Page 26 of Dead to Me

I walked back to the table with him, and didn’t make a big deal out of drinking my non-alcoholic tonic.To be honest, getting to drink something soft was a relief, Reid.Icannotdrink as much as those guys and still function the next day, evenat only five years older.You’d think a few years of hanging around with Dad and his ‘Oh, I thought it was a good excuse for champagne’ style of living would have prepared me, but no.They are on a whole other level.

At that point, I’d only had a single non-alcoholic drink to break up the cocktails, but it clearly made an impression on Ryan.After that, he started making eye contact and talking to me.Even smiling and directing his jokes toward me.

And you know the nice thing, Reid?Instead of having to seduce him like everyone wanted, all I’d done was be a friend.It felt a mixture of good and like the worst kind of betrayal.

Nothing is ever simple.

It was probably only ten minutes after I got Ryan on my side that Esther asked me to go to the bathroom with her.I guessed this was a girl talk, which meant her sussing me out further.Esther wasn’t the kind of person to do things for no reason.

But when she bundled herself into the same cubicle as me, slid a notebook out of her bag and laid out two lines of white powder on it, I realised my mistake.

For a second, I was genuinely frozen.It wasn’t the drugs themselves, it was the timing, and the fact that this was cocaine.Had Ryan betrayed my secrets within minutes?Was Esther testing me?

But I shook myself and gave my pre-prepared excuse for exactly this type of situation.

‘Oh, I can’t, I’m really sorry,’ I told her.‘If I get drugs-tested for the trials and I come up with anything in my system, I’ll be out.Doesn’t matter what it is.’

And you know, I think my anxiety might actually have added an accidental aura of naturalness.The panic of a former user.If Estherdidknow what I’d told Ryan, or found it out later from googling, it would all make a sort of sense.

But either way, Esther didn’t react with suspicion.

‘You poor thing,’ she said with what looked like sympathy, and snorted up both lines herself.

It gave me a squeeze of worry, watching her do it.I thought of Holly, drowning in that river.And inevitably of Tanya, dying alone in her university room.

That was too much.

But Esther seemed fairly immune to the effects.Twenty minutes later, she was simply more animated.And she still seemed determined to keep her arm through mine and to ask my opinion on everything.

I saw Kit and Sarah excuse themselves to the bathrooms not that long afterwards, and it occurred to me that snorting lines or taking tabs was just something they did, as naturally as drinking a cocktail or eating a hot dog.Despite the possible damage, and the unbelievable expense associated with making it a regular habit.

Ryan, though, stayed at the table, and when I glanced over at him he gave me a small nod.Which made me think maybe he hadn’t told Esther anything.That actually, he was trying to be an ally to me in return.

I gave him a crooked grin and downed the last of my alcohol-free tonic.

I excused myself at 11.15, in spite of Kit’s best efforts to make me stay.Of the three who’d taken coke, he seemed the least wired, which I found interesting.I wondered if he liked to see others out of control, without ever losing his own.

I also had the flash of a thought, as he leaned away from Sarah and towards me to talk over the sound of the music, that Kit’s power might come from being their supplier.I found myself unconsciously stepping away slightly, and I saw a flicker of something cross his face as I did.A little look of surprise and displeasure.

He’s not used to being crossed, I thought.He’s always been able to pull everyone’s strings, whenever he wants.

How else would he feel confident enough to lean that close to me, with his arm still round his girlfriend?

‘You’re really going?’he asked, after the tiniest of pauses.

‘Absolutely,’ I told him.‘I’m not doing a seven a.m.outing on any less sleep or any more alcohol.’Which was an entirely true statement.I was quietly dreading the next session of the river-based torture I was putting myself through in the name of realism, despite having got a lot fitter and stronger.It still hurt like hell and the blisters on my hands weren’t yet hardened into painless callouses, either.A look I was only getting away with having told everyone I was just back from an injury.

‘Surely you have to let loose sometimes?’he asked.He tilted his head, and a very small smile twitched at his mouth.

I gave him a considering look.‘I pick my times.’

And then I turned very deliberately to Sarah and hugged her goodnight, before moving away from them both.

Esther was talking animatedly to Ryan now but broke off when I approached.Ryan’s expression dropped slightly, but Esther hugged me close.

‘Ohhh, come tomorrow,’ she said, squeezing me tightly.‘This was so much fun.’

She seemed genuinely sad to relinquish me, and I wasn’t quite sure how to react to it.I’d spent all night watching for the break in her routine, and now wondered whether this wasn’t the real Esther.Whether the overcontrolled, glossy version of her wasn’t the side she struggled to shake off.It was confusing.

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