Every single alcohol bottle is empty. Every single one. Spirits bottles are on the floor, open, their sticky drips pooled onto the lino. The table is sticky. The work surface is sticky. I have to give up momentarily, sit down and survey the carnage. I’ll bet everyone went home having had the time of their lives. Even I can see that drinking game livened things up a bit. For a minute. Or two. But everything went from zero to a hundred in only a few seconds. Liv participated in the end, and there’s a part of me that’s so angry with her for doing that, for egging Ben on. Not that he needed egging on.He was unstoppable. I wonder what time he did eventually stop. He’d have been the last man standing.
‘Morning,’ Ben says groggily. He looks a mess. He is a mess. Only he’s been covering it so well for so long.
‘Morning,’ I say half-heartedly. ‘Thought I’d make a start.’
He pulls up a chair and blows air out of his cheeks.
‘Do you want me to make you a coffee?’ I volunteer. ‘I need one.’
‘Yeah, thanks.’ He looks around the kitchen. ‘What a night!’
‘Did you have a good time?’ I ask drily.
He laughs. ‘Yeah.’ Then his face falls.
‘Was it worth it?’ I test the waters with this. I don’t want a fight, but I have no idea if Ben knows what he’s doing to himself by partying this hard, falling off the wagon so awfully and so regularly, losing his girlfriend.
‘Guess so,’ he shrugs. ‘Just a house-party. Good fun.’
‘Yeah,’ I reply drily and fill the kettle before flicking it on. I grab two mugs, fill them with coffee granules and wait while the kettle begins a slow boil.
‘Aurora’s gone,’ Ben says.
I turn round slowly, slump into a chair. I knew this was going to be the outcome, but there was a little part of me that hoped it wouldn’t be. But then if she’d stayed – kept on going with Ben, kept on hoping, kept on being in that kind of relationship – I wonder how much respect I’d have had for Aury, how much she’d have had for herself.
‘Did you hear me?’ Ben asks and I look at him and nod.
‘Yeah. I’m sorry, mate,’ I say, meaning it. I am. Ben needslove and support, but not at the cost of Aury’s mental health, her future, her happiness. She was being brought down by him. He’s bringing us all down a bit. What are we supposed to do now? Are Liv and I supposed to look after Ben? We were looking after him in a way, but this feels definite. Like he’s totally our responsibility. Although maybe it’s only me. Liv’s not really doing much for Ben. And neither should she. We’re students. We’re supposed to be having a good time, not parenting someone. Ben’s having too much of a good time and the fallout is damaging us all.
‘Do you think this is a warning shot?’ Ben attempts.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you think she’ll come back? Do you think Aurora just wants me to sit up and pay attention?’
‘To what?’ I ask warily.
‘All the things she hates about me. She’s doing so well and I’m doing so badly, and she deserves good things and I’m a bad thing. I can’t help being a bad thing. I love her, though.’
‘I know,’ I placate Ben, without really meaning it.
If he does love her, he’s got a funny way of showing it these days. Ultimately it was a choice between the alcohol and Aury, and he chose the drink. He’s got an illness. He can’t curb it. He doesn’t want to hear that now, though. And it’s nothing he doesn’t already know.
‘I don’t know. Ben …’ I’m not really hungover, but this is too hard a conversation to have at this hour and without caffeine. ‘Ben, there are things about you that won’t change. Not now anyway. Maybe down the line. Maybe. So perhaps Aury just needs time. Or maybe you need time and then …’
‘And then we can get back together?’
My eyes meet his again. I want to say,No, leave her alone. Let her move on with someone who is nothing like you, but I don’t. Instead I say, ‘I don’t know, mate. I’m sorry. Leave her be for now, and then who knows?’
‘It’s nice to have a bit of hope,’ Ben replies, and I can’t help feeling bad for him as he looks hopeless, helpless. And then, in true Ben fashion, he redeems himself a little, for everything that came before and maybe too for all that will come after, when he says, ‘Throw me a bin liner. I’ll help clear up.’
I smile as the kettle finishes boiling, because now that we’ve lost Aury, it’s Ben, Liv and me who are a team and I need to work with what I’ve got.
‘No. Leave it. Fire up the Xbox. We can do this later.’
I’m sorry,Aury texts later that night in response to a message I sent her this morning when I’d discovered she’d gone. The three of us are in front of the TV. I was supposed to be out tonight with friends from my course, but I cancelled. I feel the need to protect Ben now, keep an eye on him, shadow him for a while. Just so I can see he’s OK. He wants to watch trash reality TV and it’s not at all my thing, but Liv’s all right with it, flicking through a celebrity magazine while Ben stares mindlessly at the even more mindless TV. It’s as if we’re trying to carry on like normal human beings, even though one of our number has left us. It changes everything. I feel the weight of it.
You don’t need to apologise,I reply to Aury.Are you OK?
