Someone maltreats my skull with a jackhammer.
That’s the first thing I realize when I slowly wake up. The second is the naked warm body that lies half on top of mine.
I glance to the side, but all I see is a mane of honey blonde hair. I don’t remember leaving Wren’s party with anyone. If I’m to be honest, I can’t remember leaving the party. I close my eyes again and try to evoke images from last night, but all I know are a few disjointed scraps of thought: Me, drunk on a table. Wren’s loud laugh as I fall down and land on the ground at his feet. Alistair’s warning look as I dance closely with his big sister and press myself tightly against her back.
Oh, fuck.
Carefully I raise my hand and brush the girl’s hair out of her forehead.
Double-fuck.
Alistair is going to kill me.
I sit up jerkily. A stabbing pain shoots through my head, and for a moment my eyes are black. Next to me, Elaine grumbles something incomprehensible and turns to the other side. At the same time, I realize that the jackhammer is my cell phone, which is lying on the bedside table and vibrating. I ignore it and search the floor for my clothes. I find one shoe near the bed, the other directly in front of the door under my black pants and the corresponding belt. My shirt lies over the brown leather chair. When I put it on and want to close it, I notice that a few buttons are missing. I groan and hope fervently that Alistair is no longer there. He doesn’t need to see the destroyed shirt, nor the red scratches that Elaine left on my chest with her pink-painted fingernails.
My phone starts vibrating again. I glance at the display, and my father’s name shines at me. Grand. It’s just before two on a school day, my head feels like it’s going to burst at any moment, and I’ve almost certainly had sex with Elaine Ellington. The last thing I need now is my father’s voice in my ear. Resolutely, I push him away.
What I need, however, is a shower. And fresh clothes. I sneak out of Wren’s guest room and close the door behind me as quietly as possible. On the way down, I encounter the remains of last night – a bra and several other items of clothing hang over the banister, cups, glasses and plates with leftovers are scattered all over the foyer. The smell of alcohol and smoke is in the air. It cannot be overlooked that a party was celebrated here until a few hours ago.
In the salon I find Cyril and Keshav. Cyril sleeps on the expensive white sofa of Wren’s parents, and Kesh sits on the armchair by the fireplace. A girl has made herself comfortable on his lap, burying her hands in his long black hair and kissing him passionately. The two look as if the party is about to start again. When Kesh pulls away from her for a moment and discovers me, he throws his head back and laughs. I give him the middle finger as I pass by.
The opulent glass doors leading into the Fitzgeralds’ garden are wide open. I step out and have to squint my eyes. The sunlight is not particularly glaring, but it still feels like a stab directly in my temple. Cautiously, I look around. It doesn’t look any better out here than it does indoors. Rather the opposite.
On the loungers by the pool I find Wren and Alistair. They have their arms crossed behind their heads, their eyes hidden behind sunglasses. I hesitate for a moment, then I stroll to them.
‘Beaufort,’ Wren says happily, pushing up his glasses so that they sit on his frizzy black hair. He grins broadly, but I can still see how pale his dark brown skin looks. He must have quite a hangover, just like me. ‘Had a nice night?’
‘Can’t really remember,’ I answer, daring to look in Alistair’s direction.
‘Fuck you, Beaufort,’ he says, without looking at me. His hair shimmers golden in the midday sun. ‘I told you to keep your hands off my sister.’
I expected this reaction. Unimpressed, I raise an eyebrow. ‘I didn’t force her into my bed. Don’t pretend she can’t decide for herself who she wants to have sex with.’
Alistair grimaces in agony and lets out an incomprehensible hum.
I hope that he will get his act together and not hold it against me forever, after all, I can’t undo it. And actually, I don’t feel like justifying myself to my friends. I have to do that often enough at home.
‘Woe betide you if you break her heart,’ Alistair says after a while, looking at me through the reflective lenses of his aviator sunglasses. Although I can’t see his eyes, I know that his gaze is not angry, but rather resigned.
‘Elaine has known James since she was five,’ Wren interjects. ‘She knows exactly what to expect from him.’
Wren is right. Elaine and I both knew yesterday what we were getting ourselves into. And even though I can hardly remember anything, I still have her breathless voice clearly in my ears: It only happens once, James. Just once.
Alistair doesn’t want to admit it, but his sister is no more a child of sadness than I am.
‘If your parents find out, they’ll announce your engagement immediately,’ Wren adds after a while, amused.
I twist the corners of my mouth disgruntled. My parents have been keen for years to get me engaged to Elaine Ellington – or any other daughter of a wealthy family with a huge inheritance. But at eighteen, I have much better things to do than even give a thought to what or who is in store for me after I graduate from school.
Alistair also snorts contemptuously. He seems to be just as unimpressed by the idea of welcoming me as a new member of his family soon. Playfully offended, I press my hand to my chest. ‘It almost sounds like you don’t want me to be your brother-in-law.’
Now he pushes his glasses up into his wavy hair and glares at me with dark eyes. Although he has a slim figure, I know how strong and fast he can be. I’ve experienced that often enough during training.
The look with which he looks at me gives me an idea of what he is up to.
‘I’m warning you, Alistair,’ I growl, taking a step back.
It’s faster than I can blink. Suddenly he is standing right in front of me. ‘I warned you too,’ he replies. Unfortunately, you weren’t interested.’
The next moment he gives me a violent blow in the chest. I stumble backwards, straight into the pool. The impact drives the air out of my lungs, and for a moment I don’t know where up and down is. The water rushes in my ears, the throbbing headache seems much worse to me underwater.
Nevertheless, I don’t show up immediately. I let my body go limp and remain in the same position, face down. I stare at the tiles of the pool, which I can only see dimly from here, and count the seconds in my mind. I close my eyes for a moment. It is almost peacefully quiet. After half a minute, I gradually run out of air and the pressure on my chest increases. I let one last dramatic bubble rise, keep waiting, and then…
Alistair jumps into the pool and grabs me. He pulls me with him to the surface, and when I open my eyes and see his shocked look, I have to snort and gasp for air at the same time.
‘Beaufort!’ he shouts stunned and throws himself at me. His fist lands in my side—damn, his punches are hard—and he tries to put me in a headlock. Because he’s shorter than me, it doesn’t work out the way he hoped. We wrestle for a moment, then I get hold of him. I lift it up with ease and throw it as far away from me as possible, Wren’s laughter reaching my ear as Alistair goes down with a loud splash. When he reappears, he stares at me so angrily for a moment that I have to snort again. Alistair, like all Ellingtons, has a total angelic face. Even if he wants to look threatening – his light brown eyes paired with the blonde curls and his perfect facial features make it simply impossible.
‘You’re a wanker of the worst kind,’ he says, splashing a gush of water at me.
I wipe my face with my hand. ‘I’m sorry, man.’
‘It’s okay,’ he replies, but continues to splash me with water. I spread my arms and let it go over me. At some point he stops, and when I look at him, he just shakes his head laughing.
That’s when I know that everything is fine between us.
‘James?’ a familiar voice sounds.
I whirl around. My twin sister stands at the edge of the pool and covers the sun. She wasn’t at the party yesterday, and for a moment I think she’s trying to give me hell for skipping class with the boys today. But then I look properly, and I get ice-cold: her shoulders are limp, her arms hang powerlessly next to her body. Avoiding our gaze, she stares at her feet.
As fast as I can, I swim to her and get out of the pool. I don’t care how wet I am, I grab her by the upper arms and force her to lift her head and look at me. My stomach does a somersault. Lydia’s face is red and swollen. She must have cried.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask, holding her a little tighter by the arms. She wants to turn her head away, but I won’t let that. I grasp her chin so that she can’t avoid my gaze.
Tears shimmer in her eyes. My throat gets dry.
‘James,’ she whispers hoarsely. ‘I messed up.’
