
I blink at the photo then look back at my own phone. They’re great pictures. Amazing, amazing pictures. Each one is taken from backstage: me in position, waiting for the music to start; me slamming my sword down onto the drum; me frozen in the air as I jump off the stage.
“They’re really . . . cool.”
“Right?” says Roxy, putting her coffee down and bringing her legs up behind her on the bed.
I scroll down. Hundreds of people have liked the images, and some have even shared them to their stories. I scroll through the names, my heart fluttering a little, until I get to one sandwiched between a couple of cosplayers I follow.
charlie_lfc
Something inside me feels like its blooming as I press on the name and see a photo of me sitting on the drum stool.
I’m looking over my shoulder and smiling at the judges, but it almost looks like I’m smiling at the camera.
It’s a closer one than the others, framed around me and the drums, but you can still see the lights of everyone’s phones in the background, blurred and twinkling like drunken stars.
I’m glistening with dampness, but, thankfully, my hair and make-up look amazing.
It’s a contender for a new profile pic if ever I saw one.
“You OK, babe?”
“Yeah.” I nod and look up from my phone. Roxy’s smiling at me, watching me like she knows something. I hold up my phone. “Don’t you think this is a cool photo of me? Loads of people have shared it.”
“Loads of people like . . .” She takes my phone and looks down at it. “Charlie Chamberlain?”
I swallow.
“What?” she says, tilting her head.
“Nothing,” I say.
“Vivian’s posted loads of photos from the con,” she says. “She must have done a little Insta admin session last night. She didn’t seem as drunk as us.”
“What do you mean?”
Roxy frowns at me, then nods.
“Sorry, I forgot you weren’t there. I went back down after I’d tucked you in, Sleeping Beauty that you are.”
“You left me here, alone?” I exclaim.
I don’t care that I was alone, it’s just pure FOMO.
“Perfectly secure, babe. You zonked out after I de-hair-gripped you, but I was still pumped, so went back down and found the others in the bar.”
“What others?”
“Fake McKinley, Dorothy,” she says, fiddling with her coffee cup. “A few others.”
“What . . .” I cough, flakes of pecan pastry caught in my throat. I take a sip of coffee and try again. “What others?”
Roxy shrugs.
“Convention people, Eliza, OK?” She blinks at me, then rolls her eyes. “Charlie was there, and Sadie.”
I fold my arms and turn my nose up. My coffee suddenly stinks of betrayal.
“You were hanging with Charlie Chamberlain?”
“Not hanging,” she says. “He needed help with Sadie.”
My cheeks feel very warm, but the mention of Sadie pulls me out of the grey cloud I was in danger of festering in.
“So . . . she loving her first convention?” I say.
“She did not stop talking the entire time I was down there,” Roxy says, shaking her head and smiling. “I know about every exchange she’s had with all the guests through each minute of the day.”
“Aww, I’m so glad she’s enjoying it,” I say.
“Yeah, and she made me promise I’d sing with her at karaoke. I swore you in on a pinkie promise as well, by the way.”
“Cute,” I say, no intention of subjecting that child to my shrieking, but still.
“Guess what her favourite thing has been so far?”
I pull up my legs and eat another pastry. Pain au chocolate; jackpot.
“Um, probably sitting next to Amber Anderson on stage? I know she loves her.” Roxy shakes her head. “What then?”
“It was watching you. Last night. She wouldn’t shut up about it.”
Tears materialise from nowhere and prick my eyes. My emotions must still be very high from my performance.
“Really?” I say.
“She’s already texted her mum requesting drum lessons.” Roxy smiles at me. “She says you’re her hero.”
I blink at Roxy then rest against the headboard, my heart swelling with validation I didn’t even know I needed.