A Girl Like You. Gemma Burgess

without.

      All I need to do is survive the rest of the day, one minute at a time.

      I finally get into my tiny en suite bathroom, nearly dying of exhaustion from the effort of climbing the stairs, and gasp in shock for the second time today: last night’s carefully applied make-up is now Courtney Love On A Bender, and my smooth ponytail is an Amy Winehouse-y rat’s nest: knot upon knot upon knot. I look like that anti-binge drinking ad. God! It’s so not me. Social drinker, enthusiastic drinker, animated drinker, yes – but not binge drinker . . . I can’t bear to deal with it right now. I’ll just wash the rest of me and worry about the hair later.

      Then I start gagging in the shower, and, spilling water everywhere, have to hang on to the toilet seat to vomit up the poisonous sour taste of half-digested wine and whisky.

      Hello, rock bottom. Fancy seeing you here.

      Finally, I’m in bed with the curtains closed and my room nice and cold and dark. My heart is still hammering and I’m panting light, shallow breaths.

      I hate alcohol.

      What else happened last night? After Taqueria, we went to a pub around the corner, which I can’t remember very well, and we did tequila shots at the bar, and then we went to a downstairs bar with a DJ, and I have a feeling more shots were involved. I remember rubbing the belly of a fat man at the bar ‘for luck’. And I gave a girl in the toilets a make-over, and showed her the importance of blending. I think I was dancing to Marvin Gaye, yes I was and oh God, I think I did splits on the dance floor.

      WhyLordowhy.

      We definitely snogged in the last bar, and then we were in a cab snogging more, and I think I was on his lap but I can’t remember, and oh God, I am a slutbag, we were back at his, and we drank more (more?!) and that’s about it. Blackout before the R-rated bit starts.

      I’ll try to drink the first bottle of water.

      Fucking hell, that is exhausting.

      I need a hug. I make a little whimpering mew sound to myself, then stop. Even that is exhausting.

      My phone rings. It’s Plum again. It takes me a long time to pick it up, press the right button and hold it to my head.

      ‘Fuck,’ I say again.

      ‘Are you OK? Are you home?’

      ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Did you call work?’

      ‘You have a throat infection that will keep you in bed all weekend,’ she says crisply.

      ‘Oh, that’s lovely,’ I whisper. ‘Oh God, Plum, I’m dying, I’m fucking dying . . .’

      Plum is openly laughing now. Why is someone else’s hangover and drunken remorse always amusing?

      ‘I just threw up,’ I whisper.

      ‘If I were there I’d hold your hair back,’ she says. ‘I’d even braid it for you.’

      I moan slightly. ‘It’s fucking Robert’s fault. I hate him. He told me to have shots for confidence.’

      ‘How many shots did he tell you to have?’

      I pause. ‘One.’

      ‘How many did you have?’

      About sixteen.

      ‘Shut up, Plum,’ I instruct. ‘I am hanging up now.’

      I decide to lie as still as I can to get the poundpoundpounding in my head to go away. I’m sweating and shaking lightly. My scalp hurts. I try to ignore the waves of drunken remorse that are washing over me, the flickering images of last night that are moving around my head in a nightmarish kaleidoscope . . . Don’t think about it now, Abigail, just don’t think about it.

      Somehow, by holding my head at just the right angle, the bottle of water clasped to my chest, I fall asleep.

       Chapter Nine

      I wake up just past 5 pm to see Robert in my doorway.

      ‘What the hell happened to you?’

      I feel like I’ve just been hit in the mouth with a bucket of sand. I sit up unsteadily, try and fail to croak hello, and after several attempts, hold a bottle of water to my lips and drink till I have to collapse back on the pillow. God, water tastes good. So good.

      ‘Nice hair,’ he says. ‘Very sexy.’

      ‘Well, Robert,’ I say finally, ignoring the hair comment. ‘Some idiot told me shots would relax me.’

      ‘I said have a shot, not a bottle,’ replies Robert, leaning against the doorframe and folding his arms. He’s trying not to grin. And failing. ‘How was your walk of shame?’

      ‘It wasn’t a walk of shame,’ I moan. ‘It was a dash of total fucking mortification. I am full of remorse. I showed my fifi to a strange man. And I don’t even remember it.’

      ‘Your fifi doesn’t care. Have a shower and get dressed, Abby. We’re going out.’ I’ve noticed him calling me Abby recently, which no one has done since I was little.

      ‘I can’t possibly face the world. I am a harlot and a lush. I should be branded.’

      ‘We can brand you later. We’re going out,’ Robert says firmly.

      ‘I can’t possibly leave the house after my behaviour in the past 24 hours. I’m putting myself under house arrest.’

      ‘Get dressed,’ he yells, walking down the stairs.

      Leaving Skinny Jeans’ house this morning has turned into a fuzzy half-memory. Just like most of last night. I wonder what time we got to bed, I mean sleep.

      Flashback: lying on a pillow, kissing Skinny Jeans and looking over at his bedside clock as it hit 5.03 am.

      ‘Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!’ I shout.

      ‘Get up!’ shouts Robert up the stairs.

      I reach into my drawer and pull out my dissolvable vitamin Cs and Solpadeine stash, pop them into the remaining water and swirl them around till they’re all dissolved. Sipping it, I lean over and switch on my iPod player. Quite randomly, it’s ‘Get Over It’ by OK Go. How appropriate.

      Ah, the joy of a hot shower. I lather up with as much soap as I can and scrub my head with my poshest shampoo, and spend a careful ten minutes on my bed hair with a wide-tooth comb and half a bottle of conditioner.

      ‘Where are we going?’ I yell down the stairs at him. ‘What should I wear?’

      ‘Something sharp,’ he replies. Something sharp?

      I open my wardrobe doors. Come on, Abigail. It’s time to start speaking clothes. Not what Plum tells you to wear, not what Peter used to like you to wear . . . but what you want to wear.

      I feel like looking invincible and effortless tonight, because I feel just the opposite on the inside. So I take out my new Topshop jeans that make me feel extremely tall and thin, and pair them with a super-lightweight white vest. I add a blazer and a long, skinny red scarfy thing, and put on a pair of boots that add a good four inches to my height.

      Invincible. But effortless. Yes.

      Halfway through blow-drying my hair, Robert knocks on my door.

      ‘Room service.’ He walks in with a Bloody Mary and two crumpets smothered liberally with peanut butter. ‘I thought you might want to line your stomach.’

      ‘How did you know I love crumpets?’ I say, delightedly. ‘I thought I’d run out.’

      ‘You’ve always got a crumpet attached to your face on weekends, it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out . . .’ he says. ‘I picked them up on the way home. And everyone loves Bloody Marys.’

      ‘Thank