Tell Me I'm Worthless(28)

The mood lighting goes to yellow, then orange, and then, slowly, darkens until everything is bathed in red. The computer and the crooked ceiling. Me, too. I can see myself in a mirror up above the table. My face, washed out by the red light so that my features are barely visible. Just a faceless red girl. In a red room.

This is worse than being in the party. But when I try to lift myself off of the beanbag my legs don’t work. Fuck, I think, fuck I haven’t drunk that much, I haven’t taken anything, I… I look up, and I see Ila on the other side of the room. The mood lightning should have changed by now, transitioned to purple, then blue, then green again, but it stays red, it stays red and quivers around us. You and I, Ila. The music sounds like screaming infused through a synthesiser. This is not a ghost. Ila is not dead, and this house is not haunted. Well, of course it is. Every house is haunted. But it doesn’t haunt me. Yet Ila stands there, on the other side of the room. She doesn’t move. I can’t move either.

And then, as fast as she arrived, she’s gone. I raise myself to my feet, feeling unsteady, and grab the wine to drink more of it. The mood light seems to be stuck on red. I don’t want to be in that place a second longer, so I leave as fast as I can without tripping on the steep stairwell. The synth music fades away behind me, and below me a thumping bass reaches up, mixed with voices – so many voices. Too many. I descend into them and come out near the kitchen. There are so many people here now. More people than my brain can readily take in. More voices saying more words than I can grasp on to. People dancing and snogging and laughing. In the middle of them I spot Leon, his eyes pointed at the ceiling, and fight my way through towards him. People are unwilling to move for me. As I try to weave around them, eyes glare at me. Who the fuck do I think I am?

I have no idea how long I was in the chillout room. I thought I was only ten minutes but in my absence the party’s entire being has changed. I call out to Leon when I get close, and he sees me. My arms are pointing out. He grabs one and jerks me to him.

“Hey!” His eyes are white disks.

“What’s happening? Where did all these people come from?”

“I don’t know!” He smiles. “Someone who knows someone told a Whatsapp group, and they told more people, and now look at it, look at all these people! Do you have any coke?”

“No,” I say, “sorry!” He must have already run out. Where’s Sasha?”

“In her bedroom!”

I know where that is. It’s on the other side of the crowd, though. The crowd of strangers. How can I have lived in this city for so long, and have been to so many parties, and recognise so few of these people? The ones I do feel like I’ve seen before aren’t people I would talk to. I don’t even know a lot of their names. I have to use my shoulder to try and pry my way through people. Someone tells me to fuck off when I knock them off balance, I say sorry, sorry, and pull them up, but they shove me away, into five other people, who spill their drinks on each other, and then they push me away too, into more people. Hands on me, jostling me until they knock me nearly off my feet. I’m scrambling across the floor, and the door is in sight. The bedroom. I can be safe in the bedroom. Sasha will know what to do, and Jon, if he’s there as well. I’m sure he didn’t mean to invite this many people.

The door opens beneath my hands. Inside, the bedroom is dark. The atmosphere is moist with sweat, so moist my skin feels condensation settling upon it. I don’t see them at first. But then I do, although it’s hard for me to really recognise what it actually is that I’ve stumbled into. On the bed, Jon is sitting on an unconscious Sasha. Her head tips forwards, bending down over the edge of the bed.

“Fucking amazing party out there,” Jon says. He straddles her back. Her dress is pulled down, and he has a knife in his right hand. On the skin of her left shoulder, he has inscribed words with the blade, which seep blood out onto the bedcovers. The knife has blood along its pale edge.

Ila, over me, cutting into my forehead. Jon never commented on it, but he must have seen the pale pussy scar. I try to hide it, but it’s impossible to do completely.

Jon, with his knife fetish. Sasha, eyes closed, mouth open but wordless. I can see now, even in the dim light. Her exposed back is riddled with them; with Jon’s words, so many of them that in some parts of her the scars are layered one over the other. Over and over. And there, the freshest one, newly cut just a minute ago. They all say the same thing: Property of Jon Harroway.

Jon stands up, and steps off his girlfriend. He jumps athletically off the bed and walks slowly towards me. The knife swings loosely at his side, but it is, very much, there. He knows I’m eyeing it.

“Alice,” he says, “don’t tell anyone, okay?”

“No.” I gulp, or try to. My throat is dry. I left my wine somewhere. If I was holding it, I’d feel safer, knowing I had something I could use for defence. But there’s nothing in my hands. “No, of course not.”

“It’s completely consensual.”

I look at her.

“She asks me for it. I keep telling her it isn’t safe, but it’s the only way she can get off, you know?”

“I understand.”

“So if you walk out of here now, you’re not going to try and misrepresent this, are you?”

“No, Jon. Why would I do that? What you and Sasha do together is your own business.”