One drink too many

The drink goes all swimmy in your head as you stand up and move towards the staircase and the party. A dream lies heavy across your shoulders, a stole made from fuzz and lead. It forces you groundwards, pulling you from one marble step to another; you are like water finding its own level. As your feet move alternately (as far ahead of each other as your long skirt permits) your head seems to follow the line of the bannister, two feet above it, a smooth spiral that swoops at the last minute, propelling you into the people that stand around, clutching their drinks for dear life.

Your feet touch the polished floor. Edward, in the closest group to you, says something inconsequential, a remark that lassoes you to his conversation. He's always been sweet on you, has Edward, and now he's talking, and you can feel your smile shining out like diamonds as you make some reply that you did not even give conscious thought to. At the end of a joke from one of his friends the rest of them sway as if caught in the wind, and billow towards you and away. You laugh too, watching yourself laugh and then make your excuses and guide your feet, or they guide you, across the hallway and into the living room.

Here the crowd is thick and viscous, but parts miraculously before you, You wonder if it's something to do with how you look, like the mark of Cain upon you, but now you're seeing yourself from the outside and you can see you look fine. So you're now outside of yourself and you don't feel like you can get back. All your mental muscles feel weak and flimsy, no pull. You take the chance to have a longer look. The eyes aren't quite all there but that's probably the drink; you move towards the table for another but before you reach it or reach out for it Owen has placed himself in your path.

You could never resist talking to Owen, that brilliant smile, better even than your own. Even now, when your thoughts barely inform your movements, a muscle memory brings you sidling up next to him. You both talk and he gives you the full wattage of his teeth and his bright, bright eyes. You think perhaps he thinks maybe - there's something wrong - and he steals a glance to your left but says nothing. The words coming out of you are witty enough but you know they lack life and there's nothing you can do about it. You feel far away. Stepping over tangles of farewells you slowly retreat from him, as from Edward before him, and head towards the balcony for some air.

The stars stab through the blackness above you, letting in a cold whoosh of vacuum. It rolls across your brow, drying the sweat but not relieving your fever. Your thoughts are just pushed and blown through the trees as you stare, dumbly, at the too-clear sky. Behind you is the noise of the party, and individual voices and laughs push past you to leap from the balcony into the bushes and the night. Absent-mindedly you push your bracelet around over the skin on your wrist, brushing the light blonde down first flat and then bristled. As the wind travels past you one last time, the hairs bristle further and then further still as I look over your right-hand shoulder and, breaking the silence between us, start to talk. You: you just nod.

I guide you again, this time back through the party. Without really knowing how it works, I manage to share with you the natural modesty of gait that makes me easy to ignore. We slide and hover through the talk and chatter, heading towards the front door. My hand is on your elbow, moving you gently forwards. I see your coat on the racks by the exit, strained tight by other clothes leaning on it. Putting your coat round you, I step to the door and open it. As you walk through, can't help but walk through under my command, I look back and see the glass, on the table by the bottom of the stairs. The glass I gave you, with white grit mixed amongst its wine dregs, before we had gone upstairs to talk. Softly, so that nobody saw us leave, I close the door.