We were so ashamed of ourselves we stayed upstairs for the rest of the evening, Susanna had said. I swear by the next week you’d forgotten it ever happened. That had had nothing to do with brain damage. My mind—unbroken, back then, wholly and purely itself—had done that.
I felt rotten, not just booze-sick or hash-sick but the all-pervading rottenness of food poisoning or infection, clammy and watery-weak, my whole system revolting. I realized that I couldn’t see very much and after a while that I was on my knees and elbows, forehead pressed to the floor. I breathed slowly and shallowly, waiting to see if I was going to throw up or faint. Some tiny lucid part of me managed to be glad that Melissa wasn’t here to see me like this.
My eyes wouldn’t open. I couldn’t tell whether I was falling asleep or passing out; either one seemed like a blessed mercy. Somehow I managed to grope and clamber my way onto the bed, fingers tangling in the duvet, stomach swinging, before the blackness closed in from every side and I was gone.
Ten
I woke up because the sun was hitting me in the face. I managed to open my eyes a slit: light was pouring in around the edges of the curtains, it was late and it was a gorgeous autumn day. Every individual part of me felt like shit in a different way. I rolled over and groaned into my pillow.
The night before came back piece by piece. All I wanted in the world was to go back to sleep, preferably for weeks or months or forever, but the movement had been too much for me. I made it to the bathroom just in time.
The retching went on long after my stomach was empty. Finally I felt safe enough to stand up, swill out my mouth and splash cold water on my face. My hands were trembling; in the mirror I had the same dopey, blotchy look I had had in the hospital.
I was terrified. Being suspected of murder had been one thing when I believed I was innocent: this wasn’t some cheesy Hollywood drama, I was hardly going to wind up in prison for something I hadn’t done. It was an entirely different thing now that I might be guilty. Rafferty was sharp and experienced and cunning in ways I couldn’t begin to imagine; if I had left any evidence—and how could I not have? eighteen, clueless—he would find it. He could talk circles round me, think circles round me, and I didn’t even know what to try and hide; I had no idea what had happened, why in God’s name I would have done this. It seemed incredible that I could have got away with it for as long as I apparently—possibly? probably?—had.
I desperately needed to think, but my head was pounding much too viciously. I dug through my stuff for my painkillers and swallowed two; I thought about chasing them with a Xanax, but I needed my mind clear, or as clear as I could get it. Then—ignoring the fact that I was still in my snazzy shirt and linen trousers from last night, now smeared with dirt and reeking of sweat and hash—I went downstairs, taking every step gingerly, in search of coffee.
The kitchen was head-splittingly bright; the wall clock said it was past noon. Hugo was at the cooker, in his dressing gown and slippers, keeping an eye on the coffeemaker as it spat cheerily. “Ah,” he said, turning with a smile. He was clearly having a good day, in fact he was clearly in a lot better shape than I was. “The dead arise. So it was a good night, yes?”
I sat down at the table and covered my face with my hands. Coffee had been a bad idea; just the smell was making me feel like I might throw up again.
Hugo laughed. “I was right not to wake you, then. I thought you might need the lie-in. As soon as I heard you moving about, I put the coffee on.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“And I’ve got a surprise for you, once you’re awake enough. Would you eat something? Toast? Scrambled eggs, maybe?”
“Oh God.”
He laughed again. “In a bit, then.” He peered into the coffeemaker, turned off the gas ring and poured me a very large espresso. “There”—shuffling over to me, leaning on his stick, my brain didn’t come up with the idea of going to him until it