“Hey!” Lara stands up and hugs me. “Great menu choice. I even managed to keep most of it down.”
“High praise indeed. I’ll have to tell the chef.” I hug her back tightly, and thank God I still have some friends. I don’t know what I’d do without her.
“You did good, kid.” Alex pulls me toward him and cuddles me so hard I end up squeaking like a mouse. When he lets go I turn to see Niall standing in front of me. It takes a moment to catch my breath.
“Hi.” There’s a gap between us that I want to close so badly. “Thank you so much for the painting. I’m glad to see it went for so much.”
He smiles. “Me too. It’s a really good cause.” When I look down I can see him clenching and unclenching his fingers. “You did a great job.”
“Tell me more. I can listen to flattery all night.”
“You want me to tell you how beautiful you look? Or that I couldn’t take my eyes off you the whole night?” His voice is low, but I glance around anxiously anyway. Luckily, Alex and Lara have moved back to the table. “Or I can tell you how much it hurt every time I saw you with him, even though I know how wrong that is.”
I feel the need to reassure him, even though there’s nothing between us, not yet. “We were here as friends. Nothing more.”
“I know. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.”
We stare silently at each other, and there’s something in his eyes that both reassures and exhilarates me. I could lose myself in their intensity.
“I suppose I should go.” I sound regretful. There’s nothing I want to do more than sit with him, to laugh and chat with Alex and Lara. “I need to finish thanking everybody.”
“Okay.” He says it slowly. “I’ll see you on Thursday, though, right?”
“Of course.”
“And the Thursday after that?”
I laugh. “For sure.” I like this knowledge that I’ll be seeing him regularly. We have a reason to interact outside everything crazy that’s happened.
The impulse to be crazier washes over me.
“Niall?”
“Yeah?”
“You know you said you’d wait for me?”
He looks serious. “Yes.”
“Well, I wanted to say...to tell you how much I appreciate it. I don’t plan on making you wait too long, if you see what I mean?”
He breaks into a big smile. It makes me want to kiss him, which isn’t a good thing right now.
“I just hope I’m worth it. The wait, I mean.”
His grin doesn’t waver as he takes my hand in his. He squeezes it tightly. “You are.”
He’s dead. That’s all I can think of when I’m sitting in the police interview room. The only thing on my mind when the university investigator takes my statement. When a reporter tries to catch me on my way back to the halls of residence, all I can see is Digby’s red face and thin lips as he tells me over and over how hot he is, how poorly he feels.
Sitting on the bare mattress in my bedroom—among the boxes and cases packed a few days before—I cover my face with my hands, feeling the tears wetting my palms.
But all this is a mere prelude to when my father arrives. He’s dressed in his best suit, wearing a tie he reserves for weddings and christenings. I can tell by the way he pulls at the collar that the neck size is too tight for him, and the f
abric is scratching at his throat. His constant fidgeting is distracting as he sits beside me, listening to the ethics officer’s questions. His watery eyes turn on me every time he expects me to answer.
“The investigation will continue into the summer,” the officer explains. “We’ll also need to wait on any police investigation before a final decision is made. What I can tell you is that in the case of drug use, the university normally allows students to return to their studies if they commit to a course of therapy.”
Of course, this all happens before Digby’s parents get involved and manage to whip the media into a frenzy. Throughout the summer, headlines about “Hedonism” and “Students in Turmoil” scream out from the tabloids, marking our family’s shame in smudged newspaper ink. I cry so much that my eyes are permanently swollen, the skin around them red and shiny. Tears roll down my cheeks when I think about Digby.