by Juno Dawson
‘Hey . . .’ He pulls me into a hug. ‘I’m not gonna pretend I don’t have shit going on, but it was never about you, OK? You I’m sure of.’
I wish I was. He gives me another kiss. This one is softer, more thoughtful.
‘If you want me to give up junk, I will. I promise,’ he whispers in my ear. ‘I can’t lose you.’
I pinch my nose, worried I might cry. ‘Kurt, I need some time. It’s been intense.’
‘Sure. Sure, whatever you need.’ We sit in silence, his arm around me, my head on his shoulder. I wonder if Kurt would ever leave me the way Brady did. I suppose, in his own fucked-up way, Kurt needs me more than Brady. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Let’s get drunk on the Aziz kids, yeah?’ He stands and offers a hand.
‘Sounds like a plan.’ I take his hand and follow him down the rabbit hole.
We find the others gathered around a table in a yurt. They’re sat in a circle, on velvet cushions, around a low bronze coffee table. ‘What’s all this then?’ Kurt asks as we enter.
Nevada, Genie and Fo are there along with Baggy, Troy, Khalid Aziz – the other twin – and that model guy in the year below, Erik Something-Scandinavian. ‘Blakeney,’ Khalid leers, eyes glassy. ‘Sit your ass down. You need to try this truly epic shit. It’ll change how you see the world . . .’
We join them at the table. I see Nev give Kurt a death stare. She never did like him. Well, I think Fo is an utter cock so we’re even. ‘What is it?’ Kurt asks.
‘Just a cup of tea, my friend.’
Khalid hands him a little glass tea cup and Kurt takes a sip. His eyes widen and he smiles. ‘That’s my kind of tea.’
‘Mushroom tea!’ Genie giggles.
I panic a little. What the hell is this? A cornucopia of temptation? Give me a break, universe.
‘Finest Amanita,’ Khalid says. ‘Speciality of the house.’
‘Guaranteed good trip, man,’ says Troy, smiling drowsily.
‘Nice to see you looking so rested after your vacation, Lexi.’ Khalid pours me a tea from an Ottoman teapot. ‘To your health . . .?’ His smile is spiteful, knowing. He’s testing me. If I refuse, I might as well admit I’ve been through rehab.
‘Thank you!’ I say brightly, taking the cup. ‘Bottoms up.’ I figure it’s hardly a cup of molten smack; it’s just magic mushrooms. The tea trickles warmly down my throat and tastes like sunflower seeds. ‘Delish.’
Kurt leans in to whisper something. His warm breath tickles my ear. ‘There’s my girl,’ he says.
The trips starts after about thirty minutes. The others come up first. At first I observe them, bored and wondering if I wasn’t going to come up at all. But then the room starts to turn like a fairground carousel – either I’m spinning or the walls are. It goes slowly at first but then gains speed. It’s dizzying.
Up and down.
Round and around.
Genie is dancing with Baggy. She flops like a rag doll in his arms. Her boobs fall out of her dress.
She’s like a painting.
She’s Botticelli’s Venus.
She’s in a seashell. A great big seashell. Her red hair flows like water on fire.
Kurt is kissing me.
His tongue feels huge. My tongue is huge too. They’re like two fat anacondas wrestling. It feels like my jaw is unhinging to swallow him whole.
Khalid is laughing. He’s that clown puppet rocking inside a glass cabinet, laughing and laughing. I laugh with him. He’s a clown! With red nose and white face. He’s too close though. I push him back.
‘Let’s get some air,’ Kurt says. I take his hand.
The garden is too much. Everyone has great big heads on skinny little bodies. Their shiny, marble eyes blink and roll in their skulls. They speak in strange cooing voices like Furbies. ‘I wanna go inside,’ I say. ‘Take me inside.’
I see halls, endless marble halls. They stretch out in front of me like elastic toffee bubblegum being pulled out. Staircases and corridors. They all look the same. All around and upside-down. We’re walking on the ceiling, surely? Like an Escher print. ‘Where are we?’ The marble swirls like whipped cream. I suddenly worry I’m sinking into vanilla ice-cream floors, but Kurt catches me.
‘This way.’
The bedroom is cornflower blue.
How did we get here?
We were in a corridor.
Now I’m on a bed.
Everything is blue.
Blue walls, blue drapes. Mirrors. I see my reflection in the mirror to my left. Tilting my head takes great effort. It feels like a water balloon, glugging. I’m a little thing on a vast, king-sized bed. Kurt is on top of me, shirtless.
‘I love you,’ he says.
I feel kisses on my collarbone; my thigh; my hand. He sucks my fingers.
Each hand has ten fingers. I hold them up in front of my face. Red fingernails like talons.
My body has electricity on it. Lightning flickers and crackles over my skin. Kurt’s body rubs against me. He’s electric too. He pins my hands over my head and licks my armpit.
I look again in the mirror. Troy is here too? Huh? Why? He’s on the bed too. He’s shirtless too. His hands are on my body. He reaches into the Westwood and pulls my breast out. ‘God, Lexi, you’re hot,’ he says.
I look up and Troy and Kurt blend into one. It swirls like oil on water. I can’t work out if there’s one or two of them.
Steve? Is that Steve? The dealer? No. No I don’t want to . . .
Hands, fingers, all over my body. Fingernails run up my legs, over my face, my breasts. Ten fingers, twenty – I can’t tell. ‘Stop,’ I say.
‘I love you,’ says Kurt.
Or maybe Troy.
‘Troy . . .?’
Or is it Steve? Is Steve here?
Someone holds my face, squeezes it tight and kisses me. I’m melting into the bed. My face is pushed out of shape. My chin is on wrong. They moved my jaw. I can’t speak.
‘Stop.’ The words sound slow. My tongue is so swollen and bruised. It’s like he’s rubbing engine grease all over me, leaving black smears.
‘I love you.’
I open my eyes and try to push him – them – off. Is Baggy here too? I hear his voice. ‘Fucking gorgeous,’ he says, watching from the corner. ‘Fucking . . . gorgeous . . . fuck her . . .’
‘No . . .’ I try to push him off again.
Brady is standing at the end of the bed. He looks so sad. Look at her. What an epic disaster she is. I had a narrow escape. Near miss.
Kendall is there too, sitting on a chaise longue. ‘Gross,’ she says. And Ruby, and Sasha, and Guy, and Saif – who is a dead body at the foot of the bed. A needle hangs out of his thigh. His dead eyes gape at me.
And Goldstein. ‘Well, I must admit,’ Goldstein says, consulting his clipboard, ‘I can’t say I’m massively surprised.’
‘KURT, FOR FUCK’S SAKE GET OFF ME. GET OFF ME.’
I push myself off the bed and land in a heap on a sheepskin rug. I try to get to my feet and pull a huge lamp off the bedside table. I smash to the floor.
‘OK, Lex. Just . . . chill . . . out.’ Kurt’s ginormous face looms down at me like something out of Studio Ghibli. ‘You’re tripping.’
‘Don’t touch me,’ I say, standing up and leaning against the mirror.
‘Lex, it’s a bad trip,’ his massive mouth says. ‘You need to ride it out. It’s gonna be fine.’
‘You’re disgusting,’ I tell him. ‘I’m dirty. You covered me in . . . Look at me!’
‘Lex, you’re not . . .’
‘I’m dirty.’ I have to get out of here. I have to get out of here right now. I see my shoes discarded by the bedroom door. I don’t know where my jacket or my clutch bag is, but if I flag a cab it’ll take me to the hotel. To Daddy. To Nikolai. They’ll know what to do.
I put one shoe on and then the other. I push my way out of the bedroom. ‘Lexi, come back!’ Kurt calls after me. He’s pulling his pants back on. I leave him and slam the door behi
nd me.
I’m back in the corridor labyrinth. Did we come upstairs? Using the walls to support myself, I follow the sound of music. The corridors are long, swaying like we’re on a cruise ship. I try to run but I feel like I’m running through wallpaper paste.
‘Lexi! Wait for me!’
I have to get away from him. He wants to kill me.
My fingers touch railings. I see the chandelier. I’m on the balcony overlooking the entrance hall. I can see the front door. I just want to get out.
‘Lexi! Stop!’
The staircase curves ahead of me. It seems to swing across the floor like a scarf in the wind. White marble rears up at my face. Rattlesnake.
No.
It’s me.
I’m falling.
Oh god.
I hit the stairs.
So hard.
Hurts.
Ankles, elbows.
I roll.
My head.
I fall.
STEP 9: I WILL MAKE AMENDS
‘Are you an angel?’
‘No. I was never an angel.’
‘Am I dead?’
‘You’re on a lot of morphine.’
‘Isn’t that heroin?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘So you’re like . . . a hallucination?’
‘Sure. Why not.’
‘OK. You good?’
‘Lexi, I’m dead. You’re just imagining all this.’
‘Well you look great.’
‘Thanks, babe. You’ve looked better tbh.’
‘Bitch.’
‘You really need to get over this, you know.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Stop making my death about you. God, Lex, self-involved much?’
‘But what I did . . .’
‘You didn’t do anything. I made my choices, I knew what I was doing. Well, I thought I did. I was stupid. You’re stupid too.’
‘Hello! I’m dying here!’
‘No, you’re not. Fucking drama queen. Nothing ever changes.’
‘I really, really, really miss you.’
‘I’m just a dream, but if I were real I’d miss you too. A lot.’
‘Hems, what am I going to do?’
‘Again, if I weren’t a figment of your imagination, I’d say that you need to get your shit together. I didn’t want to die. And neither do you. So you need to figure out how you’re going to live.’
‘But I don’t know if I can . . .’
‘Bitch, you can. Now wake up. You’ve got visitors.’
Turns out, all I had to do to get back on opiates is launch myself down the stairs at the Aziz mansion.
I don’t really remember the next few days because I was doped off my tits. I had the most fucked-up dreams.
I’m in a private clinic in Marylebone. Everything is pastel peach, the colour of sugared almonds – including the nurses. They’re very Stepford. They glide around like they’re on rollers and speak in a soothing monotone, like they’ve been partially lobotomised.
I’m numb and I can’t move much. I broke my collarbone, a wrist and my foot. I am, so they say, lucky to be alive.
When I first came to, I thought I was still tripping. Daddy, Mummy and Nikolai circled my bed like the trinity. ‘There’s my baby!’ Mummy wasn’t wearing any make-up. I hardly recognised her.
‘Myshka? Can you hear us?’
Nikolai said nothing.
‘Mummy?’
‘I’m here, my sweetie. I’m here. We’re all here.’ That bit was lovely. My family, reunited.
A couple of days later, when I was stronger, things were less nice. The doctor, Dr Chandler, gathered them all in my room. ‘Lexi, we need to have a serious talk,’ she said. ‘Your brother tells me you were recently treated for opiate addiction at a private clinic. Is that correct?’
I saw from their faces that this was no longer news to Mum and Dad. Nikolai had ratted me out. ‘Yes,’ I say. I sound like a guilty little schoolgirl, cookie crumbs all over her chubby cheeks.
‘This has repercussions for your treatment here. We’re going to have to be very sensible with what we prescribe you, OK?’
I nodded. Dr Chandler left us alone.
‘Is this true, myshka?’ Daddy asked. ‘What your brother tells us?’
Daddy is on one side of the bed, Mummy the other. Nikolai paces at the foot. None of them look cross. They looked tired, so tired. And it’s on me. ‘I didn’t want you to know,’ I said.
‘Drugs, malysh?’ Mummy says. ‘How could you hide that from us? We always teach you and Nikolai to come to us. We always understand.’
‘We help you, myshka. If you need help, we will help.’ Daddy’s face is white with exhaustion. ‘We thought you knew that.’
I have to believe I’m more than a cry for help, but here they are: Mum and Dad together at last. Thanks to me. It doesn’t feel like a Parent Trap triumph though. I feel like they’re finally seeing me for what I really am. Something putrid. I’m embarrassed.
I cry. Tears drip on to the bedsheets. ‘I do.’ Everything oozes out for them all to see. ‘I need help. And I’m sorry.’
Later, I’m all alone. I’m feeling pain now. They won’t give me the really good painkillers for obvious reasons. I ache all over. My teeth hurt, my cheeks, everywhere. That staircase kicked my ass.
There’s a knock at my door. ‘Come in.’
Nikolai enters carrying a goodie bag. ‘Hey. I brought you some chocolate and a few books and stuff.’
‘Thanks.’
He plonks them down. He seems pissed off.
‘Are we OK?’ I ask sheepishly. I wonder how many passes I’ll get before he washes his hands of me for good.
‘Lexi, you lasted a week and a half. What is wrong with you? I thought you said Clarity was good . . .?’
I stare out of the window at the handsome red-brick building opposite. ‘Nik, please don’t. You don’t have to lecture me because I know.’ I shake my head as much as my neck brace will allow. ‘And it’s not Clarity’s fault. In fact, I should thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘For kidnapping me. For taking me to the island. You probably saved my life.’ He blushes and looks at the carpet. ‘You did,’ I say again.
‘It’s what big brothers are for.’
‘I was such a gigantic cunt,’ I say. We both smile.
‘Not gonna argue with that.’
‘I’m so sorry, Nik. For everything.’
‘None of it matters if you change, Lex. None of it. Clean slate.’
I nod. It hurts. ‘I know.’
‘And that asshole Kurt . . .’
‘I’m not going to see him again.’ I say without hesitation, and I know it’s true. ‘Clearly I can’t. It’s gonna kill one of us.’ I take a breath because once I say it, I can’t back out. ‘I left the island too soon. I want to go back.’
This time I make the journey in the back seat again, but only because Mummy and Daddy want to come and meet this miraculous doctor I’ve been telling them about. We take about five wrong turns on the way to the ferry and they bicker. Of course they do. I don’t know why I wanted them to be together. It’s a nightmare.
Nik and I stand on the deck again as we approach the island. Mummy and Daddy are at the kiosk getting coffees for us all. The sky is turquoise but it’s not quite summer yet. I don’t have to wear the neck brace any more, but I’m still on a crutch for my foot, which is in one of those crazy plastic robot boots.
‘I mean this in the nicest possible way,’ Nik says, ‘but this time don’t come back until it sticks, yeah?’
‘I promise.’
We drive up to the house. The nurses and Goldstein are waiting for me. I wonder if it’s a novelty that they won’t have to drag me inside, kicking and screaming. While Goldstein shakes hands with Daddy, Nik helps me out of the back seat with my crutch. When he sees me, Goldstein smiles the warmest smile and holds his arms open. If I weren’t on one leg, I’d have run into them. ‘I
like your hair,’ he tells me and folds me into a warm embrace.
I look up into his amber eyes. ‘Can we start again?’ I say.
STEP 1: I ADMIT I HAVE A PROBLEM
‘Where’s Sasha?’ I ask.
First full day back and I’m in therapy with Dr Goldstein. It feels good to be back on his sofa. Familiar like old slippers.
It’s strange being here without the others. This time I’m staying in Kendall’s old suite. Last night, at dinner, I didn’t recognise any of my fellow patients – well, except her off X Factor. The others are a nineteen-year-old guy who’s just been kicked out of Cambridge for getting blackout drunk daily (he’s in a bad way right now) and a girl who’s been sent by her modelling agency for a winning combo of anorexia and coke addiction.
Goldstein pauses for a moment at his filing cabinet, retrieving my old notes. Clearly this is confidential information, but he also probably knows we’re not going to get much done unless he tells me. ‘Sasha discharged herself.’
‘When? Did she have the ECT?’
‘Lexi, you know I can’t discuss that.’
‘So she did?’
‘The week after you left. We took her to the mainland for the ECT and afterwards she decided not to return.’
‘What? It went well? Or it didn’t go well?’
‘Lexi. I’ve already said too much.’
‘Is she OK?’
‘I hope so. I really hope so. Wherever she is.’ He joins me and takes an armchair. ‘So, Lexi. You said you wanted a fresh start. Why is that?’
My sweater flops off my shoulder when I shrug. ‘I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I really believed I had a problem last time. I mean, I understood I had a problem, but I’m not sure I believed it deep down. On some level, I thought rehab was just hoops to jump through; nothing about changing, y’know?’
He nods. ‘So how are we going to make this time different?’
I bite my lip. ‘I’m going to tell the truth.’
Goldstein smiles warmly and tips his head. ‘Let’s start at the beginning then . . .’
‘OK.’ I cross my legs up on the settee. I imagine I’m hooked up to a lie detector and an alarm will sound if I don’t tell the truth. ‘My name is Lexi Volkov. I’m seventeen. My family have a lot of money. My mum and dad always tried to teach me to be grateful, but I think it’s really hard to be grateful for what you have when you’ve never gone without. Does that make sense?’