Chapter Twenty-One
Prince Arthur
I’m having lunch with a friend I met in rehab at Chiltern Firehouse. Really genuine guy, actually. Five years older than me, in there for alcohol. Got really bad. He almost died.
“So what about you and that girl?” Rhys asks.
I smile. “How’d you know about the girl?”
He laughs, puts his fork down. “All you banged on about when you were in there, mate—go on, how is she?”
“Ah,” I wobble head. “You know…”
“She got a fella now?”
I give him a look.
“Shit that is.” He looks sorry, shrugs. “But what can you do? Is he a nice bloke?”
“He’s alright. Nothing special.”
He’s a total fucking wanker, truth be told but I can’t tell him that. He’ll think I’m right up my own arse prick.
“And, uh, your sister? How’s she?” He looks up at me, arms resting on the table. Choppy waters, our sisters. I don’t know why. But I think it’s why I was so drawn to him in rehab. He got me. Understood.
“She’s alright, yeah. Coming round slowly,” I nod, fake smile. “And yours?”
Not in the public eye, the Rosier’s. They’re rich, sure, but not famous.
They live up in Cheltenham, his sister, Alice is the same age Ev.
First time Rhys and I met was in a group therapy session where our families had written and sent us letters.
We both cried while reading our sisters.
Phoebe never sent me one but then again, I wasn’t expecting that she would.
I mean, what would she even say? There is a point where you get hurt so much that not even words can explain it.
It’s almost invisible, this air of pain and suffering that all you can do is just wallow in it for a bit.
“She still hates me,” Rhys says. “Tried talking to her. But I don't know about you, but for the last year or so, all I’ve been doing is reliving all the shit moments. It’s like, I didn’t remember doing it then but now it’s all coming to the forefront—and I just feel fucking awful.”
“To be honest, mine still hates me, too. She’s barely spoken to me since I came back. I think she just hates how much I hurt her, not me as a person.”
Rhys lifts a shoulder. “But what’s the difference between that? What’s the line? I hurt my sister so much that she probably does just hate me as a person.”
I shake my head, try to tell him that’s not true because I’d hate for that to be true for me as well.
I like to think that Ev’s old enough to see it.
To see that there’s two versions of me. The one she grew up with and the one she watched turn into an addict.
I think Phoebe can see it but then again, it doesn’t matter to her how many versions there are of myself—she’d love them all.
The difficult thing is—and this is what I think Rhys is trying to say—is that when you are an addict to the extent of myself and the guy sitting in front of me were, it becomes you.
It isn’t just a switch you can flick on or off.
It’s who you are when you wake up, when you brush your teeth, when you eat your breakfast, when you leave the house and it’s the you that smiles and talks with friends and has dinner with your family.
It’s the you that goes to bed at night. You don’t wake up a different person.
You wake up the same, as if you weren’t an addict.
I think I can see how hard it would be for someone like Ev to understand that although I am an addict, I’m not the same person anymore.
The version of me sitting here right now, is the me that I was going to turn out to be without drugs.
The drugs were just part of the journey.
Picture it like a boat, you set off and the waters are calm but a few hours later you notice that the sky looks a bit grey and the winds are getting a bit bitter.
And then overtime, the waves really start kicking up and you think you might capsize and everyone on board is trying to hold you back from jumping off because in your mind the only way to salvage this treacherous journey is to jump off.
Everyone’s screaming and crying and no one can really think rationally or make sense of the situation or come up with an idea that’s clever.
It’s the worst fucking time. But then, the sky clears a bit and the waters calm down and then the journey is back to how it was at the start, when you first set off.
Everyone’s calm again. Some people on board have even forgotten about the storm.
And although you might still be thinking about jumping off, you’re not actively trying to and that’s something.
But the thing about the ocean is that it’s unpredictable. Who can say if the waters will or won’t kick up again?
Rhys sighs. “They’ll come around soon enough, I reckon.”
I give a half hearted shrug, about to say something but then my phone rings.
I’ve been expecting a call from George, could’ve picked a better moment, though.
I mutter something to Rhys, he gets up to use the bathroom and I answer the call.
“You alright?” George says.
“I’m out for lunch, can I ring you back?”
He tuts. “Not really, mate. Need you to come down here.”
I frown. “Right now?”
“Ideally, yeah.”
“Can it not wait?”
“Not fucking really,” he says, losing patience with me as if I called him on his time. But I know why he’s calling and I know why he wants me there. This isn’t really an over the phone kind of conversation.
“Right—fine. Give me ten and I’ll be there. House?”
“Yeah.”
And then he ends the phone because I don’t think he’s ever actually said bye before ending a call.
When Rhys comes back, I wrap up our conversation, spin him some yarn about my mum needing me for something.
I get to Stratton House, George meets me at the door.
“So?” I ask him.
He nods his head to the left. “Come with me.”
He takes me down the stairs and into his office which used to be Ronan’s but he’s moved his interest over to the hotel as of late.
The twins are getting the club and he’s getting the hotel—bit of bother coming from the twins over it because Ronan isn’t a direct heir and from what I’ve heard, seems to just go off and do his own thing.
Then again, I don’t know the half of what goes on with the Stratton’s.
George sits behind the desk, runs a hand down his face while I sit on the sofa against the wall.
“Do you not go insane? Working in here?” I nod at the plastered walls and the lack of lighting. It’s like the fucking Paris catacombs down here.
“Right, listen,” he sits up, all business like. “There’s some updates.”
My heart sinks in the way it does whenever you hear bad news.
I nod at him to go on.
“He’s got a sister.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah.”
“Like, an alive one? A dead one? Who is she?”
He rolls his eyes, impatient. “Yeah, she’s fucking alive—that one ain’t dead—” he gives me a look. “And she’s close.”
“Close how?”
“Like, probably outside the building close.”
I swallow through my dry throat. I feel like a puzzle that’s taken weeks to complete and then thrown at the wall.
“And the Tilden’s? Anything on them?”
George shakes his head. “Radio silence. Josie moved to Milan eight months ago, doesn’t speak to Jude from what I know and Jude, well, no one knows, really. Still shooting up, though. Alb found a hospital record from five months ago, he was in a coma from an overdose.”
“Okay.” I nod. A bit unsure of what to do or say.
“But as for the sister, I don’t know what she looks like or how old she is. She’s off grid—just like he was. They’re not like us, from what I’ve gathered. Alb’s doing more digging but in the meantime, you just need to stick with your security.”
I nod again. “And Phoebe?”
“She’s safe,” he rolls his eyes. “Of course, she’s fucking safe.”
I leave it for a few minutes, thinking about it, trying to piece it all together and still coming back to that one moment, that one night, that I had fought tooth and nail to forget about.
I tried to bleed the moment out of me like I did with the drugs but it never left.
It was persistent. It’s clung to me all these years.
Following me around like a ghost and now it’s got me, pinned me down and it won’t let me go until it’s sucked out every bit of life inside of me, making me a twin to its transparent body.
“If it ever comes down to it,” I lock eyes with George, he stares back. “It’s Phoebe over me, alright?”
He says nothing but his jaw twitches.
“If this was Athena—”
“It won’t come to that, Arth.”
“But if it does,” I stress. “It’s Phoebe over me—in whatever circumstance, you save her over me. Every fucking time.”
Again, he remains quiet.
“I don’t ask you for a lot but this is the only thing. Do you hear me, George?”
After a moment, he clears his throat. “I hear you, mate.”
George’s phone rings, he picks it up and nods at me to leave.
When I reach the main floor to the club, I see Phoebe walking in through the door, head down, on her phone.
“Oh,” she looks up. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Yeah,” I shuffle awkwardly. “Just talking with George.”
She puts her phone in her bag, smiles. “Anything of interest?”
I shrug. “Not really?”
She frowns, tilts her head. “You look a bit sad?”
“I’m fine.”
She nods, her eyebrows still knitted together. She knows when I’m sad. She knows when I’m happy. She knows when I’m high. She knows when I’m drunk. She knows when I’m excited—she fucking knows me the same way I know the tendons and veins on the back of my hand.
And I hurt her.
It creeps up, behind my head like a shadow, its hand clamping over my mouth. I hurt her.
I hurt the girl who’s holding my heart in her delicate hands after it jumped out of my chest.
As she goes to walk over to the bar, I quickly grab her wrist.
She whips around, sheepish.
“Do you wanna do something?” I ask, panicking. “Dinner?”
Her smile sticks for a few seconds but then it’s almost as if she’s registered what I’ve offered and it falls.
“I can’t, Arthur. I’m sorry.”
“Why not?”
She says nothing.
“Why do you keep running, Phoebs? Every time I lend you a bit of string you cut it.”
Her perfect pale face cracks, all her pretty features falling to the floor.
“Digby?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“What is it then?” I plead. “Whatever it is, we can fix it.”
“Not this,” she says softly, sniffs. “No one can fix this.”
And then she waggles her wrist free from my hold and walks off.
There’s nothing unfixable, I don’t think, because if there were, it would’ve been me from the ages of thirteen to eighteen.