The Things We Do to Our Friends(84)

Tabitha nodded eagerly, and Ava seemed willing enough.

We climbed up the ladder in our scarves and coats, shivering as we ascended. Ava, Tabitha, and I.

Up high so we could see the spread of the New Town around us, glittering on demand, like we’d turned it on at the plug for our own evening enjoyment. The air was crisp and it was quiet. We took our glasses and we lay out.

I thought back to Jack, champagne and his hands on my neck, the drink coming back up my throat. The memory of drinking champagne for the first time during the episode. I had that same feeling of electricity, that acidic buzz. Although maybe I’m conflating these feelings in my mind now as I look back, because the whole night took on a strange aura of otherworldliness.

We drank. Not much time passed; we were ravenous, though, filled our glasses again and again, raced like there was a deadline to finish the bottles. In retrospect, I was the one pushing the drinking.

Tabitha got up and pulled me with her, and then we were dancing disjointedly, drunkenly. Ava lay watching us on an old rug.

Tabitha looked so beautiful. Maybe it was coming outside that had reinvigorated her. Alert in the way her gaze moved between Ava and me, and also relaxed—like her limbs were made of jelly—and when she danced she threw her head back in wild laughter at the delight of it, of seeing me, of being up on the roof.

It happened in a second. I reached out and I think she thought I was going to hug her; she leaned forward, smiling slightly, swaying a little.

At first, maybe I did plan to hug her; we so often touched—our hands, our arms, grazing, clawing, exploring each other all the time as if it was the only way to be close. It wouldn’t have been out of character.

In that moment, as my cold hands met her shoulders, I didn’t draw her closer.

How I felt about Tabitha was painful and hot and swirling. The cleanest of feelings, and an excruciating cocktail of love and hate and joy all at once.

Both hands, and one met each of her shoulders.

I gave her a push.

One quick, final push.

She reached out to steady herself—to hold on to me—but I stepped back as quickly as I’d done it.

She fell.

There was no other outcome. Stopping had been impossible, even if I’d wanted to, because, like Tabitha, I have always believed in punishment.

Tabitha had taken so much from me. Instead of protecting me, she’d brought the episode back. Dragged it out into the light—dirty and disgusting—and thrown it at me. Everything she’d done and everything she’d promised me had been a lie. She’d forced me to join her in something twisted, and I was the one who’d never be allowed to break free. She’d provoked me until it happened, created me, broken me, made me sick, mimicked me, bent it all, and by the time we reached that point on the roof, it was almost inevitable, because I could do bold things like her.

It could have tied everything up well, because after the mourning, after the disbelief and the reminiscence, death can be very tidy.

That is not how it ended, though, because Tabitha didn’t die.





71


After Tabitha fell, I didn’t have my father to call. I did have Ava, who sprang to life, scrambling up, and suddenly she was next to me because I was frozen, and then she was pulling me back as I tried to step toward the edge of the roof; I think maybe she thought I might jump and follow Tabitha in a grand gesture.

“I didn’t mean to push her—” I started, even though it clearly wasn’t true. Ava was close to me, and I wondered if she’d hit me or shake me or something. She was kinder than that, and she turned me around, put both hands on my shoulders instead, so we were standing there on the roof facing each other.

“I’m calling the ambulance, Clare. Just be calm. You don’t have to do anything at all.”

We were close enough to the edge, and I found it impossible not to peek over; I couldn’t help but look. Scaffolding had broken her fall and presumably saved her life. She was laid out on the boards, framed by steel posts, and she stared up at me, but she was too far down for me to see her true expression. The path of her fall had been bumpy and her body must have ricocheted off the side of the building. I saw that her hips were crooked, and it seemed inconceivable that a body could be so mangled, with her curved neck almost swanlike, or like the goose’s neck as it takes gavage.

Such an unnatural angle for a person.

She twitched.

Then everything happened quickly. The ambulance arrived and we were whisked off to the hospital. Samuel turned up and Imogen too. Ava must have told them.

We sat in the waiting room in a row. None of it fit anymore without Tabitha. How odd it was for us all to be there, under those unforgiving strip lights. No more casino nights or candlelit dinners.

“What happened?” Samuel asked Ava.

“She fell,” Ava said.

“She fell?” Imogen asked, brushing tears from her face. After all the animosity between Imogen and Tabitha, she was still genuinely upset.

“Yes, she fell,” Ava said quietly. “We were drinking up there, drinking far too much, and then we danced, and you know what she’s like, she took it too far and it was dark. She slipped.”

She seemed so calm, lying for me with ease.

“I can’t believe it!” Imogen said. “What did the doctor say?”

“We don’t know; she’s not responsive at the moment.” Ava reached out and put her arm around Imogen, whose crying had become noisy.