Chapter 16 #2
“Sure, sorry, whatever,” I tell him and stand as best I can while everyone else shouts and claps because someone’s beaten some dumb record, probably for drinking the most beer through your nose or eating the most nachos. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
I feel the effects of the alcohol full-on as I take my first step.
The floor tilts and everyone looks wavy, like they’re made out of gelatin.
My head’s spinning; it feels like it’s about to take off.
I walk into the house, but I can’t find the bathroom that’s supposedly on the ground floor.
I’m sick to my stomach. I retch for the first time as I reach the third step.
I keep going as best I can, holding tight to the banister.
I find the bathroom, leap at the toilet, and everything comes out of me.
The drinks, the sorrow, the dignity, it all comes out.
I walk out a little while later, but I don’t feel like I can go back outside and party, and I don’t want to ask Taylor to take me home, either. So I sit on the steps and look all around and tell myself this is a metaphor for my life: Going up is exhausting and going down gives me vertigo.
I don’t know how long I stay there: ten minutes, an hour, three.
I think of the word petrichor and how much I love the ring of that synonym for the scent of rain.
I’ve always liked the smell too. It’s so clean, and it marks a change, a beginning, something so authentic you can’t just bottle it in a perfume and sell it at the supermarket.
I keep sitting there, taking out my phone and toying with it.
I write. Erase. Write again. My fingers are trembling.
Greta: What are you doing right now?
Will: Why?
The voices outside go faint, and I feel myself in an infinite spiral, but then I envision Will at the center of that circular movement.
Greta: Could you come get me? I’m at a party and I don’t want to be here. I’m just sitting on the steps and I can’t decide whether to go downstairs or back up.
Will: Send me the address and wait.
I do as he says, repeating that wait to myself in different voices, including one from a period film set around the time of the Second World War.
That makes me laugh like a dummy. I know Will’s tone, his real tone, would be different: dry, almost harsh, with no frills, just telling me not to go anywhere.
For once, I follow the rules, but I regret it when I see Sebastian at the foot of the stairs. He slides his index finger over the banister, following the curve of the wood, taking one step at a time until he’s right beside me.
“Look who’s here.”
“Get lost. You must have something better to do.”
He reminds me of a poisonous snake. The difference between guys like Taylor and Sebastian is that the first one you can see coming from a million miles away and you can work up a strategy to shield yourself, but the second…
You don’t even notice him until he’s sticking a dagger in your back and then it’s too late.
“Spending another summer stuck in Ink Lake? Poor little Greta.”
I stand up. Getting the spins is still better than spending one more second in his vicinity.
I take one step, then another, and wind up back in the yard.
More people show up. None of them is Will.
I don’t realize Sebastian’s followed me until he presses so close into my side that I can feel his hot breath on my ear.
“How’s your sister?” he jokes.
“What did you say?” I turn, my heart pounding against my ribs so hard I can’t hear the music over its thumping.
“What, you’re deaf now, prick-tease?”
I leap at him, seeing nothing. My mind is a total blank: white as a sheet, as a canvas, as snow. I want to hurt him, pound his head in, beat him to mush.
Someone grabs me tight and pulls me away from him. Sebastian looks at me with a smug grin.
“Calm down, Greta,” Will whispers.
I blink to keep from crying. It’s been a long time since I’ve let myself cry. People are gawking at me, and I try not to look at the ground. I guess my pain is more interesting to them than drinking games.
“What the hell’s going on?” Taylor asks.
“I always knew that bitch was crazy.” Sebastian frowns and the people behind him laugh along.
“Shut up,” Will says from behind me.
“What’s this dude doing here?” Taylor looks at him with contempt and then at me, as if I have to explain anything to him.
“Come on.” Will is tense and totally rigid.
He takes my hand, and we walk off together.
But I don’t feel my feet moving. I’m being borne along, and all I can pay attention to is his skin touching mine, my cold fingers sheltered in the warmth of his.
He doesn’t know it, but I’m memorizing every detail of his hand, the way the tendons stiffen on the back of it, the little hills of his knuckles.
I think of what I know is inside him, even if I can’t see it: bones, joints, ligaments, blood vessels, nerves, membranes.
All of that connects us in these moments.
It’s a physical connection but also an emotional one.
A bridge rising slowly across the foundations we’ve built in these past weeks.
And for the first time in my life, my own foundation feels firm as stone, not flimsy like paper or cardboard.