Meredith reached for my hand. “My room,” she said. I would have followed her anywhere, and I didn’t care who knew—Richard (who deserved so much worse than such petty betrayal) or anyone else.
We climbed the stairs hastily, clumsily, impeded by her high heels, my drunkenness, and our foolish refusal to keep our hands off each other. We ran down the hall on the second floor, crashing against the wall and locking lips again before we stumbled into her bedroom. She threw the door shut and turned the bolt behind her. We collided more than embraced, the whole feverish scene shot through with flashes of pain—she clenched her fingers in my hair, caught my bottom lip between her teeth, shuddered when the rough stubble on my jaw scraped her throat. The bass from the dining room downstairs thudded under everything like some savage tribal drumbeat.
“You look fucking amazing,” I said, in the split second I had to speak when she pulled my shirt up over my head.
She tossed it across the room. “Yeah, I know.”
The fact that she knew was somehow sexier than pretending she didn’t. I fumbled for the zipper on the side of her dress and said, “Great, just making sure.”
The rest of our clothes came off and were carelessly discarded, everything but our underwear and Meredith’s shoes. We kissed and gasped and grasped at each other like we were afraid to let go. My head swam, the floor shifting and tilting under me whenever I closed my eyes. I ran one hand from the nape of her neck to the small of her back, her skin electric under my fingertips. The warm silk touch of her lips against my ear made me groan and clutch her closer—delirious, addicted, furious that I’d ever pretended not to want her.
We were halfway to the bed when a fist boomed on the door, made it shake in its frame. Another fist followed, and another, pounding and pounding like a battering ram. “OPEN THE DOOR! OPEN THIS FUCKING DOOR!”
“Richard!” I reeled back, but Meredith grabbed me fast around the neck.
“He can bang on the door all night if he wants.”
“He’ll break it down,” I said, and the words disappeared between her lips before they even left mine, the thought forgotten before I finished it. My pulse was wild.
“Let him try.” She shoved me backward onto the bed, and I didn’t argue.
Everything after that was disjointed and confused. Richard hammered on the door, bellowing curses and threats I could barely hear—his voice only part of a heavy rhythm, “I’LL KILL YOU, I’LL KILL YOU, I SWEAR TO GOD I’LL KILL YOU BOTH.” It was impossible to listen with Meredith between me and him, tangible, intoxicating, the tiny intake of her breath enough to drown out his riot of noise. He faded out, like the end of a bad song, and I didn’t know whether he’d left or I’d gone deaf to everything but Meredith. My head was so light that without her weight on top of me I might have floated away. Inch by inch, my brain and body reconnected. I let her have her way for a little longer, then rolled her over on her back and pinned her down, unwilling to be entirely submissive.
When I collapsed beside her on the mattress, my muscles were quivering under my skin. We were too hot to touch by then, and we lay with only our legs tangled together. Our shallow breaths lengthened, deepened, and sleep pulled me swiftly down like gravity.
SCENE 9
I didn’t sleep long, and I slept like a man on a raft, waves rolling underneath me—seasick more than drunk. My eyes opened before I even knew I was awake, and I stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling. Meredith lay beside me, one hand pressed under her cheek, the other arm tucked tight against her chest. A tiny line had appeared between her eyebrows, as though whatever she was dreaming troubled her.
The lamp on the nightstand leaked watery orange light across the bed. I reached carefully over her to turn it off but paused, my arm outstretched. Meredith’s breath fluttered against the back of my hand. I couldn’t help staring—not, for once, because she was beautiful, but because the small dark spots on her body I’d mistaken in my drunken fervor for shadows and tricks of the light hadn’t faded. The delicate line of her wrist was marred by tiny blooms of purple, like budding violets on her skin. Older marks, weak as watercolors now, showed where a heavier hand than mine had touched her, where phantom fingers had squeezed too hard: the nape of her neck, the curve of her knee. She was every bit as bruised as James. I felt nauseous, but the sick feeling settled in my chest instead of my stomach.
I risked brushing a strand of hair off her cheek, then turned the light out. The room shrank in around me, the eager darkness encroaching at last. I lifted the sheet and put my feet on the floor. I wanted water, badly, to soothe my dry throat and clear my head. Halfway across the room I pulled my underwear on.
Before I opened the door, I pressed my ear against it. Was Richard crazy enough to wait outside all night for one of us to emerge? Hearing nothing, I opened it just a crack. The hall stretched empty and dark in both directions. The lights and music downstairs had been shut off and the whole building felt skeletal, like an empty shell where some soft spineless creature used to live. I crept toward the bathroom, wondering if I was the only person awake. Evidently not—Alexander’s door was open, his bed empty. I moved quietly, hoping not to rouse anyone. I knew a confrontation of some kind was unavoidable, but I didn’t want to face it any sooner than I had to. Not before I could convince myself that it had all actually happened—my memory of the party had the gauzy, chimerical quality of a dream. Part of me wanted to believe that was all it was.
Assuming an inebriated partygoer had left the light on, I opened the bathroom door without knocking. In the instant it took my eyes to adjust, a crouching figure sprang up from the floor.
“Jesus!”
“Hush, Oliver, it’s me!” James reached around me to pull the door shut. His arm brushed across my bare stomach and I shivered at the dampness of his skin. He took one step back, naked and dripping wet. The shower drummed softly in the background.