come to bed with me, and we’ll go first thing in the morning. Leon can stay with Hugo—I don’t want to leave him, you know I don’t, but we can come visit—”
I was in much worse shape than I had realized before I stood up. None of this made sense. “Wait,” I said. “You’re not feeling sick?”
“I want to go home.”
“But,” I said. “Why? Are you mad about the, the thing at the gallery? Because—”
“No. That wasn’t good, you know it wasn’t, but right now it’s not the— This is terrible, Toby. The three of you. Look what you’re doing to each other.”
“Hang on,” I said. “This is, what, this is because I didn’t get Dominic off Leon’s back? You’re upset about that? I mean I should have, I get it, but I was just a stupid kid, I didn’t realize—I’ll go back and apologize—”
Melissa shook her head in frustration. “No. Not that, you can do that some other time, but right now— I can see what you’re doing. I’m not stupid. But they’re doing something too, Toby”—a fierce flick of her head towards the terrace—“they’re trying to do something to you, and I can’t tell what it is but it’s not good. And we need to go home.”
“No we don’t.” I felt I had every right to be indignant about this; she was the one who had insisted we should come here in the first place, I had only gone along with it to make her happy, what was her problem? “Everything’s fine. I know what I’m doing.”
“What? What do you think you’re going to get out of this?”
“You heard them out there.” I was still hanging on to the banister, gesturing at the terrace with my other arm, I knew I looked like some wild flailing drunk but I didn’t care— “They know something. I’m going to find out what it is.”
“Why? Who cares what they know? What could they know that’ll make anything better?”
Even if I’d been sober, I couldn’t have put it into words; it surged up inside me, so immense that it almost stopped my throat. “I’m trying to fix it,” I said. The words felt much too small for something so momentous. “I’m trying to fix it all.”
Melissa’s head went back in frustration. “You’re not fixing it. Toby. You’re going to make it a million times worse.”
That stung. “You don’t think I can do this? You think, what, I’m too fucked up, I’ll make a mess of it and they’ll see straight through me—”
“No. You’re doing it really well: pretending to be all drunk and stupid, and they’re falling straight into it—”
“Then what? You don’t think I can handle it? You think I’ll find out something I don’t like and I’ll, what, go to pieces, I’ll, I’ll be running in circles making chicken noises—”
“I don’t know! I’m not good at saying things, Toby, I’m doing my best but— All I know is, this whole thing is bad. It’s bad stuff. And”—she was drunk too, swaying forwards, small pale hands swooping and whirling like sparklers in the dimness—“and, and, when something’s bad all through, the only thing you can do—not you, anyone—the only thing is to get away. You can’t go, ‘Oh, it’s fine, I’ll just jump in and fix it—’ It doesn’t work like that.” Glint of tears on her face, but when I stepped towards her she put up her hands to keep me off—“No, don’t, I’m trying to— If you get yourself all tangled up in whatever’s going on here, if you deliberately dive right into the middle, it’s going to wreck you. And I’m not going to sit here and watch while you do that to yourself. Not after how hard you’ve worked to get better, how hard we’ve both— I’m not. I’m not.” She was crying openly now, and it ripped my heart open. “I’m going home. Please come with me, Toby. Please.”
“You can’t drive,” I said, firmly and ridiculously, as if that were the final word on this whole issue. “You’re too drunk.”
“We can get a taxi. Please. Let’s go.”
I would have done it if I could, done it in a heartbeat. I would have done anything else in the world, ripped my own arm off, to stop the tears falling down her face. But this was my one chance of ever clawing my way out of this strangling dark, back up to the warm bright world; this was it.
“Go to bed,” I said. “I’m way too messed up