Chapter Fourteen
Blair
Ipick up a shift in the afternoon, wanting to be out of the house. I want to dance away my anger and the memories plaguing me—the ones that always come back when I look at my mum or when she reminds me.
Sitting in my car in the drive, I scream, letting it all out as I beat the wheel.
The sound of the monitors in the hospital and the memory of opening my eyes and being told what happened fill my head. I hear sirens and feel blood. I let it all out in an agony-filled scream as tears fall down my face.
When it’s over, I smile, pull down the mirror, and fix my face. Then, it’s like it never happened. I drive to work and park outside. It’s slow when I get inside the actual club. There are only a few people here, but I head to the back to get ready.
Over the next few hours, I lose myself in the music. It doesn’t matter if there is one or a hundred people watching. It’s not about them, it’s about me and the beat transporting me away. For a moment, I’m somewhere else. I’m someone else.
I’m not broken.
I’m not angry.
I’m not alone.
I just am.
I exist from one heartbeat to the next, from one move to the next, and when it’s over and I sit in my dressing room, reality comes crashing back down. I know tonight is one of those nights where I need to do something reckless.
I need to be wild. I need the adrenaline.
I need to feel.
I call Faye, and she tells me about a party. I promise to pick her up, and then I dress in some clothes I keep here. Wearing black ripped shorts and a simple, low-cut white tank top, I add some gold jewellery and makeup, and do my hair in curls to make it look like I didn’t just roll out of bed, and then I’m on the road.
It’s dark, almost ten, when I get Faye. She rushes to my car, holding a bottle of wine and doing a dance. When she slides in, she turns up the music and grins at me. “Let’s get drunk, baby!”
Laughing, I yank on the wheel and race through the city, following her directions. She sings and dances in her seat, drinking from the bottle and making me laugh. I roll down the window, my arm hanging out to feel the breeze as we twist and turn down a long highway next to a lake. Just outside the city, I let myself go, pressing the pedal harder and screeching around the corners, making Faye scream in excitement.
When we finally reach the mansion on the hill, there are sports cars parked everywhere as all the rich bastards stream inside. Faye is already tipsy, her eyes sparkling as I get out and tuck my keys into my back pocket and light up. She comes around to my side and loops her arm through mine.
“This is Randy’s place. His real name is Raymond Yulsef the third. His father is some rich ass Russian. I’m pretty sure he’s into illegal shit, but he’s never here, and Randy, well, he throws kickass parties.”
I nod and puff before she drags me with her.
Music fills the air, vibrating through the fancy concrete driveway as we head up to the mansion made of glass. When we get inside, there are bodies everywhere. People talk, dance, and laugh. There is even someone hanging from the chandelier. I see what she means, this place is elegant and filled with riches.
We head down some glass steps into what Faye informs me is the party area. There’s an indoor pool with people drinking and playing around. Hell, someone is even fucking in the corner. There’s an actual bar across the back wall with LED lights and bartenders. The middle is taken up by a dance floor and poles, with cages hanging from the ceiling with half naked girls covered in jewels inside.
But outside? Shit.
The glass doors are thrown open. There’s another pool with a fucking water slide going into it. There are two more bars and a stage where a band is currently playing, and the place is packed.
Beyond it is a stunning view of the city, the lights sparkling and the darkened roads calling my name.
“Holy shit,” I murmur as I put out my cig and look around. “How the rich fucking live.”
“Too right.” Faye grins. “Free bar and good music though, so let’s get partying!” To the crowd, she yells, “To getting shit-faced!” and others scream with her.
She turns, grinning at me, and I laugh as she pulls me into the mass before the stage. I lose myself in the pounding bass, dancing and jumping. I don’t drink, not yet anyway. I don’t need it to have a good time.
An hour or so later, the band packs up, and while they are switching to a DJ, I drag Faye to the toilet. She leads me to some outside ones—a fucking block of them. We share a stall, and she falls into the door laughing, making me grin as I wipe and flush before she pulls up her red dress and goes too, nearly falling off the toilet.
“Gonna fuck tonight?” she slurs.