It's Not You It's Me

by Allison Rushby

  I trip over one of the three steps that leads up to the corridor where the bathrooms are situated, and Jas grabs me by the waist to steady me. Then he moves in front and starts pulling me along with one hand, steering the way.

  We walk down the corridor in silence. The ladies’ is first, and Jas slows down to let me go in and then continues down the hall himself. Except that I forget to let go of his hand for some reason…

  And me forgetting to let go of Jas’s hand pulls him back.

  He turns around, surprised, and moves back closer to me. It’s then that I know I have to put my plan into action. I have to tell him. I have to tell him now. It can’t wait any longer.

  As he enters my personal space, I revise the plan quickly in my head:

  Tell him I still have feelings for him (leaving out the part about them not being very ladylike).

  Tell him I’ve tried, but I can’t stop these feelings.

  Tell him I know the feelings are unrequited.

  Tell him that being friends isn’t enough for me.

  Tell him the only solution to the problem is to not see each other any more.

  Right. That’s it. Good one, Charlie. It’s perfectly simple. A perfectly simple five-step plan. And, now that it’s all straight in my mind I open my mouth and get ready to put the perfectly simple five-step plan into action.

  But somehow things go a little bit astray.

  Instead of moving into my carefully thought out speech, I push Jas up against the wall, grab his head to bring him down to my height and start kissing him.

  He kisses me back. Really kisses me back.

  And I don’t think I’ve kissed like this since high school. Not with this kind of fervour.

  As we keep going, people start to push past us in the not so wide hallway. But we don’t care. We can’t seem to keep our hands off each other.

  It’s disgraceful.

  A pash-off. A drunken pash-off.

  And it’s good.

  Fantastically, smashingly, lip-smackingly good.

  Eventually, after what seems like hours, we break off. ‘I have to go,’ I say, nodding towards the ladies’. ‘Desperately.’ I start towards the door, but Jas grabs me before I get far and we’re at it all over again. I break off once more. ‘Really. I really, really have to go now.’

  ‘Want me to come with you?’ Jas says suggestively.

  Yes! But, ‘No!’ is what comes out of my mouth. Unfortunately I’m not that drunk.

  He starts down the hall towards the men’s. ‘Hurry.’ He turns halfway down and points a finger at me in a distinctly rock star move. Which makes my knees tremble again. Shit, shit, shit. I’m pathetic. I’m a rock star junkie. I’ll have posters all over my room next.

  My bladder calls for my attention then, and I practically fall into the ladies’.

  When I come out of the stall I wash my hands and take a good look at myself in the mirror. I’m a mess. My hair is everywhere but where it’s supposed to be and I have mascara travelling all over my face—most of it taking a holiday underneath my eyes.

  As I fix myself up a bit, I drunkenly recall Jas’s last word to me—‘hurry’. Remembering this, I look up at myself in the mirror again. What am I doing? I don’t want to go through all this again—all the feelings I went through after That Night. I don’t think I have the strength. I thought he was gay, a little voice inside me says. Do you think I care what he is? another little voice says back. I just want some more of what we got in the corridor back there. I take a deep breath and glance around me for the third little voice that should provide an answer. It isn’t there.

  But a condom machine is.

  I eye it suspiciously, as if it’s trying to tell me something. As if it’s been put there for a sneaky purpose. Then I look back at the mirror. ‘Fuck it,’ I drawl. ‘Maybe it’s a sign.’ Ever the optimist, I buy two condoms and stuff them in my pocket.

  And as I leave the bathroom I wonder if Jas has brought any of those leather pants Zamiel likes to wear.

  Chapter Eighteen

  He’s waiting for me in the hallway.

  And it must be Jas’s turn once more, because he grabs my arms and holds them up on the wall, and starts kissing me as soon as I’m within reaching distance.

  My knees do the weak thing once more, though I can’t really tell if it’s the kissing or the alcohol.

  God, I really hope he has those leather pants.

  Something’s telling me it might be the alcohol.

  I break it off when I can’t wait much longer. ‘Let’s go,’ I say over Jas’s groan. I grab his shirt. ‘Let’s go back to the hotel.’

  Jas doesn’t argue. In fact he makes just as fast a break out of that corridor and towards the main door of the bar as I do.

  We bump into Sharon and Shane as we crash past the tables.

  ‘Way-hey,’ Shane yells, and gives us the thumbs-up.

  I give him a glare in return. This is all his fault. Sort of. ‘Can’t stop,’ I yell as we race out through the door and down the street. It’s busy outside, with quite a bit of traffic and far more people than were on the streets before. The cold air hits me then, smack in the face, and I feel myself get drunker. But I don’t care. It doesn’t matter—nothing matters. Because as we wait for a set of lights to change so we can cross the road Jas pulls me towards him, so my back rests against his front. He reaches underneath my jacket, underneath my shirt and runs his hands over my bra. Then, to my surprise, underneath my bra.

  But he’s g— the first little voice starts up again.

  Second little voice: Shut up!

  The ‘walk’ sign comes on and we bolt off again. We run down the street, around the corner, around the next corner.

  We don’t have any trouble with directions tonight.

  Finally we come to the hotel. We leg it through the lobby and stand, waiting for the lift. Waiting, waiting. Waiting too long. Waiting far too long.

  I grab Jas’s hand and he sees what I’m thinking. We head for the stairs.

  We run up one flight, two flights…

  And then we stop for a bit. My jacket comes off. His belt gets undone.

  We’re all over each other again, and my lips are starting to hurt, but who cares? Not me. We end up half-sitting, half-lying on the steps. And I’m quite happy where I am until I look up and see the security camera pointing right in our direction. Immediately, I imagine our little escapade being e-mailed to half the world’s population.

  ‘Oh, God, let’s go,’ I say, dragging Jas up. ‘It’s not much further.’

  We run up the rest of the stairs, push the stairwell door open and keep running.

  We’re in the hallway now.

  210, 211, 212…

  213.

  I fumble with the swipe card.

  ‘Here,’ Jas says. He takes it and swipes it expertly through the door.

  And then we’re inside.

  The clothes seem to come off by themselves as we get further and further into the room. By the time we get to the bed I only have my jeans on, and even they’re undone. I search inside the right pocket urgently—where I’ve put the condoms. Jas is doing the same kind of thing in one of the pockets of his jacket, which is now on the floor. At exactly the same time we produce two condoms each. Optimists.

  I hold one up, dropping the other packet, and Jas flicks his two over his shoulder.

  And then we get down to business.

  It is the worst sex of my life.

  The reasons it is the worst sex of my life, I realise, staring at the ceiling a few minutes later, are twofold:

  It’s over in about three and a half seconds

  We’re both too drunk to actually enjoy the three and a half seconds it lasts

  I turn on my side to look at Jas. ‘Well, that was, um…’

  ‘Shit,’ he says. ‘It was shit. Sorry—I’m sorry. I’m just so drunk. Shouldn’t have…’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I say, looking away, even though I know I’m goi
ng to.

  How can I not?

  And, hey, what happened to my perfectly simple plan? My speech? The one where I was going to tell Jas we shouldn’t see each other any more? The one that fitted right in with my ‘let’s get Charlie’s head sorted out’ plans? That went down the drain fast, didn’t it? Inside my non-sorted-out head, I groan long and loud. How humiliating. Though I guess I should thank my lucky stars that tonight I didn’t get pushed away before we even started. That, if possible, had been even slightly more humiliating.

  With this thought, I must have stopped torturing myself and fallen drunkenly asleep, because the next thing I know it’s three-fifteen a.m. and I have to get up and make a run for the bathroom. Where I throw up.

  For the first time, anyway.

  Because I throw up again at three-fifty-seven, and again at four-thirty-two, and again at five-sixteen.

  It’s the fourth time that does it.

  I didn’t think it was humanly possible to feel worse than I felt a couple of hours ago, but I was wrong. I sit there and cling to the porcelain for dear life.

  ‘That’s it. I’m calling a doctor,’ Jas says, getting up and holding his throbbing head—I’d woken him up during the second hurl. ‘If you keep going like this you’ll be dehydrated in no time. You’re not keeping anything down. Not even water.’

  ‘I’ll be OK,’ I say weakly, crawling back into bed, not looking at him. I don’t want to think about last night. I don’t want to think about anything. I just want to die.

  ‘But it’s not normal. You ever done this before?’ He goes over to the table and pops a couple of paracetamol.

  For a moment I’m worried he’s talking about last night, wanting explanations, but then I realise we’re still on the topic of my stomach contents. ‘Have I ever thrown up this many times in a row? No. Why? Are you thinking of calling The Guinness Book of World Records people in?’

  ‘Funny. What if it’s a combination of things? Maybe it’s something you ate as well.’

  ‘Ate?’ I open one eye.

  ‘The smoked salmon sandwich. Remember? You said it was a bit old and tired.’

  As soon as the words ‘smoked salmon sandwich’ come out of Jas’s mouth I have to make the race to the bathroom again.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says from outside the bathroom door a few minutes later.

  ‘I think it was just the schnapps that did it. But if you say those words again…’ I moan with my head over the toilet.

  ‘I won’t. But I’m calling a doctor. Where’s your insurance paperwork?’

  ‘It’s in my backpack.’ I don’t have the energy to argue—rare, for me. I must really be sick.

  I spend a few minutes cleaning myself up in the bathroom while Jas is on the phone. I wash my face and brush my teeth. When I come back out I feel five per cent better for it. I slink back into bed one more time.

  Jas puts the phone down as I’m pulling the covers up. ‘Should have a doctor here within an hour.’

  ‘Excellent.’

  I feel a tad better when I hear this, and within a few minutes manage to fall asleep again. I wake up to a knock on the door. There’s a cool washcloth on my forehead and a wastepaper basket lined with a plastic bag on the floor beside me—courtesy of Jas, I suppose.

  I check the rest of the floor—he’s picked up all the clothes. And the condoms. Oh, God.

  At least I’ve done one thing right—I had the forethought to throw on my nightie on the way back from my first sick-run of the night.

  Jas goes and gets the door.

  I hear two voices talking in the small entry. As the doctor comes in Jas explains what’s going on. He’s young, the doctor, I notice quite quickly, but don’t care when I see he’s got a big brown professional-looking doctor’s bag with him. A big brown professional-looking doctor’s bag I just know is full of fantastic German drugs that are going to stop me being sick.

  I lie still and let Jas do the talking. When it gets to the point where I know he’s going to say the evil words, I try to block them out. It doesn’t work. ‘Smoked salmon sandwich,’ I hear him say, and my stomach’s off again. This time into the wastepaper basket.

  ‘I told you not to say it.’ I point at Jas when I’m finished.

  ‘Sorry.’

  The doctor comes over then. ‘So, you have had a little too much gemütlichkeit, yes?’

  ‘What’s that?’ I eye him suspiciously.

  ‘It is a hard word to explain. It means something like a good time.’

  ‘Too much of a good thing,’ I say weakly, thinking of the schnapps. ‘You could be on to something there.’

  He asks me a few questions about when I started throwing up, what I ate, how much I drank, if I took any drugs of the illegal kind, et cetera. Then he asks the big question. The one I’ve been hoping Jas would disappear into thin air for. The one about am I on any prescription drugs and do I have any allergies?

  ‘Um,’ I say. ‘I’m going to have to get something.’ I start to get up, but Jas stops me.

  ‘I’ll get it.’

  I lie down again. ‘There’s a folder. It should be tucked into the big pocket on the inside lid of my suitcase.’

  Jas goes over and searches for it. He finds it without any trouble and brings it back to me, passing it over with a puzzled expression.

  I hand it to the doctor. There’s no point in going into detailed explanations. He’s going to have to read it anyway.

  ‘I see,’ he says, looking up from the notes eventually. ‘This is more complicated. I may have to make a few phone calls.’

  I nod towards the phone. ‘Help yourself.’ He goes over, pulls a small notebook out of his bag, gets the numbers he needs and starts dialling.

  Jas sits down on my bed. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Oh, I just can’t take a lot of drugs. Nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I shrug. ‘I just can’t.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Jas’s brow creases.

  The doctor’s babbling away now, in German.

  ‘There’s been some…developments. It’s boring. Nothing, really. Nothing to worry about.’

  Jas doesn’t look convinced, but I close my eyes anyway, too tired to think of anything else to say. I feel him get off the bed, and when I open my eyes again he’s standing and staring out of the window.

  The doctor puts down the phone. ‘OK. I have spoken to a specialist and he says what I want to give you is fine. There should not be any problem.’

  ‘What are you going to give me?’ I say as he fumbles around in the now sinister-looking brown bag. I have a suspicious feeling that what he has in mind might just involve a needle. As he brings a few things out of the bag I realise it does.

  A doozie of a needle, actually. A big, fat, German stonker of a needle.

  He wants to put it in my butt, but I tell him my leg will be just fine, danke schön. There’s been enough exposing of flesh in this room for one night. I grit my teeth and try to suppress my inner five-year-old as he jabs me.

  But it’s worth it—the needle. Because I start to feel better within minutes of the injection. I even feel as if I may be able to keep down the two paracetamol I’m allowed to take as well. I’ve lost that chokey ‘it’s just a matter of time before it’s all coming up again’ feeling now, and I realise I’m exhausted. All I want to do is sleep.

  For days.

  The doctor gets up off his chair after I’ve signed everything I have to sign and he’s given me some phone numbers to ring if I need to. ‘I guess you could say you have seen the best and the wurst of Oktoberfest.’ He laughs as he makes his way to the door. ‘It is a good joke, yes?’

  ‘Mmmm.’ I send him a poisonous glare across the room. It was schnapps, not wurst, you healthy-looking smart-arse, I think. Well, several helpings from the mini-bar, a couple of Scotch and drys and about 257 shots of schnapps.

  As soon as he’s gone, I crash and burn.

  I wake up a few hours later, bu
t only because Jas is tapping me on the shoulder.

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘Mmmm?’

  ‘I’m going to go out for a bit—take a walk around. Yeah?’

  I look at him in awe. ‘Don’t you have a headache?’

  He shakes his head.

  Rock star bastard, I think. How can they abuse themselves so well and still get away with it every morning? Meanwhile my headache is still present, if fading a little. My stomach feels a whole lot better, however.

  ‘You sleep. I’ll keep my mobile on so you can call me when you wake up or if you need anything, all right?’

  ‘Yep,’ I say, my eyes closing on me again. ‘Sleep.’

  And I do.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I wake up again at around four. My headache’s gone and I feel about five hundred per cent better than I did this morning. I’ve always had a fast recovery rate from things like this, but this feels fast even for me. There’s a loud stomach rumble from beneath the bed covers. Hmmm. I think I may even feel up to eating.

  I get up slowly, checking if all my body parts are still working. They are, surprisingly. My leg’s a little sore from the injection, but it’s nothing, really. I go over and grab a bottle of lemonade from the mini-bar, thinking of my mum as I twist off the lid. She always used to give me flat lemonade when I was sick, just like her own mother had given her, even though when I was well the liquid was on the ‘No, Charlie’ list because of its high sugar content.

  I sit down at the table and sip from the bottle while I read the room service menu. I decide on fruit toast with no butter from the all-day breakfast menu and ring my order in. While I’m waiting for my food I have a quick shower and put some fresh clothes on.

  I’m halfway through my first piece of toast when the door rattles and Jas arrives.

  ‘You’re up,’ he says. ‘Should’ve called me.’

  His mobile starts ringing as he says this, and he grabs it and presses a few buttons but doesn’t answer the call.

  ‘You’re still not answering it?’ I ask, looking up from my piece of fruit toast.