Page 165 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
“A bit, yeah—but I don’t think I will be. I just need to lie down.”
“Well, then,” I raise my eyebrows. “Off you pop.”
“Phoebe?” He hisses, leaning in closer. “What’s wrong with you?”
“You have a headache!” I stress. “Not terminal cancer. You’ll be okay.”
He scoffs. “Even if I did have terminal cancer, I doubt you’d care.”
“Oh, get over yourself, will you? I’m not a psychopath. Just go home and take some paracetamol. I won’t be long but I’m not going to leave just because you’re feeling a bit under the weather.”
He grabs my wrist, squeezes hard. “You just want to stay because it’s Arthur’s birthday.”
“Fucking obviously!” I rip my hand away from him. “He’s my closest friend.”
Digby cocks his head to the side. “I reckon he’s more than that.”
I roll my eyes. “You sure have a lot of attitude for someone who needs nursing through a headache!”
He laughs dryly, takes a step back. I look at him one last time before walking up the stairs. His eyes stay on mine until I’m completely out of site and even then, I can feel him looking at me. I turn the corner on the landing and stare down at mywrist. A bit red from where my bracelet has dug into my skin but hopefully nothing that will bruise.
I go to Arthur’s bedroom first because I doubt he’d be anywhere else and knock once. He opens almost immediately, spots me standing there and then moves to the side to let me in.
“How are you?” I ask quietly.
His bow tie and blazer are strewn across his bed, his shoes kicked off to one side and his shirt untucked and open at the collar.
“I’m okay,” he nods, clears his throat, sits on his bed.
He tilts his head, smiles, laughs.
“What?”
“No, just—” he shakes his head, hides his mouth behind his hand. “Just knew you’d come and find me.”
“I can go if you want me—”
“No,” he cuts in. “I don’t know,” he frowns, struggling to take a deep breath in. “Didn’t think it’d be this difficult. Having everyone here, it’s like—I don’t know—just fucking with me a bit.”
I nod, sit beside him on his bed. “It’s a trigger, Arthur.”
“Dr.Kane tell you that?” He smiles, a bit proudly.
“He tells me lots of things.” I kick my heels off, scoot up his bed and lean against the headboard.
He leans forward, rests his head in his hands. “There’s just so many bad memories here. Everywhere I look, something bad happened, you know?”
“Yeah, but me and you spent a lot of time up here in school?”
He turns his head to look at me. “Those aren’t the bad memories but we’re never going to do that again. We’re never going to be that age again and experience it all for the first time—I don’t know, Phoebs, my head's a mess.”
I get up on my knees, go over to him, wrap my arms around his back and rest my head on his shoulder. “Yeah, mine, too.”
He grabs my hand—the one Digby grabbed—gently, presses his lips to my wrist softly. “You don’t hate me for what I did?”
“No—maybe I wish I could, though,” I laugh quietly.
“Make things easier, wouldn’t it?”
