Page 88 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
Connie rolled his eyes. “The way you two go on—” he shook his head. “It’s like an old married couple.”
I think we were fourteen and fifteen at the time. We weren’t dating. Just stealing kisses and finding the beauty in the mundane with each other.
The time I threw a camping themed sleepover in the garden to prove to everyone that I wasn’t a snob and Arthur caught me walking up the stairs with my pillow when everyone was asleep.
“Couldn’t do it, could you?” He smiled, head tilted, pyjama bottoms low on his waist.
“There’s spiders! Possibly snakes! Foxes! This was meant to be fun, not fuckingI’m A Celebrity!”
He joined me in my bed and when the sun shone through my windows, our lips were still locked without promise of finding the key to unlock them.
The time we played Charades until four o’clock in the morning because no one guessed that Spencer was acting out the fucking Spanish Tradgery. That day in the summer when we were in Prep school, having a picnic and my parents started arguing so I hid under the sink in the kitchen and Arthur was the only one to find me. When Theo dared us to slide down the stairs on a mattress but we came flying off so he bribed us with Jammie Dodgers and Party Rings to not tell our parents. Freddy showing us The Scary Maze game and I got so scared that I pissed myself on the cream sofas and Arthur blamed it on himself.
Everything from my first orgasm to seeing Arthur so utterly broken for the first time. That end of summer party before year twelve, when he showed up and Connie tried hiding me from it. No one could’ve hid me from it. When I saw him that night, something deep inside of me knew—maybe it wasn’t the forefront thought but it was there, tucked away in my subconscious—I knew that was the beginning of the end for us.
I sit on the chaise lounge beneath the huge glass stained window that looks out onto the garden and the stables. From here you can see the spot where Arthur taught me how to shoot a rifle. The very chaise I’m sitting on was the spot where he calmed me down from a panic attack at a party where I thought I drank too much and was going to be sick.
It hits me out of nowhere, like a wave—it usually does because unfortunately anxiety attacks don’t come with warnings—that I don’t have these kinds of memories with Digby and never will. I can’t go back in time and replace Arthur’s face with his. Part of me feels tied down to Digby and I know that’s silly because we are only dating but for some reason, I’m stopping myself from being with Arthur.
I wonder how it would’ve gone if he never went away, if we stayed how we were. Would he be dead now? Would I? I don’t know about happy—I don’t think either of us would've been—but we would’ve had each other and that’s more than what we’ve got now.
How dare he come back to London, I think. How fucking dare he do that to me. Be so close but so far, dangling my future from his perfect hands like a carrot.
I want to go back, back to before, but I know it wouldn’t be the same and that thought eats me alive until there’s nothing but my bones left.
And it all sounds so familiar, doesn’t it?
He leaves, I move on, he comes back and we live happily ever after.
But that isn’t the case for us. Nothing with Arthur has ever been simple or easy and I think I’ve grown used to that. The mundane and boring things scare me more than the unknown.
I take some deep breaths, almost floating down the stairs and out into the fresh air. He suffocates me to the point where my chest caves and all I can do is reach out to him to resuscitate me.
With my hands scrambling to find my keys and my mind void of any rational thought, I get back into my car and drive all the way to London.
∗ ∗ ∗
I’m drinking to forget which is never a good idea. For anyone. You should never drink if you’re stressed, angry or feeling anything negative but then, why else would you drink?
It does make you forget, it does calm you down, it does unknot the ties in your neck.
Athena invited me to House which is also probably not a good idea because I never have to pay for drinks here—I never pay for drinks anyway, flash them a smile and you have an endless supply for the night—so all night I’ve been slinging back tequila on a somewhat empty stomach.
Connie stands between my legs as I sit on the bar, his blonde hair ruffled and his cheeks flushed because I think he’s also trying to forget something.
“Come on,” he taps my thigh. “We should go home.”
“Not yet—oh my god, that’s Frances Hamilton. I haven’t seen her since school,” I say, looking over his shoulder.
Connie whips his head around, surprised.
“We should go over!”
“No, we shouldn’t—come on, Arthur’s gonna be pissed.”
I roll my eyes, jump off the bar and drag his wrist through the crowd. “Why would Arthur care?”
“Because he still cares about you.”
