Page 56 of Star Struck

And was he better for it? Was Jack Whitaker really a nicer man for never allowing himself to cry? Did never really letting go make you a superior person? Or did it just allow you to feel superior to anyone who suffered? Jack shook his head. Am I really heartless or am I just empty?

Chapter Twenty-Three

The party had reached that stage of drunkenness where people were coming and going and falling over all the time, in various permutations of sexuality, so Felix and Jack’s hand-in-hand re-entry was largely ignored. I came in behind them. Although I knew it was hot in the diner, I was still chilled, even my stomach felt frozen.

‘Right,’ Jack kept his voice low and even. ‘Think you’d better get upstairs.’

Felix shrugged. ‘Need my coat. It’s over there.’

I rummaged around until I found the soft fur heaped in a careless pile in a corner. Went to pass it over to Felix but he snatched it from me, groped around inside it for a second then produced a little brown bottle. He grabbed it and upended it into his mouth, then pulled the coat up around his shoulders as though he was cold, too.

‘Was that Valium?’ My voice sounded hoarse and strained, as though normal questions were just too banal to utter. ‘Fe?’

‘Yeah. Want to sleep, don’t want to think. Don’t want all this hanging all night.’

I was about to say something about ODing, but Jack caught my eye and gave his head a tiny shake. ‘Right. When those take effect you’d better get yourself into bed, okay? I’ll go find Jared and get him to take care of you.’

Felix gave a grin which belied the streaked cheeks and desperate eyes. ‘Oh yeah? You up for a threesome, Mr Whitaker?’ But there was a fake note in his voice, as though he was acting, badly. ‘Think I might just take you up on that.’

It hurt to see him trying to slip back into his old self, the carefree player of games. Now I knew what was running underneath it all, his contempt for me, the loss and grief that he carried. ‘Jack,’ I whispered, ‘I need to talk to Felix alone.’

‘I don’t know if that’s . . .’

‘Please.’

‘Hey. As long as you know what you’re doing. As long as you’re prepared for the consequences.’ A quick flash of some hidden emotion, not humour. ‘And we need to talk too. There are things . . . I think you need to know about me.’

‘Because of what Felix said?’

He stared down at his bare feet, now filthy with a mixture of dirt and sand. ‘Partly. And partly because of what happened earlier.’

My lips gave a kind of sympathetic throb. ‘Oh. That.’

‘Yes. That. It’s not . . . straightforward.’ He stood up. ‘Right. I’ll catch up with you in a minute.’ He slipped back out through the doors. I saw women turn to watch him go and my lips throbbed again.

‘Fingers,’ Felix said, behind me.

‘Sorry.’ It was automatic. ‘Fe . . . Why? Before . . . before the accident, why was I like that? Why was I so awful to be around?’

He shrugged. ‘Background, I guess.’

‘And why don’t I know what I was like? Why does everything I can remember seem . . . I dunno, normal?’

‘Because it was normal. For you. That was how you always behaved, how you always were. Why should it stand out as being different? You were needy, difficult, a bitch who acted out . . . It was all just the Skye we knew and lo . . . knew.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Another shrug. ‘You say.’

‘I really don’t remember. Everything is so . . . scattered. I can’t make sense of any of the things I can remember, all just scenes and snapshots. You have to believe me.’ I went quiet, looking down at my feet. ‘After the accident . . . why didn’t you tell the police?’

An explosive laugh. ‘Is that what you’re worried about? That I’ll turn you in? Is that really what concerns you most at this moment, Skye, whether you’re going to get into trouble?’ He pushed his face close up against mine so that I could see the narrowness of his pupils and the shiny gleam of denied tears. ‘I’ll never spend another Christmas with Faith. We’ll never go to another audition, we’ll never sing happy birthday to our mother, never sit in the little study shooting the crap. I’ll never be an uncle. I’ll never see her in white on her wedding day. My beautiful, wonderful sister is dead.’ A slow tear escaped from under his lashes. ‘And all you’re worried about is whether I’m going to tell the police.’

‘It’s not all, not by a long way.’

‘Yeah?’ Felix stared at me, his eyes tracing the outline of my face. ‘You’ve really changed, Skye, I mean, totally. Like you’ve been re-written from the inside. But I wonder . . .’ he raised a hand and slack fingers held my chin, turning my face from side to side, ‘is it enough? Could it ever be enough?’

‘I think you should. Tell the police the real reason for the accident. Tell them what I did.’

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