13 #2
“Get off her, man.” Dan finally speaks up, giving me a hug, glaring at his best friend, warning him not to say anymore. “This is different and you know it.”
Richard raises his hands up in surrender, “Now I’m the bad guy because of the truth.”
“It being true doesn’t make it right and I shouldn’t have to accept it just because you say so,” I spit at him. A part of me knows deep down that there is merit to what he is saying but my need to bask in sorrow is more important.
“You may have a point but have you ever considered you aren’t the victim here?
” He continues, “There is a girl who has lived twenty years without a present father and had a shit life.
Yet she isn't the one who has laid herself to waste, drinking herself to oblivion despite life throwing her for a loop.”
I’m not shocked at him bringing up the one person I’ve been trying to avoid thinking about. There have been many times over the last few days where I’d stand outside her bedroom door, hoping she’d let me in or just to listen. But she moves like a mouse so it was to no avail.
“You speak like you know anything about her,” I say, daring him to reveal that he had met her privately once, annoyed at his patronising tone. “She’s my sister. Don’t act like you know better than I do, you do this all the time.”
“Then act like it. Quite frankly, I thought better of you but maybe I was wrong,” he replies, his face blank. Did you know this whole time he did not blink once? I always found it to be a strange habit of his but now I finally understand. To be heartless you have to be inhuman.
The whole room listens to our tirade in silence, I am so consumed by him that for a moment I don’t realise when the door barges wide open. Standing at its center was Scarlett and Harley, both looking at us with contempt.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Here is the woman of the hour now.” A smirking Richard says as he sips on his drink, a glass of white sav blanc. He locks his eyes directly at a fuming Harley.
“I said eleven o’clock,” he says.
He invited her? But why?
My gaze bounces back and forth between them both, watching as the two have a silent conversation.
My confusion deepens. Harley’s the first to break away and she does so to murmur her thanks to Scarlett standing next to her who simply offered a ‘good luck’ before throwing everyone another look of pure disgust and slamming the door shut.
At least it isn’t just me she hates. I smile a little at that, it is a tad bit comforting.
“You're a dickhead, yeno ?” Harley snarls as she enters further into the room, sidestepping me as she goes over to the couch sitting next to a bored Devon.
Richard only shrugs, “This is the third time you've said this. Running out of insults?” The same smirk still plastered on his face.
He tilts his head to the side, almost lazily.
“And, you wouldn't be here if you didn't want to be and you know it.” They are speaking in subliminals that I am desperately trying to decode but can’t.
Harley rolls her eyes in response and finally reverts her attention to the rest of the room. Her eyes stop at me, scanning me with extreme scrutiny. She seems to be searching for gentle words but as eloquently as always lands on, “You look like shit.”
I groan loudly, “That can't be all you have to say to me.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” she replies bluntly without blinking. For someone who hardly knew Arden, the resemblance in their demeanour and speech are eerily alike.
“But-” I start, but she raises her hand to cut me off.
“Do you really want to do this here? Right now?” Her voice is firm. “Clearly, you're in no shape to have any serious conversation. So I'll ask you again, do you want to do this here?”
My shoulders slump in resignation, every part of me knows she is right.
I am two seconds away from throwing up and at the end of the day she doesn’t know any of these people.
She is already so walled up, I can’t imagine her wanting her personal life aired out for all to hear.
God, I am so insensitive. This must be why she hates me.
Dan breaks out his dazzling smile to diffuse the tense room, “Would you like a drink?” he asks Harley, “We have some pink gin, normal gin, baileys…” he rattles off some more options while busying himself behind the bar.
She cuts him off in the middle of his tangent, “I don't drink alcohol.”
The whole room goes silent. Even Devon stops texting. Dan questions with a laugh, “What do you mean?”
Her brows knit, “What do you mean by ‘what do I mean’?”
Realising she was being serious, the smile drops from his face, “You really don't drink? Who the hell doesn't drink?” Dan asks, disbelief written across his face.
“Are you an alcoholic?” MJ asks in the most serious tone, I can’t help but sigh at the ridiculous turn in conversation, my head still pounding a little.
“Just because the rest of you are suffering from alcoholism,” She says drily with a pointed look my way, “does not mean I have to as well, I want water. Or a fucking apple juice with ice I can chew on.”
“So strange,” Dan mutters to himself, as he makes her exactly what she asked for. Honestly he is probably a tiny bit let down that she won’t get to have a taste of his infamous drinks.
No longer the centre of attention in the room, I watch everyone getting to enjoy their night.
The lovebirds are cuddled up together in the same embrace as they were earlier but this time Arden isn’t even looking my way.
Dan has an animated conversation on Liverpool and Arsenal with Devon and Harley but makes sure to pass me water to sober up. My sweet friend.
Feeling severely alone out of nowhere, I stand up abruptly announcing my departure to the loo.
In there I see the truth laid bare on my face.
I really did look like shit: my mascara is smeared, my lipstick smudged and the bags under my eyes are clear as day.
I pinch my eyes together as a wave of exhaustion passes through me, my hands grip the basin just to hold myself upright.
“I figured you’d be hiding in here.”
I flinch in surprise as Richard’s voice fills the room. I ignore the way his presence looms and wash the smudges off my face.
“This is the girls bathroom so unless you suddenly have something to tell us,” I give him a mocking smile, “I suggest you get out.”
He laughs under his breath, “How are you?” he says with concern that wasn’t there before, it makes me want to scream. Can he just make his mind up? Did he hate me or did he not? My brain is not in the right state to figure that out right now.
“What do you want, Richard?” I ask exasperated, as he seems to have no reaction to any of this other than the small twitch in his eyebrow that highlights his irritation.
Suddenly, he rises to his full height and in one full step is standing right in front of me.
“Was the little show you were putting on earlier for me?” He asks so quietly, I almost don’t hear it. He is referring to my slutty performance upstairs in the bar.
“That would require me to even think about you,” I snap, but it comes out weaker than intended.
He is too close, and I can’t think straight.
I trip in my heels and he wraps his hands around my waist to catch me tightly.
He absentmindedly tucks a blonde curl behind my ear as if he’s been doing it forever.
As if we hadn’t spent the better half of a decade avoiding one another.
As if I didn’t spend the first two years he stopped talking to me begging for him to look my way again.
“You and I both know that’s not true,” he mutters. I might have asked if he was drunk, or even out of his mind, but Richard had never once been drunk. There is only the faintest whiff of wine on his breath, he would never allow himself to be so vulnerable. So out of control.
See, that was the thing. I knew Richard Arden Thorne better than I knew myself, like the stars you’ve looked at your whole life: always there, always the same.
So when he lifts my chin and kisses me in one fell swoop, everything I do to talk myself out of this seems to fly out the window.
The only thing I could focus on is his lips on mine, they are so soft.
He tugs on my bottom lip, biting and unforgiving, as he uses this moment to lift me onto the countertop.
My hands grips his hair with such force, my mouth never leaves his like we’d never have another chance to do this again.