Page 89 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
“I feel like you need to drink more.” I hand him the champagne bottle from the middle of the booth.
“It’s getting into the Soho hours,” Athena says from the table. “I saw a couple fucking in the corner just a minute ago.”
I slap Connie’s chest. “Well, he spends his Tuesday afternoons at The Box so…”
“No, I fucking don’t,” he mutters, throwing himself down, looks a bit worse for wear.
Can’t imagine I do, though. I never look bad. Arthur told me that once. Although, the last time I drank like this I was in school. I can feel my eyelids getting heavy but I’m not ready to leave justyet. I’m not ready to get hit by the fresh air and the reminders of everything.
A little while later, I go into the bathroom but I stop when I see a girl, nose down on the side of the sink, snorting a line.
Nose in the air, I brush past her, staring at myself in the mirror. “That’s so embarrassing.”
“Excuse me?” She lifts her head, wiping the tip of her nose.
“At least go in there,” I nod behind me at the cubicles.
“Fuck you,” she spits, staggering about.
“You can barely walk.”
I stare her down, racking my eyes up and down her skinny frame. I can tell she’s getting angry at me but she’s nowhere near as pissed off as I am because when I look into her dilated eyes, I don’t see a girl with thin blonde hair.
I see a prince with brunette hair and earthy eyes.
“What’s your fucking problem?”
She stumbles closer, her chest almost brushing mine. I take a step back, the smell of her Baccarat Rouge making me nauseous (seriously, after one spritz we can smell it, I promise you).
I’m no good with confrontation so I take a few more steps back until my back hits the bathroom door.
“Sorry that Arthur was shooting heroin but we’re not all like that,” she smiles, reaching for the door handle.
I’m not sure why I do it but I do—I slap her across the face so hard that she folds over, clutches the side of her face.
I gasp, leave the bathroom, feel a bit panicky, like she might tell and I’ll be hated by everyone forever.
The sounds, the smell, the lights—they consume me until I’m nothing but a tiny ant, crawling amidst large stomping feet and cigarette shaped legs.
“Take me home,” I tell Connie, grab the front of his shirt.
He squints. “What?”
“Take me home.”
I can’t breathe properly and I feel like I’m being embarrassing but I can’t get out of here and there’s too many people and I realise that actually I’m just a bit sad and quite a bit lonely.
“Please,” I tell him, ignoring everything else around me. “Take me home—I hit her.”
“Who? Who’d you hit?”
He stands up, takes hold of my hands.
“The girl, in the bathroom because she was doing drugs.”
He frowns. “Huh?”
I squeeze my eyes closed. “Just take me home!”
