“Tilda!” I shout, and try to move toward her. “Take my hand!”
She reaches for me. Just when we touch, she’s pushed aside, but she doesn’t fall. She reaches for me again, and I twine my fingers with hers. Squeeze her hand hard.
“You’re bleeding,” she says, her glassy eyes fascinated.
I put an arm around her, taking in the blood that’s splashed across my jacket. We stick close together while we move through the crush. Tilda’s laces have come undone, and people are stepping on them, but we finally reach the edge of the square.
Tilda crouches by a shop window and starts to clumsily tie her shoelaces while I make sure no one trips over her. Her shoelaces are black with dirt. They smudge her fingers.
The naked mannequins in the window stare out at the square, where the chaos is only growing. The pounding in my eyebrow makes me realize how quickly my heart is beating.
Cautiously, I touch the wound and watch the blood mix with rain on my fingertips.
Tilda gets up unsteadily, using the window to keep her balance.
“I met Amanda and Elin,” she says, “but I don’t know where they’ve gone.”
“I lost Ali and Hampus. And I haven’t even seen Johannes since we came.”
My voice is hoarse and scratchy from all the shouting. A police van with its lights flashing drives into the square. People beat their palms against it, roaring excitedly. I take my phone out of my pocket, relieved when I see a message from Johannes.
WENT HOME EARLY. COULDN’T DEAL WITH AMANDA’S DRAMA. TALK TOMO.
At least he’s okay. I look up at Tilda. She’s tilted her head to one side, watching the police officers as they pour out of the van and attempt to break up one of the fights.
“Something terrible is going to happen tonight,” she says in a singsong voice.
My skin crawls. I look at the officers. There are so few.
Tilda is right.
Suddenly, I feel completely sober.
“We have to get out of here,” I say.
She just grins when I take her hand again. Her head droops oddly.
“Tilda, what did you take tonight?”
She giggles. It sounds creepy, like the echo of someone long gone. She’s here, and yet she isn’t.
“What’s so fucking funny?” I ask.
She goes silent, seeming to ponder the question.
“I don’t know.”
I give up, and squeeze her hand tightly. “Hold on to me so we don’t get separated.”
At least she doesn’t protest. We stick close to the walls until we reach Storgatan, and follow the crowd, stepping over glass shards and cigarette butts, broken umbrellas and plastic bags.
Somewhere nearby, a kid is crying. I look around. I can’t spot the kid, but another fight has broken out behind us. I speed up, almost dragging Tilda behind me. We pass the broken shop windows of the florist where Judette used to work, the café where Tilda and I spent our first date. A different time, a different world, where everything frightening seemed so distant.
Tilda was someone else back then. So was I.
The girl you were with . . . she doesn’t exist anymore.
Maybe she never did.
“How are you doing?” I ask.
Tilda smiles sleepily, stumbling along behind me.
“One hundred percent.”
“One hundred percent what?”
She tilts her head back, looking at me from under hooded eyes.
“One hundred percent fucked up.”
Then she laughs and pulls herself free from my grasp.
“I’ll be fine. You can go now,” she says.
A part of me wishes I could. It hurts too much to see her like this.
“Go,” she says again. “I can’t stand it . . . when you just look at me with those . . . puppy dog eyes.”
I yank her back by the arm. She almost falls over.
“What are you doing?” she snaps.
My grip around her arm tightens. I want to shake her until the glassy film disappears from her eyes.
“I’m not going to leave you here. You can barely fucking stand.”
“Let me go!”
I hear running footsteps, and when I turn to look, I see a few men in their thirties coming toward us. They’re neat and tidy—sober—dressed in identical black windbreakers.
“Is everything okay?” one of them says.
Fear seeps into me like a poison.
“Yeah,” Tilda says. “We’re just talking.”
“Are you sure? We can walk you home, if you want.”
The others come closer. Glare at me. I know what they see: the black guy with a bleeding eyebrow and the girl who’s trying to escape him.
“It’s fine,” Tilda says.
“You can tell us. We’ll protect you.”
“I don’t need your protection. Leave us alone, assholes!”
The men don’t move. Someone shatters a window farther down the street, but the guys don’t even turn to look. Their spokesperson seems disappointed. He wants something to do. He wants to be Tilda’s savior. For that to work, he has to save her from something, whether she wants him to or not.
He takes a step toward me. The pounding in my eyebrow speeds up. I haven’t been in a fight since I was a kid, and it’s three against one.
“Come on,” Tilda says, and now she’s the one dragging me along behind her.
I stare straight ahead. Say nothing. The fear only drains away when I’m sure they’re not following us, leaving behind space for the rage. And when that dies down, shame.
“Thank you,” I say.
But Tilda doesn’t respond. I’m not even sure she hears me.
Glass crunches under our shoes as we pass the smashed shop window. It’s the place where my moms and I used to get candy every Saturday when I was a kid. The shelves are tipped over. Empty plexiglass bins lie strewn across the floor.
I hear running steps behind us again. Turning around, I’m sure I’ll see the men in black jackets, but this time it’s a topless guy with a balled-up polo shirt pressed against his bleeding nose. Our eyes meet before he rushes on.
I pull Tilda into a side street. There are fewer people here. Most of them are completely silent and seem as shaken as I am.
“I have to smoke,” Tilda says, and stops abruptly.
She leans against a power box, taking out a packet of cigarettes with Russian health warnings. Her dirty hands tremble. I have to help her light her cigarette. It’s already dotted with tiny pinpricks of rain. She pulls on the cigarette so hard it crackles as she sucks the smoke deep into her lungs. Tilda, who used to be so obsessed with her oxygen intake.
People shoot us suspicious looks as they pass by. Tilda doesn’t even seem to notice. She’s rocking back and forth.
“What have you taken tonight?” I ask her again.
“None of your fucking business.”
“You have to stop.”
“Shut up, Simon. You’re not exactly a saint yourself nowadays.”
“It’s not the same thing. Do you even know what you’re taking?”
Tilda smiles mockingly. “Are you worried about me, Simon?”
“Of course I am!”
“Everyone is. Everyone wants to tell me what I should be doing. Little Tilda, who can be such a good girl when she wants to be.” She gives me a disgusted look. “You’re all such fucking hypocrites.”