Chapter 15 Episode 15

She’s around my age, give or take a year or two. Her hair is dark with faint highlights running through and she has big, blue-brown eyes that are hard to miss. She’s wearing a tiny, shimmery little dress and an extremely confused expression. “Who the fook are you?” she demands, tripping over her words. Not Scottish. English. And she reeks of alcohol. “Um, I’m Jessa. Who are you?” She frowns, studying me carefully. “What’re you doing in my apartment?” “Pretty sure this is my apartment,” I tell her. “What’s your number?” “Are you hitting on me right now?” All the nervous tension inside me fizzles out, and I laugh. “What’s your apartment number?” “Oh,” she says, glancing down at the silver sequined purse draped across her body. “My key is in there somewhere… The number should be on it.” “Jesus,” I murmur under my breath. “How much did you drink tonight?” “None of your business, Mum.” Ignoring that, I dip into her purse without her permission and pull out her key. “Ah, Number Twenty-Four. You’re one floor down from me.” “Doesn’t make you better than me,” she mumbles. She pokes me in the chest before she clumsily plucks the key from my hand. I smile as she turns to the staircase, tottering like a spinning top, and promptly trips on her own heels. She stumbles forward, giving me a completely-unasked-for eyeful of the hot pink thong she’s wearing underneath her dress. Rolling my eyes, I grab my own keys and lock my door before heading over to her. “Here,” I say, offering her my hand. “I’ll help you to your apartment.” She frowns at me. “Really?” “Wow,” she breathes, her expression softening for a second with that classic drunk-girl-in-the-club-bathroom-who-just-told-you-you’re-pretty sincerity before it contorts again. A sob bursts out of her. “That’s so nice.” “Okay, easy there, cowgirl. No need to get emotional.” “You know, you’re the first person who… who has been nice to me in this whole d-damn city…” She hiccups and fades into silence. “I gather you’re new in town?” I ask as I help her down the staircase one slow step at a time. She nods and sniffles at the same time. “I was sick of London, so I came to L.A. Turns out, it’s even worse.” “Yeah, I feel like that’s common knowledge. Weather from heaven, people from hell.” It takes a circus-worthy juggling act to get her door open while she clings to me, both hands wrapped around my neck pitiful. But somehow, I manage. Her apartment is an exact mirror of mine, though there’s considerably less furniture. She doesn’t even have a couch. Just a big beanbag in the middle of a lonely patchwork carpet. I drop her on the bag and double back to lock her door. It strikes me as I fill a glass with water and walk it over to her that an opportunity has presented itself. I can stay here and make sure this hot mess is okay and avoid spending the night alone in my apartment. You know, just in case someone is actually watching me. Feeling reasonably satisfied with that course of action, I kneel down in front of my new neighbor and offer her the glass of water. “Drink up.” She wrinkles up her nose and tries to bat the glass away. “I don’t wanna.” “Drink,” I tell her firmly. “You need something to wash out all that alcohol in your system.” She gives me a dirty look but takes the water. “Water tastes funny here.” She glugs it, missing her mouth more often than not, and then hands it back to me. “I… I feel weird.” “Have you thrown up yet?” I ask. “Well, you might have a little bit more left inside you.” “Oh God,” she huffs. “I hate throwing up.” “I gotta say, you look pretty good for someone who drank the whole bar,” I laugh, taking in her immaculate makeup. She gives me a lopsided smile and grabs my hand. Her nails dig into the skin of my wrist. “You’re really pretty,” she says, coming within two inches of my face. “Like, really pretty.” “Thanks, that’s sweet of you to say. Although I think you’re a little too drunk to be a good judge of that sort of thing.” “I’m drunk, not blind,” she says defensively. She releases my wrist and runs her fingers through my hair. “You’re so, so pretty. Is that natural blonde?” I want to bat her hand away, but I decide instead to be patient. “Yeah,” I sigh. “It is.” She nods and fingers her own dark locks mournfully. “I wish I had blonde hair.” She shakes her head. “Nah, you can always tell a fake blonde from a real one. Brunettes, too.” I frown. “Not sure that’s true. I can’t ever tell.” Her eyes stare off in the other direction. I assume I’ve lost her until she suddenly whips back around to face me, her eyes wide and fervent and super solemn, and asks, “Can we be friends?” Her lower lip is quivering like her whole life depends on my answer to this question. I feel like I’m back in preschool, making the other little girls swear to be my BFF forever and ever. “I’m so lonely in this city,” she mumbles. “I’ve been here for weeks and I haven’t met anyone I like. You’re the only one I like.” I hear the sound of a car growling down on the street. “Sure,” I tell her, getting to my feet and walking over to her curtained windows. “We can be friends. How about you tell me your name first?” I slide the curtain to the side and take a peek at the street below. The car has stopped across the street, but now, I can see that it’s just a taxi cab. And a few seconds later, a couple climbs out, lugging sleek suitcases behind them. “My name is Freya,” she says. “Freya Lennox.” I let the curtain flutter closed and turn to her. “I’m Jessa Demp—well, I was supposed to be Jessa Dempsey. But that’s a long story. Jessa Gilmore is what we’re sticking with.” Freya’s smile is bright, spreading from ear to ear. “Jessa Gilmore,” she repeats clumsily. “Pleasure to meet you.” I feel the sun slanting across my body, heating a line across my shoulder and over my face. My eyelids are tinged orange with the early morning glow. Which is weird, because my bed isn’t directly in front of the window. And I always keep my curtains closed at night. I roll over. My bed feels different in an unsettling kind of way, but I’m stranded in that place between sleep and consciousness. Maybe if I keep my eyes closed, I’ll drift back to sleep. Which sounds like a great plan. Until memories from the last few days start to sneak in. A tall stranger on a yacht. Gray eyes that draw me in and hold me. This feeling like he’s got hooks in my chest, reeling me into him in a way I can’t escape and won’t escape and don’t even want to escape, really. When he kisses me, I tense, my body inviting him in. When he twists me around and traps me between the boat and his body, a soundless gasp flutters from my lips. I want to turn around and touch him, too, but he’s got me cornered, pinned down, caged in his arms and his scent. I should be panicked. I barely even know this man. But all I feel is need. When I finally do manage to turn around, his arms are like steel girders around me. I look up and catch his silver eyes. He leans down to me, his lips close enough to graze against my ear, and whispers— My eyes flash open and I bolt upright. “Good morning there, Sleeping Beauty!” a cheery voice calls from the kitchen. I see someone move behind the fridge and a second later, she appears with a bottle of store-bought orange juice. “Not as good as the kind I buy back home, but it’ll do. You want a glass?” She smiles and nods. “And your name is… Jessie right? No, Jenny? Janine?” “Dammit. I’m rather horrendous with names, I’m afraid.” I rub the sleep from my eyes, though I don’t quite manage to shake off the half-conscious dream-s***h-memory I just had. “I’m impressed you even remember that much.” She gives me an embarrassed smile. “Yeah, quite sorry about that. I must not have made a very good first impression, huh?” “Hey,” I say sympathetically, “we’ve all been there.” “Drunkenly knocking down a stranger’s door because you think it’s yours?” she asks, pouring the orange juice into two glasses. “Somehow, I doubt it.” She offers me a glass and I take it gratefully. “You might not handle your liquor well, but you handle your hangovers amazingly,” I tell her. She looks positively put-together this morning. Between the two of us, you’d think I was the one who’d been ten sheets to the wind last night. She’s wearing a white mini-dress and a thin gold chain around her neck. Her dark hair has been slicked back into a high ponytail with a few strands left purposefully loose around her face. She beams at me. “I know. My one true talent. All my friends back home hate me for it. I can drink my weight in alcohol and still look like a daisy the next morning.” She laughs, but sobers up almost immediately. “I want to thank you.”