Am I Normal Yet? (14 page)

That's not what happened though.

I let him cry. I walked him back to his parents, saying “it's okay” over and over again while he continuously apologized. His mum gave me a dirty look as I delivered her son back. I wanted to grab her face and yell, “I'm not a horrible person, I'm not. But I'm broken too and I've never been on the receiving end of this behaviour before and I can't handle it and I have to look after me first, before anyone else.”

I just said, “It was nice meeting you.”

Then I turned and left them to tend to their son.

I ran home quickly to change for the party, my phone buzzing with messages from the girls asking how it had gone. I had a horrid feeling in my stomach.

Guilt.

I packed my bag, chucking lipsticks and all sorts into it. Why hadn't I opened up to Oli? It's not like he would judge me. He would get it, much more than anyone else. He wouldn't have thought any less of me, and it would've reassured him so much.

Just as I was about to leave, I looked at myself one more time in the mirror. Really looked. My hair was up, my top clung in all the right bits, a bag hung off my shoulder. I looked like any other sixteen-year-old on her way to a party. From the outside, nobody could tell what had happened to me, and I'd worked so hard to make it that way. Then I understood why I'd done what I did.

I enjoyed being the healthy one. That was it.

For the first time ever,
I
was the normal one.

And it had felt intoxicatingly good…

A couple of hours later and I was getting acquainted with the treacherous world of shots. Sambuca shots to be precise. Screw the medication, I was on hardly any now anyway.

“Woah, Evie, where have you come from?” Guy yelled over the music. He'd just stumbled into Anna's kitchen and witnessed me doing two shots. Alone. Because doing shots alone is a great sign of mental well-being.

“I am doing shots,” I told him calmly. “It is a perfectly reasonable thing for a sixteen-year-old to do.” I did one more and winced.

Guy took the sambuca bottle out of my hand. “Yeah, but you're not usually like this.”

“Like what? Fun?”

“No…like everyone else.”

We held the sambuca bottle between us, looking at each other a bit longer than two friends would usually look at each other. Amber came in.

“EVIE,” she hollered. “Where's the sambuca? I need it.” Her hair was frizzing, a sign Amber was wasted. She said whenever she got drunk, her hair got drunk with her. It was her idea to get trashed tonight. And after hearing how loud she and Lottie laughed when I'd told them about Oli bringing his parents, I was inclined to agree.

They'd really laughed at him. They thought it was funny, hilarious even. I'd found myself laughing along, muttering “yeah, what a freak” with them as my personal guilt turned to anger and despair. I mean, I hadn't told them about the agoraphobia because I reckoned that was private. But they'd wanted to know, obviously, why I hadn't brought him with me to the party and the parent thing had just sorta blurted out. I guess it was freaky if you didn't know why…

As I said before – mental illness, we sure as hell know the words for it, but we still can't have sympathy with the actual behaviour.

I tugged and reclaimed the sambuca from Guy. I waved it in the air in victory but I hadn't screwed the bottle top on properly and treated us all to a sambuca shower.

“Oops,” I said, giggling as sticky aniseed splattered in my hair.

“Jeez, Evie.” Guy wiped the dribbles off his face, looking peed off. “I think you've had enough.”

“Me? Coming from the king of substance misuse?”

“Yeah,” said Amber. She wiped the sambuca off her shoulder with her finger and licked it. “Don't you have a spliff to smoke in the corner by yourself or something?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Guy stormed out the kitchen, knocking an empty bottle over in the process.

For some reason, I found this hilarious and threw my head back laughing. Amber eyeballed me curiously.

“You all right, Eves? It ain't that funny.”

“The beer bottle!” I laughed harder.

“Yikes. Maybe you have had enough.”

“No!” I protested, and held my makeshift shot glass (egg cup) up. “Please, sir, can I have some more?”

Amber grinned and obligingly poured. “To us,” she said, knocking our egg cups.

“To us,” I drank.

Joel and Jane just wouldn't stop laughing. They clutched at each other, holding each other's ribs instead of their own.

“Wait,” Joel gasped. “So what did this dude say when his parents showed up?”

I tried to remember. It was hard, despite it happening only a few hours ago. I was finding it hard to remember anything though. What people's names were, where I was, how to walk properly…

“Er…” I said, searching for the memory. “Oh yeah! He said, ‘Don't worry, we don't have to sit with them.'”

Joel literally cried with laughter. “Here,” he yelled at a group of his mates, beckoning them over. “This girl just went on a date today” – he gestured towards me – “and the guy brought his parents with him!”

All of Joel's mates laughed. Well, not Guy. He wasn't there. I hadn't seen him since the kitchen. It was getting out of hand; everyone knew about Oli. Poor Oli! I hoped it wouldn't go around the whole college. I'd already been such a douche today.

“No way.”

“What? Seriously?”

“That's mental.”

I stood up. My head spun so fast I sat right back down again. I gave myself a moment and tried again.

“I'm off.”

People still giggled manically as I left the living room.

Amber was in the hallway.

“EVIE!” Her hair was definitely drunk. It was twice the size of her head. She pulled me onto the stairs for a hug. “I've missed you.”

I fell on top of her and we lay there, giggling, until someone asked us to move out the way. “Where's Lottie?”

“Oh, she's upstairs shagging Posh Boy. Has been since we got here.”

“Oh…” That didn't seem very like Lottie. This party was supposed to be The Big Moment Where Tim Finally Met Her Friends but we'd only really said “hi” before they'd both disappeared upstairs.

“I know…” Amber answered. I must've been thinking aloud. “I think there's stuff up with them.”

“What sort of stuff?”

“I dunno. Did you notice how he hardly even said hello to us? Who knows? I've never been in a relationship.”

I settled my face into her moist shoulder. “Me neither.”

“At least you had a date today…well…does it count as a date if the boy brings his parents?” And she too, like everyone bloody else, melted into hysteria.

I bum-shuffled down the stairs. “I'm getting more drink.”

“Oh! Bring me some,” she called.

There were so many obstacles to the kitchen. People, crap on the floor, my own feet not behaving. Everyone was hazy, like they were in an art house movie's self-indulgent scene or something. All slow shutter speeds and blurry limbs.

Movie. I wished I was at home watching a movie.

The bass beat from the heavy metal was all metallic in my ears, my mouth tasted of metal too. Maybe if you hang out with heavy metal people enough you become metal?

Kitchen. Busy. Had trouble getting to the gin bottle.

What is gin anyway?

It tasted like grown-ups.

It was okay if just a shot of it.

Shots.

Sarah would be proud. Shots make you drunk. Being drunk makes you sick. I hadn't been sick in six years.

I couldn't bear the thought of being sick.

Until tonight.

Outside. I was outside.

Cold though. It was proper cold.

Nice down here in this little corner I'd found.

Maybe if I just closed my eyes? Had a little rest. Didn't think about Oli and the hatred in his face, at himself. Didn't think about just how loud everyone's laughs were. Didn't think about how I didn't tell him about me. About who I am. What I'm like. I let him down… I let myself down.

Just like him. I'm just like him.

And everyone thinks he's a freak.

Freak.

Freaky freak freak…freakington.

Man, it was cold.

“Evie?”

“Shh, now quiet time,” I told the voice.

“Evie? What you doing out here by yourself?”

It was Guy's voice. I smiled.

“I'd rather have two bollocks the size of watermelons,” I told him, and started manically grinning.

“Oh Christ. You're wasted.”

“No, YOU'RE wasted.” It's more convincing if you say it with your eyes closed. That was my viewpoint and I was sticking to it. “You're always wasted.” I put on a voice I didn't know I had. “Oooo, I'm Guy. I think I'm so cool because I play the gee-taar, and I smoke all the weed but what am I hiding from? WHAT?”

I opened my eyes on the “
what?
” for dramatic effect, and his face was right in my face. Smiling.

“Your mate. The giant one. She's passed out. I don't know where the other one is. Can you please let me take you inside?”

“You said please.”

“Yes, well, I have very good manners.”

“Not really.” And I closed my eyes again.

“No, Evie, don't go to sleep. Come on.”

I was lifted and floated through the garden. It was a nice garden, lots of bushy bits, it would be nicer without all the people standing around in circles, playing the music too loud, passing one cigarette between them. Was it a cigarette? I floated past too quickly to work it out.

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.