Chapter Eight
The roof of my mouth is furry, my breath like a badger crawled into it and took a steamy shit in the middle of the night. Jesus. What did I drink? The memories flood my brain, jumbled on top of each other. Fragments only, like flashes of a movie only half paid attention to.
I remember a club, music beating down on me, bass reverberating through the floor.
A sweating man standing too close. ‘You messaging a secret boyfriend, love?’ he had asked, beery breath on my cheek forcing me to recoil.
But I wasn’t messaging. I was looking for a message.
I was waiting and willing Cesca to reply.
Not because the subject was important, but because my sister has never left me on read before.
Never ever. She knows just how much it would drive me batshit.
She always tells me in advance if she’s going to be in a place she can’t reply for a while.
A long flight. A cabin with limited reception.
The time she went away for a dirty weekend with this girl from work she’d had the hots for for months and months and she came back with a wicked grin on her face and told me she might actually be in love.
Spoiler alert: it didn’t last, but it changed Cesca in a way that was infinitely better, and she’s been a hundred times happier ever since.
Head banging from all the alcohol, I reach for my phone and drag it towards my face. She never replied. I feel my heart drop. Cesca has left me on read for over twelve hours.
Correction. This Cesca has left me on read. What happened between us? What caused her to be so … distant?
Hang on. Does this mean I haven’t skipped? I look carefully around the bedroom, at the luxurious sheets and all the other bits of frippery this Bethany bought on that shopping app. Interesting.
The phone rings in my hand, a number I don’t recognize flashing on the screen, one that obviously this Bethany doesn’t know either as it isn’t saved in her contacts.
‘Bethany speaking,’ I answer, hating how much I sound like a kid answering their parents’ phone.
‘Bethany Raven,’ he says, voice like honey. Rancid honey, the type that lulls you in with its sweetness before poisoning you. Tyler fucking Adams.
‘Tyler?’
‘Just wanted to see how you were this morning.’ There’s laughter in his voice. What the hell is he talking about?
‘Erm …’ I grasp for time.
‘You remember calling me?’ he asks, laughter replaced with something else. If I didn’t think he was such a douche I’d almost think it was concern.
‘No,’ I whisper, squeezing my eyes shut as if that would make the whole situation right itself.
‘I think you might have had a bit too much to drink.’
‘You think?’
He clears his throat. ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’
‘I’m fine.’ But I don’t really think I am.
My memories are coming back. Me. Drunk. Crying.
Ringing Tyler. Begging him to help me. Begging him to stop this …
whatever this is … this thing that’s happening to me, causing me to jump and skip across space and time to all these places where I’m not … well, I’m not me.
‘You said something last night,’ he says, the trepidation clear. Were you just drunk, or is there something more … his question asked without the words being spoken.
I’m silent. Frozen. Unable to decide what to say.
Because what do you say? When the man you think of as your nemesis is possibly the only person who could understand the truth you’ve been living this past week.
The truth you don’t really want to voice, not even to yourself.
The truth that it appears last night you drank so much you blurted it out to him anyway.
How did you even get his number? the logical part of me asks.
I don’t think I really want to know; the shame is already burning through me.
‘Meet me at the Two Farmers in an hour,’ he says, naming a pub not far from my flat. He hangs up before I can refuse.
So I guess that’s that then.
I have a shower and drag a brush through my hair, even put on some make-up to try to turn my sallow hungover face into something a little less hideous. Not because I care what he thinks. But I don’t want him to judge me. I’ve already judged myself enough, thank you.
He – because of course he does – looks amazing. Like he got ten hours sleep last night and perhaps even went for a facial this morning. Or at the very least a jog.
I cower in the corner, trying not to sweat pure whisky from my pores.
He puts a half pint of lager down in front of me and I physically blanch at the sight and scent of it.
‘Drink it,’ he says in a commanding tone. ‘A hairy dog will do you the world of good.’
I smile at the way he says ‘hairy dog’; it’s the same phrase Cesca uses to describe a drink the day after the night before.
Perhaps that’s why I pick it up and take a tentative sip.
It soothes my throat. I take another sip, one that turns into a gulp as I greedily devour the whole glass.
I instantly feel better, brighter, less like the world is going to end at any moment.
‘Good?’ he asks.
‘I wasn’t that drunk,’ I say.
‘Oh really?’ He stands up. ‘I’ll get another round and then you can tell me everything.’
He leaves me to stew while he goes to the bar. What should I tell him? The truth? Or should I laugh it off that I was drunk and it was all nothing.
‘So … What is your earth like?’ he asks, plonking two glasses full of ice and two bottles of the passionfruit cider I love on the table.
It takes my poor hungover brain a few seconds to catch up with what he just asked. And the full implications of the question.
I don’t answer as I pour my cider, forcing all my concentration into the action.
‘Different,’ I reply eventually. I peer at him over the rim of the glass, waiting for his reaction.
‘Hmm,’ he says and sips his own drink. ‘Any more clarity you can bring?’
I shrug. Where do I even begin?
‘You said this isn’t the first other place …’
Just how much did I say last night?
As if he can read my mind, he cocks his head slightly. ‘How many times have you skipped?’
‘Five,’ I reply, mumbling my words into my glass as if that will take the batshit craziness out of them.
‘Right.’ He nods a few times. Then he stares at me. I meet his gaze. Hold it for a few moments. An understanding passes between us.
‘You believe me.’ It isn’t a question.
‘Why would you lie?’ he says simply.
‘You don’t think I’m going mad? Losing the plot entirely?’
He lets out a huh. ‘Maybe. But we both know it’s possible. What you’re experiencing, it’s entirely logical, entirely plausible. If you were going to manifest some kind of hallucination about your reality I’d really hope you’d be original enough to make it something completely out of left field.’
I offer him a thin smile. Widen it slightly. Perhaps he isn’t so bad after all. The easy way he has simply accepted this reality I find myself in is … well, it isn’t entirely dissimilar to the way I have been dealing with it up to now.
‘How do I get back?’ The words are soft and I barely recognize my own voice.
He reaches out and takes my hand, his skin warm against mine. I raise my eyes to meet his.
‘We’ll sort this out. Together.’
And despite myself, I believe him.