Page 126 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
Anyway, me, Spencer and Bliss went out to the little town one afternoon, stumbled across this vintage shop and there they were—sitting at the till behind a glass case. Me and Arthur weren’t even dating at that time but I picked them up for him anyway and I remember the whole way back, I felt so grown up and so mature for spending so much money on something for him. I was really honestly very proud of myself.
When we got back to the house, I got them out of the bag ready to show him and came skipping through to the front room only to see Connie sitting on the couch.
“Where’s Arthur?” I asked him.
Connie shrugged and I didn’t see it then but when I look back at this memory—It’s clear. Connie was off his face, too.
I stormed upstairs, checking all the bedrooms before reaching mine. I heard the sounds of vomiting and rushed into my en-suite, stopping by the door when I locked eyes on his pale, sweating, shaking frame crouched by the side of the toilet.
It sounds serious but it wasn’t his first overdose—nor his last—it was just another of those states I found him in. Seeing him like that became a new kind of normal for me but even still, my stomach dropped, my hands shook and my eyes welled upwith anger. I backed out of the bathroom, closed the door behind me and left the sunglasses on top of my chest of drawers.
That’s a bad memory, I tell myself as we drive around the cliffs. With my head leaning against the window and a familiar nausea in my gut, I’m paying no mind to the conversations going on around me.
When we arrive at the house, everyone rushes off to pick their rooms even though they basically all have their own designated room here, anyway. I can’t remember the last time me and my family came here together for a holiday. I don’t know why. It’s such a beautiful house. Been in our family for centuries. It’s all white with big roman pillars, huge french doors that look out onto the patio and the swimming pool and the place where Arthur and I got ‘married’ all those years ago.
There’s even a private beach. The steps go down from the side of the house, into a little secluded lagoon. The balcony in my room looks right down to it. The whole house is so open and airy but yet so hidden and secret that it’s just kind of perfect.
I slip my sandals off by the pool, sit down and dangle my feet in while I wait for everyone to unpack. I don’t have anything with me—just one large suitcase and two smaller trunks—because I tend to keep a lot of things here every time I come.
“Imagine if I pushed you in,” Spencer says behind me.
I lean back on my hands, stare at her walking over to me. “And then I hit my head at the bottom and didn't come back up.”
She tuts, rolls her eyes, sits down next to me. “Why do you have to say things like that?”
I shrug, laugh. “First thing that popped into my head.” I turn to look at her, squinting a bit as the sun pierces through the trees. “Did you love him?”
She turns to me, eyebrows up, surprised. “Who?”
“Connie.”
She seems to think about it for a second, swallows, shakes her head. “I don’t have time for all that.”
“I don’t mean now—I mean, back then, in school, did you?”
She looks away, glances down, shakes her head again. Seems to almost brush it off. “I don’t know. I was really young, no one falls in love at that age.”
“I did,” I tell her. “And so did Arthur.”
She tilts her head at me, smiles. “You’re different.”
“How?”
“You and him,” she nods behind us. “That’s a trauma bond. I don’t know anyone else who had that kind of relationship at school.”
I frown. “We fell in love before all of that.”
Spencer sighs, kicks the water with her feet. “It doesn’t matter, Phoebes. He loved Primrose then and still does now. There’s no point in dwelling.”
She stands up, tells me she's going off to read.
“What book are you reading now?”
“Oh, Finnegans Wake by James Joyce but I’m not really reading it, I’m translating it into Russian,” she says casually.
I blink—twice. “Why?”
She laughs, carries on inside.
