Am I Normal Yet?

by Holly Bourne

  Floated back into the party.

  Floated up the stairs.

  “I’m floating,” I said, to no one in particular.

  “No you’re not,” Guy’s voice came from under me. “I’m fucking carrying you.”

  “Am I heavy?” I floated past a group of people, strumming a guitar and singing “Wonderwall”, at the top of the stairwell.

  “Yes, you are.”

  I scrunched my face up. “I can’t believe you called me fat!”

  “What? I didn’t. Oh for God’s sake…girls…hang on…almost there.”

  Guy turned and used my arse to open the door into a dark bedroom. He turned on the light; no one was there. He did a small sigh, of relief maybe, and then doofed me down on top of the bed. I fell into the mattress heavily, like a tonne-weight.

  “Oomph,” I said, surprised, looking up at my surroundings. Then I realized where I was. The bedroom. Anna’s bedroom. From that awful first date with Ethan. I sat up. “I can’t be in here. It’s the sex room.” I tried to stumble to my feet but getting up so quickly made my stomach lurch angrily.

  I felt sick.

  Oh no. No. I can’t be sick.

  “I’m going to be sick!” I yelled, panicked. Why? Why had I done all those shots? My forehead was sweating, I was shivering, panic panic panic panic panic.

  “No, you’re not.” Guy’s voice had this soothing quality I’d never heard before. It was the exact opposite voice to all the guttural vocals he sang in his band. “Lie back down…I’ll get you some water and crackers.”

  I grabbed him, wide-eyed. “I can’t be sick, Guy. You don’t understand, I can’t get sick. I can’t I can’t I can’t…” The panic won over and I did what I always did, I cried. There was no build-up, no slow ascent to a crescendo. Just one minute Guy was trying to get me to lie back down, and the next I’d grabbed his hand, squeezing all the blood out of it, sobbing uncontrollably.

  “I can’t be sick. Guy, what if I’m sick? What have I done? How do I stop it, Guy? Help me. My stomach, oh God, help me. I can’t be sick.”

  I began shaking uncontrollably. Guy, his eyes wide with shock, hugged me into him.

  “Shh, Evie, you’re not going to be sick. We’ll get you some water. Calm down. Shhh. Shhh. Christ, where are your mates? Shhh, you’re not going to throw up. We’ll get you some water. Shh, shh, stop crying.”

  His jumper smelled smoky, but in a sweet fragrant way, like flowers being burned. And his armpit was so squidgy and lovely and his hand was on the small of my back, and no boy’s hand had ever been on the small of my back before. Pins and needles erupted around where his fingers met my skin. His voice, his touch, brought me back.

  My sobs quietened.

  “Evie?”

  “Yes?” I answered into his armpit.

  “I’m going to go get you some water. Are you going to be okay?”

  I nodded into his armpit.

  “You’re going to have to come out of my armpit.”

  “I like it in here.”

  “Come on.” Even through my sambuca haze I could hear the impatience in his voice. I was just sober enough to know I’d pushed my luck and withdrew from under him. “Now lie down, take deep breaths. I won’t be long…”

  “Where are Lottie and Amber?”

  He sighed again. “I’ll go check they’re okay. Now, are you feeling all right?”

  I nodded and it made the world go wonky. A late tear slipped out of my eye.

  “I’ll be back in just a minute.”

  The sound of the door closing. I lay back, like Guy said, and looked up at the ceiling. It spun, my head spinning with it. I closed my eyes to stop it but my head just kept on whirring. The bass beat made the room vibrate, steadily, like a heartbeat. I counted the thuds to stop the panic creeping back in.

  Breathe, hold on for ten beats.

  See if you can go twenty beats without being sick.

  Good, there you go. Now let’s see if you can make it to forty beats.

  People were yelling right outside the door. It could’ve been Lottie’s voice, it sounded a bit like her. Where’d she been all evening? With Tim? That wasn’t like her. My stomach swelled, nausea rose in my throat.

  No no no. Can’t be sick, can’t be sick.

  Oh how I wished my head would stop circling.

  The door opened, the music got louder. It closed, the music got quieter again.

  “Evie? You asleep?”

  It was Guy. He’d come back. I opened my eyes and looked up at him sideways. I could see right up his pointed nostrils, but there weren’t any boogers. He had quite nice nostrils actually.

  “You have quite nice nostrils actually,” I told him.

  He grinned and put the toast-laden plate and glass of water on the bedside table next to me.

  “So you’ve not passed out then? Your mate, Amber, is it? Jane and Joel are looking after her. She’s come round and is vomming in the front garden.”

  I shuddered. How was I going to get out of this party without walking past her sick? Would some of the atoms of it break off and float into my nose and make me sick too? Hang on…I already felt sick. Another tear leaked out.

  Guy saw it. “Oh no, Evie, not again. Come on, eat this toast. It will help you not vomit.”

  “You promise?”

  He looked me right in the eyes. “I promise.”

  I lolled over and made room for him on the bed. He pushed me so I was upright against the wall and then wedged me up with his own body – budging over on the bed so he was right next to me. A whole side of me was touching a whole side of him.

  He held the toast up. “Come on.” He spoke like I was a baby at feeding time. “Open up.”

  “Did you wash your hands before you made the toast?”

  He rolled his eyes, like I’d instantly become a misbehaving baby. “Yes.”

  “And is the plate clean? You didn’t get it out of the sink, did you? Did you know there are more germs in a kitchen sink than there are in a toilet bowl?”

  “Just as well I took this plate out of the toilet then.” He saw my face. “Relax, Evie, I got it out of the cupboard. You could say thank you, you know?”

  I slowly leaned forward and took a bite of the buttery toast. It tasted amazing. And he’d cut it into triangles.

  “Thank you,” I said, through a mouthful of crumbs.

  He kept feeding me, until my tummy didn’t want any more, then he forced me to slowly sip a pint glass of water… “I got it straight out of the dishwasher, don’t worry.”

  When I’d finished, I felt…better. Like the worst had passed, though seeing straight was still a bit challenging.

  “This is the room where it happened,” I told him, my head wanting to rest on his shoulder. I resisted and lay it back against the hard plaster.

  “What happened?”

  “My date, the nympho…this is the same bed he shagged someone else on.”

  Guy twisted his head in my direction and grinned.

  “So it’s a lucky bed then?”

  I’d sobered up enough to hear his innuendo. “Hey, I am very drunk right now. You are not to take advantage of this.” And I pointed to myself in all my drunken unattractive glory.

  He rolled his eyes again. “Where’s the ‘thank you for looking after me’? No, I get sexual assault allegations…”

  I opened my mouth to protest and then realized he was right.

  “Why are you so drunk anyway? This isn’t the control freak Evie I know and love.”

  Did he just say love? No. Well, yes, but not like that.

  “Bad date.”

  “Jeez, another one? Hang on, weren’t you meeting pussycat boy today?”

  It stung somewhere in my foggy mind that he’d forgotten I had a date.

  “Yeah, it was him. We went to the cinema.”

  “And what happened? Why didn’t you bring him here?”

  I let out a deep breath, reliving the day and tonight like a superfast flickbook of cr
ap. “He brought his parents with him…” I waited for the laughter to start.

  Guy didn’t laugh though. He just looked concerned. “What? Seriously? Is he okay, like, in his head?”

  My mouth dropped open and stayed open longer than was probably necessary in the attractiveness stakes.

  “I don’t think he is okay. In the head, I mean…”

  “Wow, poor guy.” He was quiet a moment, before adding, “I had a mate like that. In school…” He trailed off. “He wrote some brilliant lyrics for our band at the time, I’m telling you. But man was he messed up. He moved away. To the sea or something.”

  I smiled at Guy. We were exactly the same height and my nostrils were right up in his nostrils. I didn’t even worry about my breath smelling. Though I did afterwards. Loads.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  He scratched his head and pulled a face. “For what?”

  “For not laughing.”

  “Why would I laugh?”

  “Everyone else laughed when I told them.”

  “Well, people are idiots, Evelyn.”

  “I’m sorry about your friend.” I wondered if he’d ever been in the same facility as me, but I couldn’t remember much from that time. I’d totally not-subconsciously blocked it out.

  “It’s okay. Shit happens…”

  I wanted to kiss him. Somehow, suddenly, all I wanted to do was kiss Guy. The urge was insane, like something stronger than me, stronger than any urge I’d ever had before…even all my urges to wash all the time, and not eat, and check sell-by dates, and close my window just so at night-time to control the airflow into my room perfectly.

  I caught my breath.

  “Evie? You okay? You feeling sick again?”

  I made myself look right at him, completely into his eyes, which I’d never done before. They were so blue, how had I never noticed how blue they were before? Guy looked straight back and it was like nothing and everything all at once. My heart practically panicked and ran out of my ribcage to claim asylum. I’d never been looked at like that before. And even though I knew nothing about kissing, I knew Guy wanted to kiss me too. I could feel his own urge pulling him to me.

  He leaned his head forward.

  He hesitated and licked his lips.

  There was not one bad thought in my head.

  He came closer.

  And closer.

  I felt his stubble almost tickling my face.

  Then the noise of the party got louder.

  “EVIE?!”

  And he had pulled away.

  I blinked and looked in the direction of the voice.

  Joel and Jane stood with Amber held up between them. She looked like an abused rag doll. Her head flopped forward, her knees bending weirdly.

  “Can you help us get her home?”

  Eighteen

  I woke up with my very first hangover.

  “Ouch,” I said aloud on waking, because, well, it summed up exactly what I felt. I put my hand to my clammy thumping head. “Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch.”

  Hang on, where was I?

  I looked around me; just turning my head hurt. I was in my bedroom, on top of my duvet. I looked down. I was still wearing last night’s clothes.

  Had I passed out? How had I gotten home? What had happened?

  And… Ouch ouch ouch ouch OUCH.

  I lay back on my pillow – OUCH! – and tried to remember.

  Shots. I’d done shots… And Amber too. And everyone had been laughing about Oli, that was horrible. Poor Oli. God, I was such a bitch… Would it get out at college? He’d know I’d been taking the piss. That would be horrific. Why was I so stupid?! And where had Lottie been? Had there been a fight? I vaguely remembered a fight. And then…nothing. Blank. Zilch. Nada. I bit my lip. This was pretty scary. I hadn’t ever forgotten a part of my life before – though there were huge gaping wounds in my life I wished I could forget. I reached round my body for my phone and found it nestled under my spine – OWW.

  One message. From Amber. Received that morning at about 6 a.m.

  EVIE WHAT HAPPENED? I’VE WOKEN UP COVERED IN SICK AND WEARING ONE OF JOEL’S BAND T-SHIRTS?????????

  Joel?

  A vague memory lazily pinged into my brain. Amber. I’d walked her home with Joel and Jane. Well, they’d carried her and I was too busy…singing? Had I been singing? Another memory pinged in of Jane and me undressing Amber in her bedroom. She’d been covered in sick so Joel had lent her his T-shirt as we couldn’t find any of her clothes in the dark. I distinctly remembered that, I’d been cringed-out by the sight of Joel topless.

  What else had happened? And why did it feel like a hoover had sucked all the moisture out of my mouth?

  My bedroom door opened and I cowered in the beam of light like a scared vampire. Don’t be Mum, don’t be Mum, don’t be Mum…

  It was Rose – thank God. Carrying a glass of water!

  “Morning, waster,” Rose said, all bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed. “You’re alive then?”

  I eyeballed her water glass. “That better be for me.”

  “It is. I’ll go make some toast in a min if you want me to?”

  “Have I ever told you I love you?”

  She handed the water over and I glugged it back all in one go. I needed at least twelve more, I reckoned, and a time machine so I could go back to yesterday and not do those last couple of shots.

  “Thanks,” I moaned, handing the glass back. Then I crumpled back into bed, my head hammering angrily in my skull. Rose smiled and sat on the end.

  “So what happened then?”

  I groaned. “I drank too much.”

  “Well that much is obvious. You couldn’t get your house key in the lock. I only knew to come let you in because you woke me up screaming that African bit at the very beginning of ‘The Circle of Life’ from The Lion King.”

  I searched my memory bank for any glimmer of a reminder that that had happened… Nope, nothing.

  “If that was real, I would definitely remember it.”

  “Oh, it was real. You are SO lucky Mum was out late last night.”

  Mum – the thought of her made the water in my belly freeze. “Hang on? She went out?”

  “Yeah. She and Dad were on their monthly date night.” And she pulled a face.

  That was lucky. Mum was pretty…puritanical. We’d had so many lectures from her about the perils of drinking and smoking and drugging and funning and, well, living really. Thus why fun between her and Dad was scheduled into a monthly box on the calendar, like enjoying time with your husband was a dentist’s appointment or something. She was almost as unspontaneous as I was…almost. I smelled my duvet. It really didn’t smell very nice. I wondered if I could get away with washing it on the sly. Usually I was only allowed clean sheets every Tuesday, once a week, just like Sarah ordered.

  “Weren’t you supposed to be out last night?” I asked her.

  Rose shrugged. “Yeah, but I came home.”

  “Why?”

  “So what happened last night? Was the party any good? And how was the date?”

  It was such an obvious change of subject that I should’ve challenged it. But my head hurt and Rose never opened up unless she wanted to, so I just closed my eyes and made a dramatic “EGH” sound. “I did shots,” I said, my mouth prickling all metallic and gross at the mention of them. “And then, I’m not sure. And the date… Oh, Rose, it was awful. He brought his parents with him, then broke down and basically told me he had agoraphobia.”

  “What, seriously? Is he…”

  “Mental, like me? Yes.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Yes, well… I was shite. I didn’t help him at all. I just freaked out and handed him back to his parents. And then, at the party, everyone was laughing their arses off about Oli…and what if he finds out I told everyone? Lottie went off somewhere…I dunno. Alcohol ruined it. What did I tell you last night?”

  Rose smiled a little. “Well, you wouldn’t stop
droning on about some guy. I thought it must’ve been Oli.”

  I sat up in bed. “Guy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No, it wasn’t Oli. Guy’s his name. He’s a guy, called Guy.”

  “Ahhhh. From Joel’s band?”

  “Yeah. What was I saying?”

  Rose snuggled up to me, using my bum as a pillow. “You just kept wittering on about how sweet he was and how he took care of you and didn’t laugh like everyone else… You were quite soppy, Evie. I don’t have to emotionally prepare you for yet another first date, do I?”

  Guy. Guy…Guy…GUY!

  Oh my God, GUY! We’d almost kissed. The memory came crashing back like it’d been waiting for me all this time. He carried me up the stairs, and was so lovely, and I’d got feelings. They resurfaced instantly. And I was there again, on the bed, wanting him to kiss me so much and so hard and he almost had. Hadn’t he? My heart started tap-dancing on my insides.

  I smiled to myself as a metaphorical packet of fizzing candy erupted in my stomach.

  “That smile,” Rose said, all holier-than-thou, “tells me everything I need to know.”

  I grinned again. “It’s nothing. Nothing happened.” But it would’ve happened, wouldn’t it?

  “You’re not behaving like nothing happened.”

  “Stop being so wise. I’m sick.”

  “You’re not sick, you’re hung-over.”

  “Same thing.”

  “No it isn’t.”

  “Can you bring me some more water?”

  “Only if you tell me what happened.”

  “I told you – nothing. But if you bring me water, I’ll play with your hair while we watch a DVD.”

  “You’re on.”

  Rose returned with water and carbs and we cosied up in my smelly duvet to watch The Virgin Suicides. Her head was in my lap, and I stroked her hair, rubbing my fingers over her scalp. Rose was like half human, half Labrador when it came to getting her head rubbed. She utterly blissed out and went all trance-like whenever you did it.

  I only half-watched the film. I’d seen it countless times. Sofia Coppola was probably one of my favourite directors. Though I didn’t know how much of that was down to her being female, and me wanting to support a girl doing well in Hollywood…without taking her clothes off or starving herself. The dreamy highlighted shots were just what my hangover needed, but Guy was never far from my mind. Did I like him? What would’ve happened if the others hadn’t come in? Did he like me? Was it normal for me to keep getting crushes on every boy who showed interest in me? Was that bad? And what would happen when I next saw him? Was he going to ask me out? I didn’t deserve to be asked out again, did I? Not after how awful I’d been with Oli.