Surrender

My undergrad dissertation, a creative study of postmodern teens. Admittedly, not the best work I've produced. I was aiming for an Easton Ellis style but my tutor made me cut the funny/gross bits out!

   “Have you called her parents?”

   “You’ve been with me the entire time, have you seen me on my phone?”

   “I was only asking.”

   “You call them, if you hadn’t noticed, I’m kind of busy trying to drive like a sober person here.”

   “S**t Corinne, what’s your problem?” I’d begun pulling items out of my tiny bag, tipping its entire contents into my lap. Lipstick, eyeliner, a crushed packet of cigarettes, a few coins and our entry ticket to the club. “F**k! I don’t have my phone with me.” I slumped back dejectedly, holding my hands up in surrender. “Where’s yours?”

   “It’s at the f*****g house. I don’t have anything with me.” She turned the corner that led to A&E, the corner that the ambulance ahead of us had turned minutes before, and slowing the car she slammed her hands on the steering wheel. “Where am I supposed to park?”

   “You can’t park here, it’s the f*****g ambulance bay. Stop, I’ll get out. Stop here! You find somewhere to park.” I managed to swing open the door and jumped clumsily out of the still moving car, my four inch heel catching on the seatbelt. I turned to Corinne and gave her the finger as she drove past me.

   “Dick.”

 

   I raced towards the entrance. Waiting for the glass doors to slide open felt like an eternity. I almost raised my fist to the glass in frustration as I watched my reflection move slowly out of sight. My dress barely covered my thighs, a little navy Chanel number my mum had picked up for me on her last holiday, now shamefully covered with an old tatty orange cardigan that looked like it would be more at home in a charity shop. My favourite pair of heels now scuffed beyond repair. A darkening bruise on my shin added to the disarray. I noticed I was only wearing one earring. But once inside that all too familiar waiting room my outfit didn’t matter. The actions of the previous half hour - the screaming, the panic, the flashing lights, the strangers stood in the street wearing slippers and dressing gowns and excited expressions - all ground to a sudden, surreal halt. I stood frozen, staring at the faces seated in endless rows. Wheelchairs seating the elderly, children sat playing with old donated toys at the feet of weary parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, husbands, wives. I was suddenly angry at being left to alone to deal with it all. But Corinne would be here as soon as she parked the car, maybe she’d call Ben or Alex and I wouldn’t be alone. There was a desk. I stepped unsteadily towards it and slapped my hands on the wooden surface a couple of times, eventually gaining the attention of a woman in a chair reading some gossip magazine. She barely raised her head. She was determined not to get up.

   “Yes?”

   “My friend has been brought here. Juliet Carter. She overdosed.”

 

   People came and went. A middle aged homeless man stumbled around the waiting room for a while, asking people for spare change to buy a cup of coffee. His friend had been brought in for something or other; he didn’t seem to know what. I looked around and everyone within a metre of him had forced their eyes to the floor, determined not to catch his attention while he went about slamming his fist into the coffee machine in a vain attempt to get a free cup. Each time he hit the machine I couldn’t help but flinch. The sound became synonymous with a full body jolt. The couple opposite me didn’t seem to be aware of him. I stared at them freely, their eyes glazed, slumped together in some sort of surrender but their hands wound around each others, clamped so tightly I could see the skin white underneath each finger. I wondered if they hadn’t noticed, I wondered if it hurt. I wondered why they were there. They didn’t say a word to each other the entire time I spent in that place. The homeless man had stopped banging on the coffee machine and was now busy humming a tune, swinging his polystyrene cup to the beat of his foot, the change clinking in response. There was a girl in a hospital wheelchair sat near the sliding doors, shivering in the draft of the September air. It must have been at least 3am by then. She couldn’t have been much younger than me, maybe eighteen or nineteen. I watched her for a while. One leg of her jeans was rolled up and her leg was covered in a loose bandage, peeling away slightly to reveal a huge bruised and swollen lump for an ankle. She had a deep cut above her eyebrow that left a trail of dried blood down the left side of her face but she didn’t pay any attention to her bloodied face or her deformed ankle. Every few moments she looked over at the clutter of nurses behind the front desk, filling in forms, talking to one another, scurrying back and forth. She was waiting for something. For news? Attention? We were all waiting for something. She reminded me of a girl from my course at university, a girl who had been in one of Juliet’s American history modules. I’d always been jealous of her since the first day we started. She had this long dark mass of curly hair that always looked so perfect, at any time of the day she always looked perfect. She’d worked on a project with Juliet, and plagiarised, and as a result she’d failed the year and had been forced to re-take it. Neither of us saw her much after that.

 

   When my back started to ache from the countless hours in the plastic chair, I pushed past the drunks and the huddles of people standing in every inch of free floor space and rolled a pound into the coffee machine, hoping it wasn’t too battered from its earlier beating. Watching the machine dispense a grey liquid that it claimed was a cappuccino, I leant against the yellowish wall. I noticed my hands are shaking and I couldn’t remember when it started. I wondered where Juliet was, if she was scared by the noise. If she was scared to be alone, surrounded by strangers in white coats. I pushed my way back through the waiting room and eventually passed the girl in the wheelchair and found myself in the ambulance bay once again. Fumbling in my bag I dug out the cigarette packet, one left, and a lighter. As I inhaled the smoke, calmness descended over me and I watched the smoke curl around the dark hair that fell about my shoulders. None of this is really happening I told myself. When I opened my eyes again an ambulance was pulling into the bay, its lights flashing and siren blaring. It stopped and paramedics pulled out a man, in his early thirties. Screaming, face bloody, shouting for his wife, clawing at the paramedics. Please get my wife out, please help her. It was raining so hard. It wasn’t my fault. And in a matter of seconds they’d disappeared into the building and there was nothing else to do but close my eyes and draw the smoke deeper into my lungs.

 It was my fault. I saw this coming.

 

   Corinne and I had come home after our usual Saturday night out and found Jules on the bathroom floor. One minute we were laughing about a couple of guys who had tried to chat us up and suddenly we were screaming, on the floor, trying to wake her up. I was ringing the ambulance, shaking her, shouting at the woman on the other end that my friend I thought she’d overdosed on pain killers. She looked like she was asleep and I needed this to be some huge, silly overreaction, the she’d just had a few too many drinks and the empty bottle of aspirin on the floor was just a misunderstanding. But it wasn’t a misunderstanding and we found ourselves stood in the street, barefoot and hysterical. Corinne screaming at the neighbours who had come out of their houses to get a better look, me stood there limply watching them push Juliet into the back of the ambulance. Her long blonde hair strewn across the top of the stretcher, her skin pale and damp. Corinne’s dress had ridden up as she leant into the back of the ambulance, calling to her, that we’d be right behind her. She looked so small under the blanket. That night had ended in that waiting room, it had rolled into the next morning and I’d had nothing else to do but go home and crawl into bed. I dreamt about Jules relentlessly. I woke a couple of hours later and laid there for a while in a vain attempt to convince myself that it was in fact a dream and it didn’t really just happen.

  

* * *

 

   “So what the f**k happened with Jules? Alex said she overdosed.”

   I was sat opposite my boyfriend, Ben, in a trendy little café in town he loved because it had bought several paintings from the gallery he worked at. Ben slept with Juliet about a year ago and we hadn’t really gotten over it. He liked to pretend it never happened, a favourite past time of his, but I couldn’t forget it. Leaning forward in my seat, my eyes burning into the wooden table, I shrugged my shoulders. The way he called her Jules irritated me. I could see him staring at me out the corner of my eye but I was determined not to look at him.

  “Was it coke?” He asked cautiously.

   After I found out about them sleeping together Juliet overdosed on cocaine. Obviously he thought the overdose had something do with him. I silently laughed at the way he’d styled his dark brown hair to look fashionable. It looked ridiculous, a little quiff poking out from the top of his head. A minute or so passed in awkward silence. I took a sip of coffee, shuffled in my seat a little. Staring out the window I could see a man hovering across the street in some sort of army outfit and noticed a crowd gathered on either side of the road. It was as if it they had suddenly aspirated out of thin air. Everyone else in the café had turned to stare but Ben’s eyes remained on me. More and more people were crowding the pavements and when the noise reached inside a nervous air entered with it. A couple at the table next to us had left their drinks to go outside, forgetting to pay, and one of the waitresses scurried nervously after them. I craned my neck in vain of a better look. The nervous waitress was poised at the door, motionless except one hand to her lips, biting her nails. And then I saw a group of solemn faced men in uniform carrying a coffin draped in a British flag. Then another, slightly smaller one. I looked at Ben. For a moment Juliet, the overdose, it wasn’t real. This was something bigger than any of us could imagine. Suddenly it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered as I watched the coffins bobbing along the tops of the heads in the crowd. It didn’t seem real.

 

    “Did she get it from John? Alex told me he has the worst coke ever. Apparently he cuts it with baby formula.”

   “What?”

   “Was it a coke? Did she take John’s cocaine?”

   My phone beeped and all I could do was stare at it, tears stinging my eyes, before I snatched it from the table. Suddenly the place was full of noise again and I remembered Juliet. It was a text from Corinne, finally answering the million messages I’d left her earlier that morning when I’d got home from the hospital. She was at Alex’s. She hadn’t been able to find a parking space near the hospital so she’d gone to his and waited for news. I slammed the phone down on the table and swallowed the rest of my coffee in one gulp. I wanted to get out of that cramped little café with the tasteless paintings of foreign cities on the walls. I swept up my coat and bag in one motion.

   “It was aspirin. And half a bottle of vodka.” I was on my feet, trying to pull change from my purse with one hand.

   “S**t. Really?”

   “Yes, s**t, really.” I threw the purse back in my bag and placed a hand on the back of my chair to watch Ben’s reaction. His eyes refused to meet mine. His broad shoulders lifted for a second as though he was about to speak. I beat him to it. “She died this morning.” I felt some vague satisfaction as I watched him process the words.

   “Wow,” he whistled and picked up his coffee.

  

   I knew the gossip had started as soon as my phone had beeped at 9am that morning. Only two hours sleep and I couldn’t stop picturing Juliet on the bathroom floor, vomit staining the cream carpet a kind of dark beige colour and her hair fanned out across it. All I could think of was the night before the overdose, nothing was different, everyone was the same but I watched Juliet float around the bar with a glass of red wine in one hand, so drunk, but holding onto some of the grace that, amazingly, she still had left. Most of us had grown tired of her after she’d started drinking so much. The rest had given up after we’d had to take her to A&E the first time, about a year ago now, after she’d decided to give up on everything. Now she was the girl at every party who spent the night throwing up in the toilets or going home with yet another stranger. The girl who tried to be the life of the party but all anyone saw was her sagging shoulders and lifeless eyes. When people were beginning to gather jackets, scoop up girlfriends and pour the remnants of drinks down their throats, Juliet sank down into the sofa next to me. Her eyes were glazed; a thin film of what I realised later was a sadness that no one could have fixed. She was already gone. I could see her bra through her cream chiffon blouse, and I swear I noticed a streak of red wine staining the white cotton cup. But I said nothing, instead I chose to concentrate on breathing through my mouth when she shouted at the side of my turned head over the blaring music.

   “I’m sorry.”

   I turned to study her face. Sorry for what? Her face was motionless, she took a sip of her wine but her eyes remained fixed on mine.

   “I’m sorry for everything, Liv. Not just for Ben, for everything.”

 

* * *

 

   The curtains were drawn in Ben’s cramped living room, the heady glow from the television scoring our four silhouettes across the stained walls as a joint was passed from one hand to another. Alex motioned for me to take it from him as he leant down from the tattered sofa but I shook my head, instead leaning forward to trace the old coffee mug rings on the table from my spot on the floor. He looked vaguely confused and then, too, shook his head. I’d never been interested in pot, another sign of failing to integrate myself into their little group. Ben noticed and passed the bottle of whisky he had next to him and I had nothing to do but throw a generous mouthful down my throat. I didn’t have a problem with alcohol.

   “Why isn’t Liv having any of the spliff?’ Corinne’s voice came from the sofa. I didn’t even look up. By this point they had all taken to assuming I couldn’t speak for myself and I never put them right.

   Ben had better answers.

   She didn’t wait for an answer. “I need one to relax after a shift at that hell hole. I can’t wait to leave this s****y job.” Corinne had dropped out of uni after her first year of Biology, claiming she wasn’t the ‘academic type’. She now worked at a bar in town and hated it. They made her wear demeaning tight clothes and five inch heels. She drank a lot and ended up going home with various guys when the bar closed. She claimed it was more fun to go home with company than to go home alone.

   Alex glanced at the bottle of whisky in my hand and shrugged, turning back to the television set and continued staring at the game Ben was playing, some kind of violent apocalyptic game. Those two had become close when Ben managed to have Alex’s work commissioned at the gallery he worked at. They had gone to Art College together for three years and were already making their success. Our hours passed like this, several days of the week, for several months that eventually rolled into years. We never grew up; we never grew out of that routine that rolled us through the end of school, through college, through university, through our existence. The settings changed occasionally, when we moved away to uni or into a new flat, but the five of us never changed, we never grew up. Juliet had gone but we barely acknowledged it. This was our Neverland, and in Neverland no one really died.

   The only sound in the room came from the television, a mix of shouts and screams from the faceless characters, interrupted by blasts from bombings and frequent rains of gun fire. The volume was turned up and the spattering of bullets kept making me jump. The sound seemed to pierce my ears. I could feel the bullets hammering my chest. I couldn’t breathe. Every now and then Ben would hit the plastic controller with the palm of his hand in frustration before continuing with his methodic clicking. Alex laughed as Ben’s character emerged from an abandoned farmhouse only to be caught in the chest by a large knife wielded by a tiny man that shouted happily in an animated foreign language. Corinne cheered and knocked over a glass of wine. I could breathe again.

   Ben threw down the controller, hitting Alex’s foot in the process. Alex lazily kicked at his ankle as he got to his feet. He scanned the room before plucking the half empty bottle of whisky from my hands and gulping some down with a grimace, as though he needed the courage before he turned to leave.

   “I’m going to bed. Are you coming?”

   I didn’t look up. I could feel his eyes on me. I could feel both Corinne and Alex’s eyes on me. Even then I knew they talked about me, felt sorry for me, pitied how I let Ben walk all over me. I could see the sympathetic look in all of their eyes. Even Juliet seemed to have pitied me. I had just assumed she couldn’t understand why I’d taken him back. I didn’t blame her. I didn’t really know myself. Maybe it was out of ease, maybe I was much more comfortable in Neverland that I’d realised. Maybe there was just nothing else to do.

    Eventually I looked up at him and nodded.

 

   In his room we tidied away a clutter of old art magazines and various pieces of clothing off the bed before undressing in silence. I found my usual enormous grey t-shirt in a drawer, and with my back turned I dragged it over my head. I couldn’t bear for him to see me naked. I stopped undressing for him the moment I saw resentment when his eyes once followed the lines of my ribs that stood prominent and defiant under my skin. Yet the t-shirt didn’t stop him running his fingers over each of them, counting them one by one under the shroud of fabric. It was his favourite game. He was taunting me to defend myself, to admit how much of myself I’d lost, but I remained silent. It wasn’t the pounds of flesh that I really cared about. I watched his fingers make their way down to my stomach, lightly bouncing across my pale skin, never stopping too long in one spot as though I would burn him if he touched me for long enough. I was terrified he would sense I was pregnant. I was only a few weeks gone but I was afraid he’d somehow guess if he touched me. I was afraid, somewhat ridiculously, that I would have a tiny bump. I tried not to move. Receiving no reaction, he leant over the side of the bed and dug out a cigarette from the pocket of his. He laid back on the pillow and lit it. I watched the smoke curl in the air above us as he spoke.

   “I don’t know what to say to you anymore.”

   I could still hear the gun fire from the computer game, it felt as though it was drilling into my skull as I pulled the duvet around my neck. I closed my eyes. Tomorrow I will leave, I told myself. It was strange how a little plastic stick, a pregnancy test, could change everything in a moment. But I knew I didn’t really have the courage.

 

* * *

 

   The first funeral I ever went to was in the autumn and it was raining then too. Sat in the back of my grandfather’s car squeezed in between my brother and mother, no one said a word. I remember someone had put on an old radio station that was playing a Thin Lizzy song and we were all pretending to listen. My mother staring out of one window, my brother out of the other, and me in the middle staring at the road ahead waiting for that familiar stretch of road that lead to the cemetery. The car bumped over the uneven road in some sort of rhythm and our bodies lurched slightly each time but no one seemed to notice. Eye contact was avoided at all costs.

   No one wanted to say they were sorry.

   My most vivid memory wasn’t the service. It wasn’t when my grandmother had to be swept out of the church because she couldn’t compose herself. I do remember being terribly sorry for her loss, I remember thinking how difficult it must have been to have lost a child. It wasn’t when my brother looked at me, when some sort of understanding passed through us that we’d never be the same again. It wasn’t even when they carried the six foot long coffin down the aisle and placed my father only a few feet in front of me. It was when the priest said, “We must remember Olivia and Nathan, Steven’s two children left behind in this tragedy.” I remember thinking, believing, it wasn’t real. No one called me Olivia. I remember wanting to crawl in that hole with him, while he was still intact, still my dad, and be smothered by the dirt and flowers they threw on us and be left with nothing but each other. But instead I watched the wet black mud staining the pinewood coffin, drowning the little silver knobs that nailed him forever inside because there was nothing else to do.

 

   Now the four of us stood together at Juliet’s open grave in the rain. I was staring at the cherry blossom that curved a delicate path around the railings that pinned us in the graveyard like animals in a cage, pink and white illuminating the harsh black iron. Faces passed, faces peered through the gaps with that detached need to witness someone else’s misery. Someone took my hand. Someone was speaking, yet I kept my eyes on the cherry blossom. I don’t know how long we were stood there in the rain. I pulled my heavy black coat around my body, shivering, unaware of the rain soaking my hair and my face. The pink of the cherry blossom was vivid against the grey sky, the only real thing I remembered from that day, not the service or the people or the coffin. The contrast of the pink against the grey. Juliet’s pale lifeless body against the blaring lights of the ambulance. Her watery blonde hair against the black rubbery cover of the stretcher. Through the haze of the rain, getting thicker by the minute, I watched the pink pale into the grey.

   The wooden cross that stood at the top of the grave reminded me of the necklace my mother had given to me for my sixteenth birthday. A thin gold cross about the size of a coin. The same as the one she wore when I was a child. She claimed she was catholic but I knew it was all a show for her family. She hadn’t dragged me to church since my father died and I hadn’t protested. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her wearing that necklace. She didn’t want to be saved, to go back to the church, to believe again and be torn down for her effort. I used to think of her as someone He could trust, she believed everything was for a reason. I couldn’t find a reason to.

   People filled past and laid flowers but we stood there until the last cars had left. Her parents had left soon after the coffin was lowered into the ground, her father swiftly moving her weakening mother through the few willing to brave the weather. It’d never be the five of us hanging out ever again. It hadn’t really been since Ben and Juliet, something inconceivable had changed after that, it was as though she had already gone but now it was final. We stood there in silence. Ben didn’t look at me once, kept his head bowed and barely said a word. I wanted to say I was sorry but eye contact was avoided at all cost, a familiar notion that I was comfortable in. If no one said they were sorry then it wasn’t real. No one could be blamed and we could pretend this never happened. We could pretend there was nothing that we could have done to save her.

 

* * *

 

 

  “Corinne, come on, I think you’ve had enough.”

   She tipped the glass to her mouth with a defiant stare. The vodka trickled a dark stain down her lilac top, while she stared off at the crowd of people dancing on the makeshift dance floor in the middle of the living room.

    “I want to dance,” she announced. And with that she wobbled off, her hips swaying. Jack swayed over to the sofa that Ben and I were sat on and shouted at Ben over the deafening music. He met Jack through a friend at college and I hated him, we all did, and tried to limit his involvement with us. He was always making misogynistic comments and it had rubbed off on Ben. He once came on to me at a party and hadn’t spoken to me since. I lit a cigarette and took a sip of my rum and coke. The taste of alcohol and sugar left a sticky trail down the back of my throat.

   By the time I looked back to the dance floor Corinne had knocked into a girl and spilt a drink down her. She was staring, first at the glass in her hand, and then at the girl’s sodden dress before the girl pushed her away in frustration. Corinne wobbled backwards, confused for a moment but soon continued to swing her hands above her head and mouth the words to the song she didn’t seem to know. The music pounded rhythmically over and over, never pausing to change to song nor breaking its strong, throbbing beat. It was fast and Corinne struggled to move her feet in time to it.

   Ally, the girl who’s party it was, a girl who worked at the gallery with Ben, walked over to us and Ben stood up to hug her. And then Jack stood up, so I stood too and straightened out my dress. She was taller than me, and had better tits. She was beautiful. Her mouth was painted red and formed a slight pout as she listened, smiling, to Ben talking animatedly at her. He was trying to impress her, showing off. She laughed timidly and ignored me standing there. After a few minutes I sat back down and downed the rest of my drink.

   I spotted Alex next to Corinne. I crushed my cigarette into the carpet with my heel.

   “Hey, stranger!” I put my arms around Alex’s neck and pulled him to me. His arms folded around my back and dragged me onto my toes.

   “I think Corinne needs to go to bed.” He whispered in my ear, holding me a little longer than he needed to.

   He placed me back on my feet. Corinne wobbled at my side and hiccupped when I turn to her. Then she shook her head. I decided to use Corinne as my excuse to leave.

   “Do you want a lift back to your flat? I have my car.”

   I smiled at him.

   “Alex, you’re my hero.”

 

   It was only when we pulled up to the apartment block that we realised Corinne had passed out in the back seat. Alex parked the car and we managed to pull her out by her arms, wrestling her limp body out of the small space. Alex threw her over his shoulder and we went up to the flat. Once we were through the front door he put Corinne down on the sofa and took off her shoes. I put the kettle on but before it boiled she had already woken and dashed to the toilet to throw up. I heard Alex shout something about cups while I held her hair back.

   “I’m sorry, Livy.”

   She leant back against the wall and hit her head. Her eyes must have watered while she’d vomited and her mascara had run. I tried to wipe it off with a piece of toilet paper but she brushed my hand away wearily.

   “Have some water.”

   “Did you come home early too?”

   “Drink this water, you’ll feel better.”

   She eventually took the glass from me. Half of it ended up in her lap but I watched her gulp down a couple of mouthfuls. Again, she slumped back against the wall and sighed heavily. She’d pulled her tights down to her knees so I dragged them off over her feet. She smiled with her eyes closed.

   “What did you think of Ally?” Her eyes were still closed.

   “I barely saw her.”

   “I liked her hair. She was really pretty. But in an unconventional way.” She struggled with the word unconventional. “I can see why Ben would go for her. She kinda looks like you.”

    I sat up straight, my eyes locked on her. But hers were still closed and she was still smiling.

   “What do you mean?”

   “Jack told me Ben slept with Ally last year. You knew, didn’t you?”

   I looked at her again.

   “I thought everyone knew.” She whispered. She sighed again and her breathing grew heavier.

  

    I left Corinne asleep in the bathroom, propped up against the wall, one arm resting on the toilet seat as though she wasn’t sure if she was about to throw up again. Alex was on the sofa with a cup of tea waiting for me. I looked at him. Instantly he jumped up and put his heavy arms around my back.

   “What’s wrong?” He whispered.

   I couldn’t speak. I just stood enfolded in his arms. I could feel his warm breath on my hair. I pulled away from him and sat on the sofa. He sat down next to me and pushed a yellow cup with violet flowers on it towards me.

   “That’s your favourite cup isn’t it? I couldn’t remember if it was that one or the horrible pink one.”

   I laughed and wiped my nose with the sleeve of my cardigan. I pulled the sleeves over my hands and clutched them with my fingers like a nervous child.

   “Ben slept with Ally.”

   “Oh,” he sighed. I kept my eyes on my tea, I didn’t dare look up. I knew what his reaction would be. I’d seen that face before. He shifted his weight and I moved my cup from the table to my knee. The silence was overwhelming. A silence I knew well.

   “I can’t say I’m surprised.”

   I looked up. He was staring at the floor now and without looking up he took my hand.

   “Me neither,” I whispered.

   “Then why are you crying?”

   I felt my cheeks blush. I didn’t have an answer and he knew it. I shrugged once. And again when I didn’t have words to follow. I put the cup back on the table and stood up.

   “I need to go to bed.”

  

   I closed the door and pulled off my green shift dress, and then my tights. I pulled on a huge crumpled t-shirt that was by my bed, so used to sleeping in it that I didn’t notice it was Ben’s. There was a knock on the door and, without waiting for an answer, it opened. It was Alex.

   “Oh, sorry.” He just stood there, obviously not sorry. “Are you getting into bed?”

   “It’s okay.” It was so quiet I could hear his steady breathing. I didn’t answer his question. I didn’t think it needed answering. I walked over to my dresser and busied my hands with brushing my hair. He sat on the edge of my bed.

   “I don’t know why you’re still with him.”

   I turned to face the mirror and concentrated on brushing my hair.

   “Why are you here Alex?”

   He didn’t say anything for a while, just stared at me with a gaze so penetrating I wanted to look away but I didn’t have the nerve. I walked over and stood in front of him, demanding an answer. No more silence. I was so close to him he had to raise his head in order to continue his stare.

   “Why are you here Alex?” I repeated. He stood up, confronting me. I didn’t move.

   “Leave him, Liv.”

    I didn’t feel his hand on my waist or his hips against mine. The only thing I felt was his eyes as he leant forward to kiss me. I didn’t react at first. I stood with my hands loose at each side, head fixed forward rather than up, his knees bent in order to reach my lips. He lifted my head with a hand under my chin.  

   “Leave him, Liv. You don’t know what he’s like.” 

   He kissed me harder this time, his hands weaving through my hair, pulling it aside to expose to my neck. I could feel his breath on my skin while he waited for me to speak. I trickled my shaking fingers over the arm that held me tight to him. He sighed and began to pull away from me but I moved my body with his. As he stepped back I stepped forward. Neither of us letting go, neither of us looking up. The seconds moved by like that, in some sort of limbo, twilight, us stranded in a world where no one else existed and it was enough. He held my face in his hands and kissed my mouth with an urgency that I couldn’t place. And I kissed him back. I pushed myself into him and let him struggle with the clip on my dress, surrendered to his hands on my bare skin. I fumbled with his belt. It felt cool and heavy under my fingers. We were on the bed, his weight pressing down on me and I had no way of escape. If I’d had let myself have the choice I don’t know if I’d have had the courage to push him away. He bore down on me with a force I’d never known. I could feel my pulse coursing through my ears, threading through my temple and coming to a climax in my chest. I don’t know how long it lasted but it felt like hours. Abandon all hope, ye who enter. His skin stuck to mine with sweat and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so powerful.

     There was nothing else to do.

 

  I woke up the next morning with a headache. I must have had a couple more drinks than I‘d thought. I stood, realising at some point I must have put back on the grey t-shirt during the night, and stepped over the pile of clothes by the side of the bed. The clock flashed eleven thirty. I grabbed an old bottle of water from my dresser and went into the bathroom. The only remainder of Corinne was her tights discarded on the cold tiles. I turned the shower on and let the water run while I undressed, watching myself in the mirror. The remaining make up under my eyes made me look even more exhausted than I already was, my hair matted at the back. Slowly the mirror steamed up and the last image of myself before I was erased was naked, withered, shivering.

   Wrapped in a towel I returned to my room and Alex was sat on the edge of my bed looking at my phone.

   “Ben’s on his way. I should go.”

* * *

 

   After Alex left I quickly dressed and scraped my damp hair back off my face. Outside, in the harsh light of the morning, my eyes stung from lack of sleep and the cold air grazed my cheeks like sandpaper. I struggled through the lunch time rush with a stack of heavy books under one arm and found a table in the corner of the Starbucks on the end of our street. I settled in with a coffee and dragged out the essay I’d been working on before Juliet’s death. It was due in a week. I opened a book and found a sheet of her notes between the pages.

   “Corinne said you’d probably be here. She looked rough as hell.” Ben appeared by my side, already taking off his coat. I couldn’t be bothered to ask him to leave.

   “I’m not surprised. She spent half the night on the bathroom floor.”

   “She looked a little worse for wear last night. Did you take her home?”

   “Oh, you noticed I’d left?”

   “Come on, don’t start that Liv. Me and Ally were celebrating those pieces we sold last week, I told you about it.”

   I was holding the sheet with Juliet’s notes on, her elegant handwriting stained the cheap lined paper. It signified every night we’d spent together in the library, every long day in lectures, every assignment we’d spent days, weeks, agonizing over together. I looked up at him.

   “I’m pregnant.”

   He looked at me and I looked down at my shaking hands. I laced the little cotton belt from my top through my fingers, wrapping it around each one until there wasn’t any left and my hands turned white. When he still hadn’t said anything I began slowly unwrapping it.

   “Are you sure?”

   “Of course I’m sure.”

   “Wow.”

   He leant back in the chair with a heavy sigh, his hands stretched behind his head.

   “What are you going to do?”

 

   When I was fourteen my cousin, Tess, got herself pregnant after seeing a boy her parents disapproved of. I remember Aunt Caroline and my mother in the kitchen, heads together, whispering. I heard Caroline sobbing into my mother’s chest, remorseful that Tess had no choice but to keep the baby. That she’d thrown her life away. She was only sixteen. She had the baby, Daniel, and my later memories of Tess always involved these huge black bags under her eyes that I couldn’t stop myself from staring at. They swelled sometimes, got bigger, and I always wondered if they would eventually burst. I hated Tess. When I was too young to protest, my mother would dump me in Tess’ bedroom while her and Aunt Caroline had coffee. Tess was an only child but treated me like a younger sister. She’d pick out her favourite doll and make me play with the reject. Tess ended up running away with her boyfriend about a year after Daniel was born. I occasionally saw Aunt Caroline around town but we never really saw her much after Tess left. Her and my mother had an argument, the specifics she wouldn’t discuss, but it wasn’t long after she stopped going to church. I was still terrified to tell my mother in case she made me keep it. I was even more afraid of ending up like Tess.

 

   “I don’t know what to say. I’m only 22. I’m too young for a kid. And I’ve just got this job at the gallery.”

   “That’s what I thought.” I looked at my knees.

   His phone began ringing. He fumbled in his pocket, jumping up to get better access. He hopped from one foot to the other while it rang and finally pulled it out. He took one look at the screen and was already half way to the door.

   “Do what you think is best. I’ll call you later.”

   I watched him leave, and guessed it was Ally calling. I noticed a piece of paper on the floor next to his chair. It must have fallen out of his pocket when he was pulling out his phone. I picked it up. It had a number written on one side. And Natalie written on the back, followed with a kiss.

   I heard him laughing as he walked out the door.

 

* * *

 

   We were at Ben’s flat a couple of nights later. Corinne had come over after work at the bar, still in her uniform that consisted of a low cut top and five inch heels. Alex had been celebrating his commission for a couple of weeks now and had downed at least six beers that I’d seen. Ben was in the kitchen with Corinne mixing up margaritas when Jack came in with a girl I’d never seen before. She was tall, thin and blonde. She also had enormous breasts, one of which was sporting a n****e piercing, visible through her white polystyrene top. She wasn’t wearing a bra.

   “Hey, Alex. Liv.” He nodded at me and steered the girl through to the kitchen where Ben and Corinne were giggling loudly. Alex sank into the sofa next to me and helped himself to the packet of chocolate biscuits I had in my hand. The smell of beer on his breath was nauseating.

   “I wish Jules was here,” he whispered as he pushed a biscuit into his mouth. It was the first time anyone had mentioned her name since the funeral. I turned to speak but I couldn’t think of anything to say.

 

   We were sat on the floor around the coffee table playing some ridiculous drinking game, Ben and Corinne were trying to coordinate us but were too drunk to keep up with the rules so were trying to engage everyone in a game of who could keep down the most shots of tequila. Alex was slumped against the sofa smoking a cigarette, the ash falling onto the carpet occasionally but no one noticed. Jack and the blonde girl, who he had eventually introduced as Kate, sat opposite me groping each other, surfacing only occasionally to down a shot of tequila before they resumed their dry humping. Ben pushed a shot glass towards me on the table and poured from the almost empty bottle. I put my hand out to discourage him but he paid no attention. I tipped my head back, feeling the sour liquid hit my throat, and placed the empty glass on the table. He went to pour another but I reached forward to move the glass away. He grabbed my arm and filled the glass while it was still in my hand.

   “Drink it,” he ordered. Corinne nodded in agreement behind him, grinning.

   I was about to get up, not in the mood for an argument in front of everyone. We’d done that enough in the past for me to know how it would end.

   “You like to force things on girls, don’t you Ben?”

   Everyone turned to stare at Alex, I wasn’t aware he was still conscious. Even Jack and Kate momentarily took their hands off each other at the sound of Alex’s defiant voice.

   “Excuse me?” was Ben’s response.

   “You know what I’m talking about.” Alex stared at Ben for what felt like hours. No one knew where to look. Alex’s stare was bold, Ben’s angry. The shot of tequila was still in my hand, raised inches off the table.

   “Alex, I think it’s time for you to go home.” Ben relaxed his stare, moved his eyes from Alex to me, and laughed. “Some of us just can’t hold our alcohol.”

   And with that Alex was on his feet, more stable than I thought he was capable after the amount he’d poured down his neck. He had his fingers clamped around Ben’s throat, his face inches away, his eyes burning into Ben’s. In the struggle Corinne was knocked over but Alex refused to release his grip. Ben tried to stand, to defend himself, to push Alex away, but only managed to place one foot firmly on the floor and raise his weight onto one knee before Alex had thrown him onto his back. It all happened so quickly. By this point I was still sat on the opposite side of the table, the shot of tequila still in my hand. I was stilled by what Alex was shouting, something incomprehensible, something about me, about other girls, about Ben forcing other girls. I didn’t understand what he was saying, his voice strained and angry, his words were lost as Ben screamed back. I’d gotten to my feet at some point, and tried to drag Alex away from Ben but he didn’t even acknowledge my presence beside him, Jack on his other side but he wouldn’t let go. Alex seemed to tighten his vice like grip around Ben’s neck and Ben was pushing his fists into Alex’s chest in quick, rhythmic movements as he shouted back. Both faces were a deep red, both shouting, both entwined with a force that Jack and I couldn’t part. And suddenly Alex’s hands fell to his sides, limp. He let go of Ben.

   “What did you say?” Alex stepped back

   “Why don’t you tell Liv that you knew I slept with Juliet? I’m sure she’d love to know how you agreed not to tell her so I’d get the gallery to commission your paintings. How you’re greedy and you’re selfish. You’re a liar.”

   I looked at Ben, his eyes burned into Alex with an anger I’d never seen before, in him or in anyone. Alex stumbled back into the coffee table and nearly stood on Corinne who was still sat on the floor in shock and he turned to me, his face contorted in guilt. I remembered how much I’d celebrated the commission with him, how I congratulated him and how Corinne and I had thrown a small party in our flat when he received the news. But it wasn’t earned. It was received as a bribe not to tell me about Juliet. I couldn’t look at him. All I could do was to turn my back and scream for him to leave.

 

* * *

 

   Ben and I arrived at Jack’s parents’ house past nine. They’d gone to Italy for a month so Jack had decided to take advantage of their enormous seven bedroom house to celebrate the start of the weekend. As Ben swerved the car into the long drive Jack’s form was visible on the lit doorstep, a bottle of champagne in one hand and mobile phone in the other. He was wearing his usual pair of aviators. As we climbed out of the car I watched Jack down what was left of the champagne, pausing only, it seemed, to shout down the phone. He spotted us and snapped the phone shut as we walked towards the house and came bounding across the lawn, sweeping his arms around Ben in one motion. He acknowledged me with a nod.

   “I’ve just put an order in to Ed, my new dealer.” Jack declared as we walk towards the house. “He said he’ll be here in an hour or so. Got a little something extra for the ladies.” He winked at Ben and I wondered what ladies he was talking about.

   Ben opened the front door and we were met with a wall of music that came crashing towards us. Jack immediately disappeared into the crowd of people spilling out of all rooms of the enormous house and Ben and I pushed our way through behind him. We made it to the kitchen and Jack poured us each a glass of champagne from a new bottle he had acquired. I saw Corinne sat outside talking to a girl who she worked with at the bar, a girl who looked similar to the one Jack brought to Ben’s flat: thin, blonde and fake. After that night I hadn’t heard from Alex, and as far as I knew, neither had anyone else. Corinne said she had tried to call him but his phone had been disconnected. I felt more betrayed by Alex than I did by Ben. Alex was my friend; he’d been my friend since school, since we were kids. I knew Ben was far from perfect but Alex had always been the one I depended on, that we’d all depended. I made my way outside. Jack and Ben followed, laughing to each other and I heard Jack say “I thought you would take a little more persuading than that!” but thought better of asking. When she saw Ben she squealed in delight and threw her arms around him. She was already drunk. He sat down next to her on the sun lounger, half turning his back to me and pressed his glass into her hands. I turned away. I didn’t want to watch him flirting with Corinne. Jack was already talking to Corinne’s friend and they too had turned their backs on me. I decided to find the toilet.

 

  The upstairs hall was empty when I emerged from the bathroom. I opened the door and saw Ben and Jack coming up the stairs, grinning at each other. Jack said something and the two of them laughed as Corinne appeared, using the banister to drag herself up the remaining stairs. The blonde girl had disappeared. Ben put a hand under Corinne’s arm and pulled her up to the top step where they all collapsed, giggling on the landing. I pulled the door so it was only open a few inches and watched them as they stumbled past the bathroom. Ben opened the door of a room at the end of the hall and nodded to Jack who ushered Corinne inside, still laughing to herself and relying on the wall to steady her step. Ben followed them in and closed the door. I opened the bathroom door and placed a foot in the direction of the stairs. I didn’t want to believe what I’d just seen, but as I swayed unsteadily there in the doorway of the bathroom, something made me turn around and head towards the closed door. Maybe it was Alex’s betrayal that made me realise I couldn’t pretend anymore. Maybe he had done me a favour. I could hear Jack laughing uncontrollably from half way down the hall and immediately felt relieved. I slipped my head around the door. Jack was slumped in a chair the window and he grinned at me, obviously amused at something. He pointed at Corinne, now passed out, on the bed with Ben bending over her, tugging her arm out of her jacket.

   “Just helping her to bed!” They both found this hysterically funny.

  

   The room was hot and Jack had lit a cigarette so I walked over to the window. Tugging it open, I gasped in the cool air. The window only opened halfway and I had to bend to catch the air in my lungs. Suddenly a hand was in my hair at the base of my neck, pushing through my thick dark hair to reach my skin. I tried to turn around but he reacted by kissing my neck softly, and I felt his fingers moving gently along my jaw. Surrendering to it, I pushed my body back into his, and let him resume power by pressing me against the windowsill. One hand was wandering over my breasts, reaching inside my dress. The other hand planted securely on my left cheek, it held my head in place while he attacked my neck with his lips.

   “Not here, Ben.” I whimpered.

   He ignored me and carried on kissing my neck, moving the strap of my dress to the side in order to kiss my shoulder.

   “Ben.” I breathed. “Stop.” Not entirely sure if I wanted him to.

    With his hand moved from my head I was able to turn my head slightly to look at him and instead of Ben’s thick dark hair I was faced with Jack’s sandy cropped hair. In horror, I attempted to tear my body away from him but he had me against the windowsill. His belt dug into my back through the chiffon dress and I felt his erection through his jeans. I looked down into the garden, at the groups of people dotted about the large garden. But the music was too loud for anyone to hear me cry.

   “Ben!” I screamed out to the room but no one replied. Jack dragged my body around to face him, one hand gripped to the back of my head forcing my mouth against his, his nails dragging against my skull. My hair was wound so tightly around his fingers that I felt it ripping slowly and deliberately from my head. The music was coming from the living room, through the open doors that led onto the garden. It pounded, unrelenting. I could feel it vibrating through my body. The taste of champagne crawled around my mouth with his tongue. I gagged, but he clamped his lips tighter around mine in response. I felt vomit rise in my throat, searing the back of my mouth and I couldn’t push him away. He was too strong. Still, I fought to tear my head away from his as he forced me back onto the bed. I could feel the weight of Corinne behind. I screamed for Ben again but he didn’t reply. Jack’s face stretched into a grin as he bent slightly to undo his belt. I raised my leg and kicked him hard in the crotch. He bent double and stumbled backwards and I ran. Ben was sat in the chair by the window. As I slammed the door behind me I heard him laughing.

 

* * *

 

   I caught my heel on the loose carpet at the bottom of the stairs as I ran and my head slammed into the wall, stunning me momentarily. There was a little table against the wall with family photos neatly lined up on it and I tumbled into it, knocking almost all of them off and felt the skin on my forearm tear. I pulled myself straight with an effort, dizzy and in shock. I had to find someone to help Corinne. The music was blaring still, it felt like it was crashing against my skull and I couldn’t walk straight. No one noticed me as I ambled through the crowds of people, missing my step and wobbling into someone every couple of metres.

 

  “Jesus Christ what a pretty face. You a model or something?” A guy wearing cowboy boots cornered me in the kitchen. I could feel his eyes studying my reaction. “Must’ve heard it a million times before, right darlin’?” He held out a glass of champagne. I took it out of habit.

   I turned my back. My hands were trembling, gripping the glass like a vice. I scanned the room for a familiar face. No one I recognised. Tears fell from my eyes but I didn’t know when I’d started crying. I didn’t know which way to turn, there were so many people, so I turned back to the guy stood patiently behind me, leant against the kitchen counter. I propped a grazed elbow on it, dragging it through a puddle of sticky liquid that stained the dirty black surface as I tried to steady myself while I lit a cigarette with one hand.

   “You look lost. What brings a girl like you to a place like this?”

   I laughed. What brought anyone to a place like this?  The light from the disco lights that had been fixed to the ceiling of the darkened room caught the sequins on my tiny dress. Glittering little specks of gold shone up at me in the sticky mess that covered the counter, now covering most of my forearms. The cut on my elbow, I noticed, had left a smear of blood along the sequins that looked almost black. Through the open door of the kitchen I saw, past the crowds of people, two more disco lights attached to the ceiling of the spacious living room. A group of people were taking it in turns to bend over a dining table with a rolled up tube of paper or a note. They laughed and cheered as a pretty redhead leant her face to the table, her short dress riding up towards her bottom.

   “What’s your name?” My long hair fell on his shoulder as he leaned close to my ear, his arm snaking around the small of my back.

   “Olivia.” I murmured, turning away from him once again, searching for someone, anyone.

   I raised a hand to my face and find blood slipping from my nose. I laughed and drop the glass. Shards slapped my feet and I noticed I wasn’t wearing any shoes.

   “Jesus Christ, you alright sweetheart?”

   I could feel Jack’s fingers in my hair again, and turned around sharply, accusingly, but found nothing there. Corinne laid on the bed, unconscious. I could hear Ben laughing over the pounding drum bass being played in the next room. It was knocking at me, relentless, as I tried to move away from the stranger, desperate for a familiar face.

 

   I tried to raise my head. It felt as though my chin was stuck to my chest, the top of my head too heavy to hold up anymore. The last image I remember was of a puppet, its string cut short just above its little head. Its hands and feet still held upright, still swinging away but the head just motionless on top of its body, flopping around in rhythm with the unsympathetic, jerking, movements from the strings.  And, suddenly, it was as though someone had cut all my strings and I couldn’t stand any longer.

 

“Jesus f*****g Christ.”

Author's Note

Pretty messy in places and I've got some seriously underdeveloped chatacters (though, in my defence, it's hard to develop characters that are supposed to be meaningless!) Any suggestions on character development and dialogue are very welcome. And, as it was only a 10,000 assignment I cut much, so very much, detail out.. so which bits would you like to read more of and what parts want expanding on?
Thanks, Leanne

Reviews

[Matt Pellegrini]

First, I'll start with small things like grammar/spelling:

"Was it a coke," Ben says. You need to drop the "a"

"Leant?" I'm not sure that's a word. Okay, so I looked it up and it is listed as a chiefly British word, so along with the other British English idiosyncrasies I noticed, leant is probably fine.

The 4th paragraph has a tense change. "I noticed my hands are shaking and I couldn’t remember when it started." "Are" should be "were," since everything else is in past tense.

Sorry for my ignorance, but what is A&E? It's probably the British English vs. American English thing again, but I know A&E only as a television channel. But I know that's not how you're using it here obviously haha. I assumed it had something to do with hospitals. Perhaps writing it out in full the first time and then having a sentence right after using the abbreviation would clear this up.

Now for some of the bigger things I thought:

"Abandon all hope, ye who enter." This is a misquote. The quote is, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here." Unless of course you intended for it to be a misquote, but then I'm not sure I would understand the significance of it being misquoted here. Actually, I'm not sure I found a significance in the use of the quote at all.

You use it in the paragraph where Alex and Olivia are having sex, so I took it as a play on "entering" someone, but since Olivia is the narrator too, the idea that men who enter her should abandon hope, or will end up hopeless and helpless doesn't make sense. In fact, to me, it seems like the opposite.

You are probably going for a different interpretation altogether though when using this quote, so I would just suggest placing it somewhere else, because in that paragraph, it's hard not too think that it's punning on "sex" and "entering"

There's a part early when Olivia laughs silently and thinks Ben's hair is stupid. Yet, her inner thoughts on it don't seem very convincing that he's like a "real" boyfriend to her, one she cares about. Maybe having her think something like, "I had always thought his hairstyle was stupid, and had tried to hint to him to change it," or something. It just doesn't seem like the kind of thing a girlfriend would think about her boyfriend. It's missing some actual concern instead of just mocking insult.

I did notice that twice, you list Corrine's work uniform, and the wording may be identical. I obviously took this to be intentional, since you mention an Easton Ellis style, but I think if you're going to do the repetition, at least for the uniform, it has to be really hammered home. More than twice at least.

The only big thing though is that sometimes you tend to be vague in what's going on, or use only pronouns for people who are doing or saying things and then use their names after the action has taken place.

A few instances I'll highlight. When Corrine is happy to see Ben and hugs him at Jack's party. I didn't know who was hugging and flirting with Ben until Olivia said she didn't want to watch Corrine flirt with Ben or whatever. By that time, with the action over, the reader sort of misses out on feeling angry or surprised at the over-flirtatiousness of the two.

Another one is when Alex walks into the room before he and Olivia have sex, I thought it was somebody else again (Ben) until several sentences later when you revealed Alex's name. I think you should show the characters earlier. It's just more tangible and lets the reader see both specific characters in the scene. Let the reader feel the surprise and suspense for a few sentences longer when Alex enters the room and let them wonder, "Uh oh, is this really gonna happen?"

Finally, earlier in the story, when Corrine ends up spilling on a girl while dancing and going home early, there was never really a setting for that scene. Were they at a bar or a pub? Someone's home like Jack's later in the story? It made it a little hard to place some of what was going on.

And in the dialogue, “Do you want a lift back to your flat? I have my car.” I smiled at him. “Alex, you’re my hero,” I wasn't sure who said what. I obviously knew Alex didn't say the last line. But, at first, I honestly thought it was Olivia who said the first line because she was sort of the central character to Corrine at the time, and then Corrine said the last line to Alex, which I knew didn't make sense. I think it just needs some clearing up in spots like this.

“Wow,” he whistled and picked up his coffee. This line was really good. It shows exactly the kind of feelings or lack of feelings I think you're going for with the characters. Juliet dies and it's sort of meaningless in a way. None of these characters really feel.

"THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE TO DO" Personally, I feel this sentence, used a few times in the story, sums up the overall theme and feeling you have and should continue to go for. I want to see this line spoken either in dialogue or narration more. I want to see this line shown more by characters literally coming to sort of a point where there's nothing really to do and they should just go home or whatever, but then kind of do something else.

The sentence strikes at the kind of meaningless/nihilistic/empty sense that you're putting into your characters and I think the theme could be developed a little more.

As to hearing that your tutor had you take out the funny/gross bits which I interpret as more vivid language when describing sexual and violent encounters, I say "Boo!" Haha. It could be my own personal taste, but I'm all for gross/graphic/strong visual kinds of things that can embarrass or make the reader feel awkward. Honestly, better to make the reader at least feel something than nothing at all.

So I'd like to see more funny and gross and graphic. More with these themes of hopelessness, abandon, and having nothing else to do, so you substitute excess to fill time. I think more party scenes, where there's drama and misunderstanding, and actions that are done for no real good reason would be good too.

I didn't really feel that your characters were underdeveloped to be honest. At least in relation to Olivia/your narrator, Ben, Alex, and Jack all seemed to have a place with her. Boyfriend. Trusted friend. Hated guy. Maybe Corrine was a little underdeveloped in this sense then, but that's about all.

[Leanne Burgess]

Wow, thanks for all the feedback. It must have taken you forever to sift through it all. The tense shift is because I wrote it all in the third person and then later went through the entire thing and changed it to first. I missed a bit. I studied Dante's Inferno and it isn't a misquote, I used a 1984 translation. There are probably about 12 different translations of that one quote. But maybe to choose the most famous would stop any confusion.
The vagueness is probably my worst habit, so thanks for pointing out exactly which parts you were confused by. As it was my dissertation I never got any feedback on the final piece so it's good to finally hear some. Definitely more parties, sex, drugs, etc. It needs padding out with more feeling. Or lack of it.
Thanks again, it was really helpful.