IN THE HOURS BETWEEN • TC

37. Rising to Fall

HELLO EVERYONE I HOPE YOU ENJOY

•••

Timmy has disappeared again.

Una is hanging around by the back door. Someone passed her a joint a couple of minutes ago, and she inhaled but she doesn't think she did it right. You're supposed to inhale twice. She's not even sure she inhaled once. She just let the smoke sit in her mouth, swilling it around with her tongue until her mouth opened and it seeped out.

The person who offered it to her had laughed. Had asked if she knew how to smoke. Asked if she wanted to try again.

(She had tried again, but suddenly felt so horrible that she purposefully let the smoke sit in her mouth, handed the joint back with a smile and a nod, and walked back into the house. She must have looked like a hamster, storing all that smoke up. It doesn't do to dwell on it.)

Her journey up the stairs provides her with answers to several questions, the first of which is where is Timmy?

Timmy, after their conversation in the garden–

(Is it really a conversation if it only lasted a minute? If it ended as quickly as it had started, with Timmy leaving her to think, patting her shoulder as he got up, like she was a child in need of consolation?)

–is now standing outside the bathroom in a queue of stoners, snoggers, and otherwise occupied party-goers. He is leaning against the wall, his angular face lit harshly by the screen of his phone.

When he glances up, Una pretends not to notice, attaching herself to the back of the queue, a couple of spots behind him. To her surprise, Timmy leaves his place in the line and comes toward her.

"Una, I need to speak to you," he says, frowning down at his phone. She swallows, her mouth tasting acrid, and nods. "Not here," he adds, and grabs her shoulder again, steering her down the hall like she might run away given half a chance.

(How is he supposed to know that she would give anything for him to touch her, everywhere, again and again? Now that she knows deep down that it's not wrong. Now that she knows that to be touched by Timothée is to be claimed, is synonymous with belonging.)

Timmy knocks on a closed door and doesn't wait for a response. She's not sure if anyone has ever taught him party protocol, and Una wonders what state of undress the people behind the door will be in.

Surprisingly, they are all fully dressed, sprawled out on a king sized beds, girls in tight dresses and socks, their legs tangled, some on their phones, one crying, a couple of designated soothing hands and apologetic smiles huddled around her.

“Oh, this room is filled,” Timmy says, backing out. Una wants to join the girls. She is hit by a pang of longing to be mixed in with them, to have someone stroke her hair as she throws up, to have someone's leg to lie on as she scrolls through Facebook, avoiding the noise and sweat downstairs.

A couple of girls look up as Timmy shuts the door, and Una wants him to open it again so she can slip inside and seek refuge.

Instead, she feels Timothée's hand curl around her bicep, and he guides her down the stairs again, back into the garden. Una briefly makes eye contact with the person who offered her a joint earlier. She looks away quickly.

When they are out of the way, sitting on the steps up to the hot tub - of course there's a hot tub - Timmy pulls out his phone.

"I need you to help me with these," he says confidentially, and Una peers over his shoulder at a small message composed to her, consisting of a couple of half-words. Sort of semi-jibberish.