Page 5 of Glitterland
“I don’t write anymore,” I lied.
“Oh, no, really? But you were so talented. You should take it up again.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not? It’s not often that queer literature finds a mainstream audience. Your team needs you.”
“I have nothing to say.”
Hugh gave me the familiar blank, bewildered look that told me I’d finally succeeded in putting the conversation out of its misery.
“Want a drink?” he asked.
Alcohol played merry hell with my medication. “God, yes.”
He grinned. “Actually, I’ve got something even better, if you like?”
I raised my eyebrows. “I hope that’s not a pickup line.”
He blushed. He was my age at least but he seemed centuries younger. “Well, we can if you like. I mean, I’d be up for it. But it’s kind of one or the other.”
As he opened his palm, I caught the flash of a familiar, chalky-white pill.
“I’ll take that,” I said.
Maybe he looked disappointed. I didn’t give a damn.
“Catch you on the dance floor, then.” He slipped me the E and wandered off.
Drugs were even worse for me than alcohol but, in some ways, so much better. What I held between my fingers was a little piece of happiness. Artificial, yes. Fleeting, yes. But then I wasn’t sure there was any other kind. And beggars can’t be choosers.
I was playing games with myself, putting up a show of resistance, as if I could take it or leave it. But the truth was, whatever the price, I would gladly pay it just to feel…better. Connected. Human. Alive. Anything at all.
A hand closed hard around my wrist.
“What the fuck are you doing?” demanded Niall. “Are you fucking insane?”
He was probably hurting me, but I was too far from myself for it to breach the numbness of my skin. “Well, yes. I have a note from my doctor.”
“You can’t fucking take drugs. You know what’ll happen.”
I flicked the tablet from one hand to the other, snatching it from the air before Niall could intercept. His body was behind mine, so it felt almost like it did when he used to hold me, his arms tight around me as if an embrace could make a difference. I half turned my head so I could look up at him.
“It’s just this once.” My voice was a wavering chord of desperation. “It’ll be fine.”
“No.”
“It’s not up to you.”
His hand caught my other wrist. “I’m not going to let you hurt yourself.”
“That’s not up to you either.”
But Niall pinned me and twisted my fingers open. For a moment, the little round tablet seemed to cling to my skin, as though it wanted me as much as I wanted it, and then it slipped and fell. It pinged off the railing and bounced away into the writhing crowd. Such a pathetic, bathetic tragedy, it should have been comical. Disappointment drowned me in a grey flood, bitter as ashes and sharp as briars.
Mission accomplished, Niall let me go so abruptly it felt as though he’d detached me from the entire world. I had a brief, intense sensation of falling and clutched for the sweaty brass of the railing.
“You’re such a prick,” I muttered, but it was the defiance of the defeated.
