Chapter 13 Mariella
“There she is,” Anna yells over the upbeat music blaring through her apartment. She struts toward me in a minidress and black thigh-high boots, swigging champagne straight from the bottle.
“Hey,” I say, slipping off my shoes. “Are you going out?”
“No. I just got home from another charming family dinner.” She tugs my satchel off my shoulder and pulls me toward her living area.
“So we are going out, and we’re getting lit.
” She tips the bottle toward me in a toast and takes another mouthful of champagne.
“You must’ve made an impression on Parker and Rose, because they were here this morning looking for you. Did they find you?”
“I wanted to mention that,” I say, collapsing onto her sofa. “Please do not give Silas’s address to strangers.”
Anna snorts, perching beside me. “Pfft, with that face? Parker’s not a stranger, he’s a God. Plus, I’ve seen the way you stare at him.” Am I that transparent? “I think the words you’re looking for are thank you.”
“Thank God Silas wasn’t there,” I mutter.
“Wasn’t he?” Anna asks in a high-pitched voice, but her grin resembles the Cheshire Cat’s. “Shame. Would’ve served him right for what he did. So,” she says, placing the bottle of champagne on her coffee table and crossing her legs. “What did Parker and Rose want?”
I fiddle with a cushion tassel. “Nothing really. Help browsing the journal database at the library.”
Anna’s shoulders drop. “Riveting.” She takes another sip of champagne and hands me the bottle, but I shake my head, craving the comfort of a warm shower, a romance novel, and her plush spare bed.
“Come on, Ella,” Anna whines. “Let’s go out. There’s a new nightclub in town that opened last week.”
A new song begins, the bass on Anna’s speaker vibrating with each incessant beat. “Sorry, I have plans with—”
“Invite Sarah.” Anna tips the neck of the champagne bottle toward my face. “I’d love to meet her.”
“I don’t think—”
“Ella,” Anna says, an uncharacteristic finality in her voice. “We’re going out.” She forces the bottle into my hand and surveys her sparkling purple nails. “And I hate to pull this card, but you owe me one.”
I owe her more than one. I’m living in her apartment, rent free, with her clothes on my back. How many times have I turned down her requests to go out since I moved in? To join her for family dinner? I’ve lost count. I stare into Anna’s wide green eyes, the champagne bottle chilling my hand.
“One drink,” I say, and Anna squeals. Bringing the bottle to my lips, I sip before I change my mind.
Before I accept that I’ve failed to be good enough for Silas, or for Parker to acknowledge kissing.
Or the fact that I am a time traveler, and no matter what I study or how I change my clothes, I’ll always be different.
“Wow, slow down,” Anna says, plucking the bottle out of my hand. “I need to do your hair and makeup. And then we need to try on outfits.”
Over the next hour, Anna smooths my hair into thick waves, and applies my makeup, enhancing my eyes with a smoky, dark purple eyeshadow.
“Are you sure I should wear this?” I cross the living room, my skintight dress creeping up my thighs.
Stopping at the floor-length mirror beside the front door, I tug it back down to my knees.
“It shows…” I turn and crane my neck. The sparkling black fabric clings to my ass like a second skin. “Everything.”
“Exactly,” Anna calls from her bedroom. “You look hot.” She struts out of her room in a colorful, bejeweled one piece with a plunging neckline and high-rise jeans. Her face drops when she sees me slipping on my brown leather jacket. “No way are you wearing that jacket. It ruins my styling.”
“I’ll take it off inside the club.” If I’m there that long. “It’s freezing.”
“Fine,” she says through her pristine white teeth, and hands me a glass of champagne. Her phone dings and she pulls it from her back pocket, frowning at the screen. “Uber’s still fifteen minutes away. Should we sit?”
I nod and follow her to the sofa, my dress riding higher with each step. “How’s tongue-ring dude?” I ask.
Anna’s face breaks into a wide grin. “Who, Christiaan? Meh, he’s fun for now.” She grabs her handbag and rifles through it, tossing aside lipstick and old receipts. She pulls out a bottle of pills and shakes two into her open palm.
“You take medication?” I ask.
“Yep,” she says, throwing the pills into her mouth and washing them down with a swig of champagne. “Helps me concentrate. Or at least, it’s meant to.” She leans toward me and lowers her voice, as if she’s telling me a secret. “To be honest with you, my psychiatrist’s a bit of an idiot.”
Anna’s never seemed the type to see a psychiatrist or take medication.
She’s the most put-together person I’ve ever met.
And she speaks about her mental health in the same manner as the rest of her life, with unabashed confidence.
I envy her. “I don’t like my psychiatrist either,” I say.
The moment the words leave my mouth, I want to stuff them back in.
But there’s no judgment on Anna’s face. Instead, she’s nodding, her pink glossy lips pulled to the side in a soft, understanding smile.
“Did you ever think of changing?” She laughs. “Not that I’d recommend mine.”
I shrug, twisting my champagne glass in my hand. “Silas set up the appointment, and I didn’t have the heart to see someone else.” And I’d rather suffer than voice my issues aloud to another stranger.
“I still don’t understand what happened with Silas,” Anna says.
Vivid, gray-blue eyes flash across my mind and the muscles in my chest seize.
“Truthfully, neither do I. You know we were friends and he was weird about the age gap, but I thought we’d worked past that.
He was so worried when I broke my wrist. He stayed with me for days.
I thought—” I plant my elbows on my knees and slide my fingers through my hair, nails scraping along my scalp. “I don’t know.”
Anna offers me a reassuring nod, waiting for me to find the words.
“The last time I saw him, I thought he was going to ask me out. I thought that’s what we were building to.” A pit opens in my stomach. “But he didn’t. He said, ‘You don’t need me anymore,’ and he cut me out of his life, like I meant nothing to him.”
The memory’s a hazy, depressing dream.
Anna shakes her head. “Asshole. I dated a guy like that once. He came over every night. For months. Then one night, he fed me that ‘you’re too good for me, I’m doing you a favor’ bullshit.
” She motions with her champagne flute as she speaks, the golden liquid sloshing against the glass.
“But I told him he owed me the truth and I wasn’t leaving until I got it.
He said I was too loud. Too opinionated.
” She gestures to herself with a laugh. “Too me, I guess. So, I told him how tiny his dick was, and never spoke to him again.”
“Well done, Anna,” I say, but my chest stings like I’m battling a lingering cold. Was that the problem with Silas? Was I too different? Too broken, with too many problems? Too… me? I push the thought away. “You know, I’d kill to be too you.”
A slight flush creeps up Anna’s neck. “Thanks, Ella. You should confront Silas. I’m serious,” she says when I shake my head. “You need closure.”
“Maybe.” But what if I don’t want to know? My whole life, I’ve never fit in. At school I was picked apart for everything from my unwell mother down to the wedge of brown in my right eye. But those girls were strangers. Cruel nobodies who didn’t know me.
Not like Silas. He knew me down to my core.
Knew my story, my fears and my dreams. He came into my life at precisely the right time, helping me with the transition into college, booking my first appointment with my psychiatrist, and setting me up with ways to protect myself from the world.
Something about being in his presence had felt so right, like the comfort of your own bed after an all-nighter or a sliver of sunshine on a cold winter’s day.
Deep down, I’m grateful for the heavy blanket of fog that hangs over our memories.
Because hearing how messed up I am from Silas’s mouth would break me.
“I don’t think I’m ready to hear what he has to say.” I clutch my mother’s charm in my hand. “I think… it might hurt too much.”
“It might. But never knowing might hurt you more, long term. You know?” Anna chews on her bottom lip. “Oh, what did Sarah say?” I stare at her blankly, and Anna tilts her head. “Your school friend. Is she coming?”
“Oh.” I check my phone. “She didn’t write back.”
“Boo. I want to meet her.” A notification chimes on her phone and she shrieks, jumping to her feet. “Uber’s here.”
I follow her to the front door, tripping in my borrowed stilettos. Taking one last glance in the mirror, I adjust the stretchy fabric over my torso, grab my clutch and follow Anna into the night.
Wet grass tickles my feet as I stagger toward our apartment, my high heels swinging from my hand.
I dart past a lone figure sitting in the dark beside Bromley House without a second glance.
I guess liquor has its perks. I stumble up the steps leading to the building’s entrance. I’ll pay for this tomorrow.
Beside the front door, the numbers on the keypad split into blurry doubles, chasing each other around the screen. How many shots did I have? Four attempts later, I enter the building, climb to the second floor, and sink onto the rough, brown carpet outside Anna’s apartment.
“Where are you, Mr Keys?” I murmur to myself between hiccups. I tip my clutch upside down, littering the floor with lipstick, tampons and debit cards. No key. I burst into giggles, broken by my back thudding against Anna’s front door. My eyes drift shut.
“Ella?” says a warm voice from behind the door opposite mine.
My eyelids snap open. Even in my drunken state, Parker’s voice sparks shivers along my skin.
“Can you open the door?” he asks from inside his apartment. “It’s unlocked.”