ONE
It’s not just my breath but my voice that Jacob knocks out of me. As his palms knead hard into my chest, there are no words in my mouth, just his tongue and his ‘Oh, come on, Izzy’, which spreads thick and sticky as Marmite.
I hate Marmite.
And his voice? Well, it’s hardly an invitation, is it? It’s a right.
My body is quiet too. You’d think my skin would sizzle when he pushes my back into the heated towel rail that’s ramped up so high it’s hotter even than Jacob’s breath and the brawl of his fingers working their way into ‘Fuck, yeah, the sweet spot’. Like there’s anything sweet in this. But I don’t say that obviously, cos this isn’t a conversation. It’s a raid.
And I hate Marmite, but my body just kind of surrenders. Everything just kind of gives in.
I shouldn’t be here.
Where I should be is on the other side of the bathroom door. With Grace. But Grace is with Nell, their bodies oozing in the pleasure they’ve found in each other.
‘’Nother drink?’ he says.
But just as Jacob’s hands work like cuffs around my wrists, the bathroom door opens and he’s all ‘Crap, Izzy’, like it was me who was in charge of locking the door.
It’s her. The one who’s always rescued me.
‘Grace!’ And I’m sure I say it, that her name from my mouth is a siren so loud and so urgent that she’ll run from her stumble into the sink and pull me from where I’m squished behind Jacob out into the real world, where it’ll be just the two of us again.
But all my best mate does is a quick glance-over with these Prosecco-ed mutters of ‘oops’ and ‘sorry’, and then she’s gone and I’m still here, still pressed into him as he reaches for the open bottle with a ‘gawaaaan’, as he tips vodka into my mouth, which is burning, and then I splutter alcohol into his eyes.
‘Fuck’s sake, Izzy,’ Jacob says.
And when he pulls back and his pressure’s eased, I slide down the towel rail, head like a bouncy ball on its bars, until I hit the floor and droop.
I wonder if he’s gone, because Jacob’s voice is kind of distant. Then he lets out this laugh that’s like a puff of disgust and says something like ‘gotcha’ before the blast of cool air lets me know I’m still here, on the wrong side of the door, having been coaxed in by the surprise of Jacob’s smile. Cos it’s not like he, or anyone, has paid much attention before. And yeah, he had vodka and Coke and, call me an idiot, right, but I thought the party might be easier with a shot or two. He gave me four. All with this one-for-me-one-for-you kind of grin and those hands of his, reaching up from where he straddled the loo, legs spread and his groin so pleased to see me.
‘I’m gonna go,’ I’d said to Grace in the thirty seconds she’d spared me in the kitchen twenty minutes or so after we’d arrived.
‘Nooooooooooo.’ And her voice was all don’t leave me as she pulled on the sleeve of my dress like she was genuinely so keen for me to stick around that she might actually stay and talk instead of abandoning me for Nell’s lips and whatever it was Nell was saying that gave Grace that brilliant glow.
But she didn’t. Talk to me, I mean. And so I’d stood at the table like some kind of loser until Jacob appeared with his drink and his invitation.
I’d eyeballed Grace as I’d followed his lead into the living room, thinking if she felt it – my stare that was also a plea – she’d spot the path I was taking and freak out, cos there’s no one she despises more than Jacob. And the freak-out would be a stop sign, right? But her face had been so into Nell’s face that she didn’t notice me leaving the room, and so I’d walked out, kind of huffy but still kind of hopeful, because Grace always comes to my rescue in the end.
‘Someone sort her out, would you?’ Jacob shouts to whoever in the hallway.
It might be two minutes or it might be ten before I feel a prod in my arm at the same time as ‘She’s totally out of it’ and ‘Better get Grace’. And even though I am – totally out of it, I mean – Grace doesn’t come.
I message her when I’m outside. After this guy Max from my English class has lifted me to my feet and splashed my face with water. After I’ve walked through the living room, past the eyes and the ‘oi oi’s, and Jacob grunt-laughing and sniffing his fingers. When I’ve done that – the walk of shame, I reckon they call it – I slump against the garage door, biting back the retching, as I drunk-punch words into my phone.
Where r u?
Sorry, Iz. Nell wasn’t feeling great so I’m taking her home.
But I needed u.
Sorry, so did Nell.
X
U OK, Iz?
Yes.
And it shouldn’t be a surprise, not really, how easy it is for Grace to believe it. That I’m OK, I mean. But she obviously does, cos that’s the last of the messages and she’s probably back in Nell’s arms already, while I try to keep myself upright and wonder whether or not to go home.
Thing is, there’s not much choice. Even if it feels as slippery there as it did at the party, there’s nowhere else to go. And maybe Mum and Daniel will be in bed. And maybe my step-dad’s disapproval of the dress he said made me look like I was up for it will have passed and they’ll be sleeping and the house will be as quiet as me in the bathroom with Jacob before.
‘Izzy!’
Shit. Cos the vodka’s in my fingers as well as my head, these stupid fumbling fingers that can’t keep hold of the keys or whatever I had in my hand as a weapon on standby for when someone creeps up behind.
‘Izzy!’
My feet too. These ridiculous shoes on these dumb feet that can’t walk a straight line so it’s no wonder he catches me, right?
‘Izzy!’
And the voice is a hand, is a touch in the dark.
‘Wait. I’ll walk you home, yeah?’
‘Max.’
‘Who’d you think it was? Kylo Ren?’
‘Huh?’
‘Jesus, Iz. Here, let me.’ And before he even says what I should let him do, there’s an arm round my waist and we’re walking. ‘You’re smashed. Seriously, you shouldn’t be out on your own.’
If I were Grace, I’d have an answer for that. But I’m not Grace, am I? I’m pissed.
And I’m guessing Max must have brought me back before disappearing into the night, because, like magic, I’m home.
‘What time do you call this?’
I swear I nearly crap myself when a voice comes like a burglar alarm out of the dark.
I can see the shape of him on the floor, leaning against the wall under a framed page from a book about feelings Mum bought me when I was a kid. Happiness, it says, but when I flick the switch for the light, Daniel looks so far from happiness the irony’s not even funny.
‘What are you like, eh, Isabel?’
And maybe with the vodka I misread his face, cos even though it’s nothing like happy, his voice is different from the disgusted sneer when I left for the party earlier. None of the anger or disappointment. Softer maybe, like my stepdad might actually give a toss if I’m feeling awful, like really awful, like he did when we hadn’t known him long and I fell from my bike, and before the tears even had a chance to hit my cheeks, he’d scooped up the heap of me and smothered me with kisses he said were from fairies who’d given him powers to make me well. And, sure, I already knew fairies weren’t real but, as with everything else he said, I believed him.