“Knox.” My father clears his throat. “Get up.”
I stand up, but somehow it doesn’t feel right. My body is telling me that it wants to lie on the ground, stare at the ceiling, and look at the lights of the chandelier morph into various shapes.
Fuck. I’m not just drunk, I am absolutely off my ass. I push the shards to the side with my foot, when a hand touches my arm. Small, delicate, and totally different from mine. I like it more than the glass shard.
“Stop,” I hear a soft voice say next to my ear. “You’re just cutting yourself. I’ll do it.”
I blink, but all I recognize is a blond mop of hair. “Paisley?”
She tilts her head to the side and smiles, while sweeping the rest of the vase into the dustpan. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a nicer smile.
“Maybe you should come into the kitchen with me for a sec to collect yourself?”
All I hear is ‘come into the kitchen with me,’ and think it’s afantastic idea. With narrowed eyes, I glance over at the table to locate my father. But everything still looks fuzzy and, what with all the people in white shirts, I quickly start to feel overwhelmed. So I turn and follow Paisley into the kitchen. Low voices drift over to us from the table, but I can’t understand what they’re saying thanks to the wall that’s halfway dividing us.
Paisley tips the rest of the vase into the trash can. Then she slides me a plate of roast, potatoes, and a wonderfully smelling sauce, along with a glass of water, over the island. “Here. This should help you get your head together a bit.”
I take the plate and wolf the food down in not exactly the most elegant way. “Oh, my God. This is nuts.” One potato just will not fit into my mouth and falls back onto the plate.
Paisley is looking at my food orgy with a half-amused, half-pissed off air. “Would you like to tell me why you showed up way too late and way too drunk?”
“Naw.”
Paisley begins preparing to take the roast away.
“Don’t even think about it!” I turn to the side and laugh, which I probably shouldn’t have, as all I succeed in doing is spitting a kind of brown rain.
“Ugh.” Her nose twitches and she makes a face. “You’re a pig.”
I swallow noisily and take a big swig of water. “How bad was it?”
“Well, it looked like you were spewing diarrhea out of your…”
“Not that!” I’m getting dizzy and I have to hold onto the island until I can stand up completely straight again. “With the sponsors, I mean.”
“Oh. Pretty good actually. Things were a bit tense because, well…they’re here for you. And you weren’t here. Kind of like being at a birthday party and the birthday boy doesn’t show.”
“Yeaaaah.” I consider what I should say, but, truthfully, I have no interest in talking about sponsors at all. Paisley takes the carafe and fills my glass back up. I notice fine white lines on her hand. Inarrow my eyes into slits because, at first, I think they must be the result of my alcohol-soaked imagination. But as my sight becomes sharper, they don’t disappear. I impulsively reach out and grab her hand before she can pull away.
She seems surprised. “Knox, what…”
“Your hand.” I turn it over, and back, and over and back, to confirm that I am really seeing what I am seeing and not suffering from hallucinations. “It’s full of scars.”
Only now does she seem to grasp what I mean, and attempts to pull away but I don’t let her. Somehow I’ve got the feeling that, if I hold onto her, I can heal her. “What happened?”
Paisley looks at me for a moment with an expression that is impossible to define before saying, “Sometimes there are people who act like monsters. And sometimes there are monsters that act like people.” She gives me a sad smile, then gently pulls her hand away. “The man who did this to me was pretty good at both.” She meets my stunned glance and shrugs. “You’ll forget by tomorrow anyway…”
“Definitely not.” Sadly, at that very moment my words seem a bit less than believable, as I lose my balance for a split second, but I really mean it. To make that clear to her, I push my plate to the side, put my hands on her shoulders and turn her toward me. “Paisley. At this very moment, I would kill that person, is that clear?”
Her smile is weak. “Don’t say such things.”
“But I amraging.”
“Me too. But it doesn’t help anything. Come on, your guests are waiting.”
“I don’t give a shit about my guests.”
“But I do.” With a concentrated look, she pours champagne into a flute. “I need this job, you forget already?” She’s walking ahead of me and only now do I realize she’s wearing heels. They clack across the tiles, and I feel compelled to put out a hand to support her, she seems to be moving forward so unsurely, like a newborn fawn. Sheis concentrating on her tray. And at that moment, watching how concentrated she is and how she’s pushed her tongue between her lips while her little nose is twitching, I am overcome by a prickling feeling. As if the Molly was making a comeback. The drunk numbness in my body is replaced by a warm tickling, and suddenly I feel the crazy desire to rip the tray out of Paisley’s hand and press it to myself. To take the flowery smell of her hair into myself and to feel the sequins of her Valentino dress against my skin.
