OLIVIA

He unfolds himself and sits up, slowly. There is a sepia foam where his thoughts are usually found. He looks at his surroundings. A hotel room, untouched except for the mini bar which is open, and empty. He shifts position on the bed and there is a clink of bottles. He sniffs, looks down. An assortment of empty miniatures are scattered around his feet. He realises he is still fully dressed in black dress trousers and a crumpled white shirt. He is even wearing his silk socks and heavy black brogues. He puts a hand to his chest. His lungs hurt. He holds his aching jaw. His skin feels sticky, as if he has been dipped in syrup.

Standing is not easy but he does so, wincing. He takes a few deep breaths, rubs his face. For a moment he thinks he can hear music, a thumping baseline. But it is simply his heart beat. He feels the throb at his temples. He touches them defensively, as if at any moment they might explode like party poppers. 

He notices a canvas hung on the wall above the bed. It is a black and white photograph of a beach, large black pebbles in focus in the foreground. It’s the sort of picture one might expect to find in the home department of a supermarket. He gazes at the canvas for a full minute. For some reason he cannot take his eyes off of it. He retches, but then is still again. He recognises the room now. It is corporate, functional, bland. He had looked at more appealing options that were a taxi ride away, but the others were all staying here, so he resigned himself to a tawdry, four-star, mid-level, chain hotel, as he had described it to Olivia.

Somewhere there is a sound, a buzzing. He rubs his eyes, as if awoken again from his reverie. He picks his phone up from the bedside table. His battery is almost fully depleted, showing 2% remaining. There seem to be endless missed calls and messages. Mostly they are from friends, family, colleagues. There are 67 unread messages in a WhatsApp group called: ‘Henry & Kat Are Getting Hitched!’ Some pieces fall into place and he remembers fragments from the day; an overlong ceremony with multiple readings, all of them the inevitable wedding fodder: Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, Khalil Gibran. He can’t be sure, but he thinks somebody might have even read from a Harry Potter book. He and his friends from their trendy North London enclave had smirked and sniggered their way through the day. It had all been so gauche, so predictable. There was a drinks reception with tepid Prosecco, followed by an extremely average beef wellington and inane smalltalk with the bride’s depressing suburban family. God, it’s all so basic, they had said to one another discretely. The party had livened things up a bit. He remembers dancing. And then…? He swallows and looks at the message thread.

Great night

Mashed

OMG my brain

I am fuckkkkkkked

Last night was amazing, guys! Congrats again! Love you xxx

Epic wedding, best ever ever ever!

Jonno, you tosser…you said that about my wedding.

LOL mine too

Ha ha fuck off haha LOVE YOU BOTH

Guys has anyone heard from Olivia? She didn’t come back last night…

No haven’t heard from her

Nope.

Oh shit Olivia got LAID! Yes Liv, go on girl!

I’m sure she’s fine, Kat.

Her phone is off…

She’ll be fine

Yeah, she’s probably riding one of Henry’s posh mates as we speak LOL

Haha Tom you’re gross, that’s her sister

Yeah, Tom! FFS. Lol. Anyway, can you all just let me know as soon as you hear from her?

He puts his phone down. He sits down on the bed. He looks at his other messages. He goes to his message thread with Olivia but the last sent message was them arranging a taxi to the wedding venue yesterday morning. He puts his phone down again. Fucking Tom. He didn’t need to hear that. Now all he can think about is Olivia cavorting with one of those idiotic groomsmen. What was the handsome one called? The one everyone was flirting with? Jacob. That was it. Had Olivia really gone to bed with a man like that? A six foot three, gilet-wearing, rugger-bugger? Surely not. Then the thought enters his mind that surely Jacob is out of Olivia’s league anyway, and he feels angry and ashamed to think such a thing. The pounding in his head intensifies. He stands again and goes to the bathroom. 

He drinks heartily from the tap. The tap is too small for the sink and water spills everywhere, creating a cascade down the side of the small white vanity unit. He looks at himself in the mirror. He looks hungover, for sure. His skin is sallow. His eyes are bloodshot. But he’s seen worse. He’s felt worse, too. But the blackout, that’s new. That hasn’t happened before. He tries to remember. Speeches are a blur. The best man’s was pretty good, he’s sure of that, but he can’t remember any of what was said. He remembers clapping. Cheering. He remembers the bride and groom, Kat and Henry, dancing to an acoustic version of an insipid pop song, made famous by a hit TV show. He remembers ordering pints, then shots. Jaegermeister. The thought of alcohol makes him nauseous. The devil’s waters start trickling inside his mouth. He takes some deep breaths and it passes. And then he remembers being outside. Cold. He remembers being cold, smoking. Lighting someone’s cigarette. Trying to light someone’s cigarette, but struggling. So they took his lighter and lit their own cigarette. He searches his pockets, but he can’t find the lighter. He tries hard to remember the person’s face, but it seems just out of view somehow, like a half remembered dream.

A banging makes him jump. It takes him a few moments to realise that someone is outside his door. He tentatively opens it and finds a face he recognises.

‘Fuck me, you look like shit.’ Toby says.

‘Yeah, thanks.’

‘You sleep like that?’

‘Yeah guess so.’

‘You not get my messages?’

‘I just woke up.’

‘Oh right. Ok. Well we’re going for bit of a walk. Kat’s a bit worried about Liv.’ Toby says, rolling his eyes.

‘Yeah, I…I saw that on the group.’

‘She’s probably fine, passed out somewhere.’

‘Yeah.’

‘You two didn’t…?’ Toby glances into his room. Raises an eyebrow. ‘Did you?’

‘No. I…no.’ He laughs but Toby’s question makes him feel cold and uneasy.

‘Alright, well get changed and meet us down in reception?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, cool.’ He says. Toby leaves. He closes the door. He picks his phone up again. He looks through his messages one more time, but there is nothing between 9pm and this morning. He feels cold suddenly, and there is a knot in his stomach, not nausea, more like a terrible unknown fear. He opens the photos on his phone and realises that his hands are shaking. He looks though the photos in order. They get progressively worse in quality throughout the evening, but there are only drunken pictures of him, then him kissing Henry on the cheek, then a group of them all cheering, some of the lads with ties around their heads, then some blurred pictures from the dance floor, but that’s it. He breathes a sigh of relief, though he is not sure why.

He showers. The water is so hot that it leaves his skin pink and raw. The pain makes him feel better. As he towels off and dresses, he realises that he is not just hungover, but still very drunk. He sits down again, takes some deep breaths. He contemplates going downstairs. There will be bad coffee and the obligatory lukewarm breakfast buffet. Stale croissants. Orange juice from concentrate. And all of the others will be there, too. Olivia will no doubt have been found with Jacob or whoever she spent the night with. And then he’ll have to sit and endure the rest of them all taking the piss out of her for being a dirty stop-out. A good time girl. A hot mess. A lush. It will be tame. Banter. Nothing mean. And then Kat or Lizzy or one of the others will tell them all to stop slut-shaming her. Olivia will just laugh and tell them to piss off. She’ll look like the cat that got the cream, and he’ll just have to sit there and smile. And why shouldn’t he? They broke up years ago. They’re friends. It’s not a thing. That’s what he’s always saying when people ask. It’s not a thing. Not anymore. 

But if it’s not a thing then why does he feel like crying. Why does he feel angry. Why does he feel such loathing for Jacob, a man he barely knows? Why does the thought of Olivia giving herself to this man so easily, drunkenly, and freely, make him feel such revulsion and fury? She’s single. She can do what she likes. Good luck to her. But right in his face? Did it have to be that brazen? He feels himself slip into feeling hatred towards her. He slaps himself in the face. It’s true, he hates her. He slaps himself again. No. Come on. This is Olivia. He stands and goes to the mirror. He does his hair. Brushes his teeth. He looks more closely at his face, his neck. He inspects more closely. He realises that the redness is not just redness. They look like marks, possibly scratches.

He picks his phone up again and something makes him go back to the photos. He double checks his camera roll, still nothing. But then he goes to the recently deleted section and there is one photo from last night. A photo that he has no memory of taking. It is a photo of Olivia, sitting on a bed, but it is not his room, it is a room he does not recognise. Olivia's head is turned away, and lowered. Only part of her face is visible, and it looks like she is laughing. And with one hand she is gesturing at the camera, her hand prostrate, as if telling him to stop. He must have been telling her a joke, or messing about taking pictures of her. She hates him taking her picture, she always has. But then he pinches the image and zooms in, looks closer. He realises that Olivia is not laughing, she is crying. And her hand is not playful, it is defensive. She is frightened. And then suddenly there is a banging at his door again. The banging is louder this time, much louder. And as he looks up, somehow he knows that when he opens it, it will not be Toby outside the door.