“No. I didn’t!”
She sits up in bed and I’m so angry, my nails are digging into my palms, thinking about what could’ve been, all because she was too busy getting down with some random guy. “So what happened?” she says. “Where did you go?!”
I try to start from the beginning, but the words won’t come. I don’t want them to. I don’t want to tell her about Nick, or the guy in the alleyway, or being rescued. I don’t want to tell her about Jane’s room, and frosted puffs and watching him come in the shower.
It feels tickly, and raw. And private.
“So you don’t have my stuff?” I say. “Not any of it?”
She groans. “Sorry. I’m really sorry, Laine. I pulled an asshole move.”
At least she knows it.
I try not to let it upset me, just like always. Try not to take it to heart. Try not to comprehend the scale of the disaster on my hands now I’m in the cold light of day and still don’t have any of my things. But it’s hard. It’s really hard.
“I’m gonna go,” I say, and my voice is tickly.
“Go?! Go where?”
“Home…” I say. “I’ll see if I can get in… through a window…”
She throws back the covers and starts gathering clothes from the floor. “I’ll come with you.”
“No!” I say, and my tone makes her stop in her tracks. “It’s fine… you’re still hungover, and I’m…”
“You’re locked fucking out,” she says, like I don’t know that. “It’s the least I can do.”
And it is. It is the least she can do. But it’s too late for that now, and I don’t want her help, not with Nick outside.
I back away, heading for the door, tell her again that it’s fine, that I’ll cope, that she should get back to sleep.
She doesn’t need all that much convincing. No real surprise there.
“Let me know you’re alright, yeah?” she calls after me. “I’ve got so much to tell you about Harrison. That was his name, you know! Harrison! And he was so hot!”
Harrison.
That’s the guy I have to thank for nearly losing my virginity to some asshole in a back alley.
I say goodbye to Mrs Dean on the way out, and do my best not to cry before I break the news to Nick.
Chapter Five
Nick
“All set?” I ask, and then I see the defeat in Laine’s eyes.
She shakes her head, buckling herself into her seat with shaky fingers. Her voice comes out so weak, barely more than a whisper.
“Kelly Anne doesn’t have my things. Not any of them. She left them, in the club.”
“In the club?” I pull out my phone. “What was the name of the place? I’ll call lost property.”
Her dainty fingers reach out and land on my wrist, so gently. “There’s no point…” she says. “She left them on the table… with some guys… when I was in the bathroom…”
My expression must speak volumes because her eyes widen as she continues. “She was drunk. She doesn’t mean it. Kelly Anne is just…”
“Kelly Anne is a selfish fool,” I say. “And you’re so much better than friends like her, Laine.”
She doesn’t look like she believes me. Her eyes are sad and glassy, her cheeks pale. I put the car in gear, reverse out onto the street. “We’ll go to yours,” I say. “See what we can do.”
“There may be a window open… upstairs… I may be able to climb through…”
There isn’t a chance in hell I’m going to be letting her shimmy up some drainpipe, but I don’t say that. Not yet.
Her estate leaves a lot to be desired. It’s tired and cramped, with overgrown gardens and battered old cars in the street. Hers is a little white mid-terrace. The garden is neat but barren. The front door has chipped red paint, and as soon as I pull the car onto her driveway it’s clear she won’t need to be looking for an open window. The front door is already open, just enough to see into the dark hallway beyond.
Laine is out of the car in a flash, but I reach her before she makes it across the garden. I grip her elbow, pull her back to my side.
“Wait,” I say, and my voice comes out harsher than I intend it to. “I’ll go first.”
I take a step forward, and as I nudge the door open I hear Laine’s pained gasp behind me.
The place is a hovel. Nothing but a wasteland of empty beer cans and trash. There are fish and chips scattered all over the floor, a smear of tomato ketchup on the wall.
“Oh my God,” she cries. “What the…”
I step on through to the living room, and it’s in a worse state than the hallway. I find her keys on the cigarette-littered coffee table, and there’s her ID, too. Laine’s sweet face stares out from her college card, and there’s everything they needed right there. Her address in plain lettering.
There’s no sign of her phone or her money, of course.,
Laine busies herself around me, picking up empty bottles and cans through sniffles of pain, but it’s a thankless task. The assholes have clearly had a rare old time, no doubt thrilled at the hedonistic destruction of Laine’s home.
She wipes her sniffles on her cardigan sleeve. “You can leave, Nick. Please leave. This is disgusting. Horrible… You don’t need to be here…”
She clears another chip paper and underneath is a filthy used rubber. It’s stained the fabric sofa underneath with a grotesque white smear.
I pull out my phone and dial the police, tell Laine exactly what I’m doing, but she shakes her head.
“What can the police do? They had a key! This is all my own fault! I should never have left Kelly Anne with my stuff…”
Her self-recrimination shocks me enough to cancel the call. “This is not your fault, Laine. Some dregs of society did this, some losers with no moral fibre, who exist just to wreck everything around them. They did this. Helped by your very considerate friend.”
“But still, I should’ve known better! I should’ve known!”
“Don’t touch that,” I say as she tries to pick up the rubber in some greasy paper. “Don’t touch anything. Not a single thing, Laine.”
“But I have to…” she says. “I have to clean up!”
But she doesn’t. She doesn’t have to do a thing around this shithole.
“I mean it,” I tell her. “Don’t touch anything.”
She stops moving, gives me a little nod.
“Wait right here.”
She doesn’t follow me as I survey the rest of the house, and I’m glad, because the place is completely destroyed.
The kitchen bore the worst of it, or so it appears until I reach the landing and see Laine’s open bedroom door at the far end.