Overthinking, page 21
Freya: Hey, hun. Still not on speaking terms with him. Sorry. Heading to the pub now xxx
Me: I get that, but I’m really worried about him. There was an accident with his powers, and he might be spiralling.
Freya: He’ll be fine. He’s just being a drama queen. I’m sorry, Troy, but I really can’t get involved. I’m also dealing with housemate drama right now x
I’m kind of stunned when I get that reply. What the heck is going on with her? Right. Once this essay is done, I’m going to call her.
This ends now.
36
Freya
I am dying.
My skin is breaking out the worst I’ve ever seen, my scalp is raw from dandruff, and I’ve thrown up every day this week. The human body was not designed to take this much punishment.
And the worst part is, Alice still hasn’t cracked. She’s mentioned how excited she is for us to meet her boyfriend next week, but that’s it. And I keep forgetting to ask his name like an absolute breast.
I wake up at three in the afternoon, my breath smelling like a mummy’s arse crack. There’s a high, droning noise that won’t stop, and it takes me a moment to realise it’s not coming from my head – someone is buzzing our flat intercom.
Mercifully it stops, and I feel myself falling back to sleep. Precious sleep. Then my door starts banging.
I roll out of bed, and my head threatens to explode. I shuffle to the door and open it.
“What the heck happened to you?” says Troy, standing in the doorway looking furious.
“Vodka. Vodka happened to me,” I croak. “How’d you get in the flat?”
“Your housemate let me in. Think she was on her way out for a run or something. You have a brush caught in your hair,” he says, pointing.
So I do. It’s caught in the rat’s nest that my hair has become.
“What are you doing here?” I ask as I attempt to pull it free. The pain of my hair pulling wakes me up that little bit more.
“What do you think I’m doing here, Freya?” He’s angry. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Troy like this before. He’s always been such a gentle giant. I shrug, but that makes him more furious. “Do you not remember last night?”
That’s a fat nope. I remember a gay bar in Soho. I remember a drag queen. Did we get kicked out or something? I shake my head, and Troy huffs.
“I called you last night about Steven, and you ranted down the phone for, like, twenty minutes about how he’s been a horrible friend to you. Then you made me talk to what I can only assume was a very irritated drag queen whose performance you interrupted. Then you cried about Marcus for another ten minutes. Then you started talking about Zachary and how lovely his house is.”
Well, that’s embarrassing.
Memories come back to me in nauseating detail. Alice got a lap dance from a drag king called Bruce All-Tighty, Rach was getting off with some girl she met at the bar, and I got on stage and— OH MY GOD, I GOT ON STAGE AND HARASSED A DRAG QUEEN MID-SET. I put my phone up to her ear and told her to introduce herself to Troy. I want to shrivel up and die.
“What is going on with you?” Troy asks. “With you both.”
I don’t have an answer for him. I just look down at the kebab-stained clothes I’m still wearing from last night.
“Go shower,” he says like a parent who isn’t angry, just disappointed. Another wave of guilt washes over me, and I grab my towel.
After a ten-minute shame spiral in the shower, I feel much more human. Troy is waiting for me in the kitchen with a cup of tea ready like we’re a couple about to discuss getting divorced. I sip my tea and feel the hangover lessen ever so slightly.
“Better?” he asks.
“Much.”
“So, things are a little out of control.”
Understatement of the century.
“Sorry about last night,” I say sheepishly. “I didn’t realise how drunk I was when you called.”
“It’s okay. I was just worried about you.” He looks at me with that earnest puppy-dog smile which is somehow worse than if he just shouted at me. “You said some pretty weird stuff.”
“Oh god.” I bury my face in my hands. THE SHAME OF IT ALL. “I can only apologise on Drunk Freya’s behalf.”
“It’s okay. Believe it or not, I’m used to intoxicated people rambling at me.”
Another lance of shame stabs me through the chest. Fuck. I totally forgot Troy’s mum is an addict. Oh god, this must be all types of triggering for him.
“I’m so, so sorry, Troy. I didn’t intend to get that drunk. But my housemate’s boyfriend might’ve hit her last week, so we’ve been trying to get her drunk enough for her to tell us.”
“Oh gosh, that’s awful! Did she say anything last night?”
“Not that I remember. We’ve been out every night this week trying to get it out of her.”
“And you haven’t just talked to her about it?”
That stumps me. Suddenly, I feel very stupid. It seems like the most obvious thing in the world to point-blank ask her. A better strategy than torturing my liver with gallons of alcohol every night in the vague hope she might spill the beans.
“No. I haven’t.”
Troy tilts his head at me like a German shepherd and frowns. It’s like he sees how stupid this whole thing is.
“Freya, what is going on with you? Even before this happened, you were going out every night. You’ve pushed Steven away, you’re pushing me away, and you only seem to be interested in getting wasted. I get being a student is all about drinking and having fun, but it’s like you’re a whole different person lately.”
My lip is wobbling. Nothing like a hangover to make you an emotional wreck.
“I . . . I don’t . . .”
“Is it uni? Is it the pressure? Is it your parents? Talk to me, please.”
“The truth is . . .” I begin, but my throat suddenly closes up.
“Is it Marcus?”
The floodgates open. Snot and tears flow down my face in equal measure as I bawl like a baby into my tea. Troy jumps into action like the knight that he is, and I’m scooped into a bear hug. I haven’t been held in weeks.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. You must miss him terribly,” he says as he strokes my hair.
“I love him,” I say, punctuating each word with gasping sobs.
Troy holds me while I blubber and babble into his chest. I keep trying to say something, but I can’t form any words, let alone a coherent sentence. When the worst of it has passed, he lets me go and fetches some toilet roll for me to clean myself up with. I’m such a mess.
“It’s not just that,” I say, finally finding my voice. “It’s . . . everything. I don’t know who I am anymore, and I don’t like the person I’m becoming. I can’t talk to anyone about this either. Marcus is gone, Steven and I aren’t talking, my parents would be so ashamed if they knew how much I’ve been drinking. I just feel so alone and . . . scared. Marcus made me feel safe.”
“And now you don’t?”
I shake my head. “He’s alive.”
“Marcus?”
“Zachary. I went to his house with Fareborn. We found his ring. Zachary is alive.”
*
Troy
She’s joking. Right? I give an insincere laugh, but her face is adamant.
She means it.
“You’re sure?”
“Fareborn looked at the memories in his siphon. She called it Mnemonic Trespassing. He survived the pier collapsing, and he’s living in London. I kept seeing him all around town and thought it was just my imagination. A few months back I started having nightmares about him. Looming over me. Experimenting on me. I used to hold on to Marcus and go back to sleep, but well . . . he’s not here anymore. If I’m being honest with myself, I think that’s why I’ve been drinking so much. When I black out from drinking, I don’t get the nightmares.”
Holy crap. I can’t even process what she’s saying right now. Zachary is alive? Okay, one crisis at a time. Let’s get Freya back on the straight and narrow before we even consider what to do about him.
“Freya,” I murmur, delicately closing my hand over hers. “You should’ve said something.”
“Not like Steven would’ve listened.” She basically spits his name, the emotional breakdown from a moment ago instantly replaced with a bitter anger. She pulls her hand out from under mine and scratches her head incessantly. “Every time we bring it up, he changes the subject. He hasn’t even said his name since we got back.”
“That’s just his defence mechanism! He went through a lot in Grunsby.”
“So did I! But Steven doesn’t care. He never cared. It’s all about him.”
What the hell? Where is this all coming from? Has she completely forgotten it was Steven who came to rescue her? That Steven fought off an Alpha-level E-Man and a bunch of Leeches to save her?
“Of course he cares about you! You’re his best friend. He would literally do anything for you! I get he might not want to talk about it because it’s triggering for him, but you could’ve talked to me about it. I was there. I care about you. I will always listen.”
“No, all he does is take, take, take. When it’s his problem, I have to drop everything to fix it, but when I’m struggling, he doesn’t care.” She scratches her head more violently. “Just like when we went to breakfast, and he started screaming at me in that restaurant because I said I was feeling hungover. He couldn’t let me be the centre of attention for one minute.”
“Wait, what?”
“What do you mean, what? He called me a bitch in front of the whole restaurant.”
“Freya . . . no, he didn’t.”
Her anger snaps to me in an instant.
“You’re taking his side!?”
“I’m not taking anyone’s side!” I say firmly and calmly. Something’s not right here, and it won’t help if I lose my cool. “He didn’t call you anything.”
“Yes, he did! All because I didn’t reply to one text,” she says, so sure of herself.
“You hadn’t replied to a bunch of them.”
“No, it was one, and all it said was, ‘Hey, how are you?’ – Total overreaction!”
“Freya, check your messages. Steven sent you a bunch the night before because his housemates were being awful, and he was lonely. You hadn’t replied to them, so he showed you. Then you told him to grow up and said you weren’t his mother.”
“Troy, that didn’t happen.” She unlocks her phone and scrolls up in her conversation with Steven. Suddenly, the anger leaves her like a balloon deflating. “Wait. What? No . . . He didn’t . . . I . . .”
I wait in silence as she stares at her phone. I can see the cogs in her brain processing everything. Suddenly, she looks up at me, a tinge of fear colouring her face.
“I was so certain but . . . Oh my god! I remember now. But I still remember him calling me a bitch. It’s like two competing memories that overlap. Whatever, he’s still been a dick since we got here.”
“Really?” I yell, my patience almost at breaking point. She startles, not expecting me to explode like this. “Has he really? Or have you both been acting like dicks? You just accused him of something that didn’t happen, realised you were wrong, then doubled down.”
“But—”
“No buts. That’s exactly what you’ve just done. I’m sorry that you’ve been going through stuff, and obviously, there’s so much to unpack about Zachary, but you need to stop pushing Steven away. I’m not saying he’s entirely blameless in this scenario, but he doesn’t deserve to be tarred with things he did not do.”
She has nothing to say, just staring at me with a stunned expression. I take a breath to calm myself before continuing.
“The other day, I said he was struggling. There was an accident with his powers, and he . . . well, he accidentally drained me. Like Zachary did to him. I haven’t heard from him since I left, and I don’t really know if we broke up, and no one has heard from him since then apart from his housemate, who saw him go to the bathroom, so I know he’s alive, but I don’t know if he’s spiralling, and I can’t deal with this on my own, and he really needs his best friend to be by his side and not inventing reasons to ignore him.”
I take a deep breath and stare at her, waiting for her to say anything.
“He drained you?” she asks quietly.
I turn my head and point to the patch of white hair.
“Does that mean . . .”
“Yes. We said I love you. We were being . . . intimate, and . . . well, Steven’s ring stopped working when the two of you fell out.”
Freya claps her hands over her mouth, and tears well up in her eyes again.
“I am so sorry, Troy. I can’t imagine what you’re feeling.”
“I’m fine. But Steven – well, Steven isn’t exactly emotionally stable at the best of times.”
She gasps again as a bolt of recognition passes through her.
“He called me. When I was at Zachary’s house, he called me and left a voicemail.”
She dials her voicemail and listens to the message. When she hangs up, she looks paler than normal. If she were an E-Man, she’d be manifesting so much guilt the whole kitchen would vanish.
“I didn’t know,” she mumbles.
“You didn’t know because you didn’t want to know. You shut him out.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry. Tell him.”
She nods and starts putting on her shoes.
“Okay. Where is he? Should we start scouring the coastline for depressing towns again?”
“Let’s start with his room, shall we?”
37
Freya
“Maybe break down the door or something?” I suggest. My hangover has all been cried out now. I still feel like crap, but the adrenaline is keeping me going. I hop from one foot to the other impatiently.
“Let’s try the buzzer first,” Troy replies, pushing the button.
“Yeah, good shout.”
“You’ve really got a thing for breaking and entering this week, huh?”
“Who is it?” comes the crisp, plummy voice of Steven’s garbage-person housemate. Jenny, was it?
“Umm, it’s Troy. Steven’s boyfriend?”
I can almost hear Jenny squeal with delight as she buzzes us in. We climb the stairs, and the door to the flat flies open. Jenny beams from ear to ear as her eyes hungrily inspect Troy. When she notices me, her smile turns into more of a grimace.
“Oh my god, hi!” she says in the fakest happy voice I’ve ever heard. “Good to see you again, Troy! And Frances, was it?”
“Freya,” I reply, matching her pained smile.
“Unusual name, isn’t it?” she says.
“Is it? Norse goddess? Wife of Odin? Queen of the Valkyries?”
“Sorry, I never watched Game of Thrones. What can I do for you both?” The moment her eyes flit back to Troy, I can see the life return to them. God, I hate her.
“We’re here to see Steven. He hasn’t been at uni, and we wanted to check on him.”
“Oh,” she says, her face dropping. Did she think we were here for her? “Come in then.”
We enter the flat, and Troy leads the way to Steven’s room. Jenny can’t seem to read the situation as she follows us and waits beside his door.
“Is this like an intervention?” she whispers. “Would you like me to be there? I’ve been told I have a very calming presence.”
By who? She’s about as calming as a clown with a chainsaw.
“Oh no, don’t worry about it. We don’t want to take up any of your time,” I say as emphatically as I can.
“It’s okay. I literally have no uni work. I really value my time, so I make sure to do it ASAP.”
I really wish she would fall down a well. I glare at Troy, who seems to get the message.
“Hey, Jenny. Why don’t we record some content in the kitchen?”
Jenny actually does squeal with excitement this time. She links her arm with Troy’s and drags him off to the kitchen, already bombarding him with the best way to show off his obliques.
Okay, Freya. Now for the hardest thing you have ever had to do.
Admit you were wrong.
*
Steven
There’s a knock at my door, and I wake up.
Time has lost all meaning.
I got up for a shower at some point. Then another time for a packet of crisps. Was that . . . today? What is today?
The banging is more insistent, but I don’t move from my duvet cocoon. I’m safe here.
Everyone is safe when I’m here.
“Percy! Open the door!”
It’s Freya. What the hell does she want?
I ignore her.
“Don’t bloody ignore me, Steven Percival! You know how stubborn I am.”
I do. She is. But I still don’t move.
“I’ll break down the door if I have to!”
There’s a thud, followed by a whimper.
“Okay, I’ll call a locksmith. Steven. I mean it, OPEN UP!” She bangs so hard I can hear a dirty teaspoon jangling around in a mug somewhere.
FINE! She wins. Again. I crawl out of bed, duvet draped around me, and open the door. She looks worse for wear. Dark circles hang around her eyes, and her scalp is red and flaky. She looks me up and down and folds her arms.
“You look like crap,” she scoffs.
“So do you.”
“Fair.” Her resolve slips, and her gaze drops to the floor. She opens her mouth to say something but stops. She just stands there silently, trying to put words together and failing.
“What do you want?” I mutter, unable to take it any longer.
She meets my eye and simply says, “To talk.”
“I don’t want—” I begin, closing the door, but she stops it with her hand.
“Neither do I. But we need to.”
She pushes past me into the room and perches on the edge of my bed. I close the door and hover there. What the hell is she doing? Why is she in my room? I think she’s thinking the same thing given how uncomfortable she looks. Her eyes rove over my possessions, the dirty dishes, the piles of clothes – the nest I’ve built for myself this past week. She doesn’t comment on anything, though I can tell she’s dying to. When she sees I haven’t moved, she rolls her eyes and sighs.
