Page 66 of Golden Burn

“You didn’t hear?” Cerbera says. My mouth is so dry I can’t swallow.

“Hear what?”

“Your clinic was burnt to the ground. Arson, the news said.”

It takes several seconds for my brain to absorb and make sense of his words. “My clinic?”

“Yes. Very sad—” He doesn’t look sad at all.

I shake my head. “No, there must be some mistake.”

Cerbera sips his wine and glares at me for interrupting him. “No mistake. Off the highway, yellow walls, obscene amounts of tramadol stacked high in the supply room. That’s where the fire started, they said.” He looks right at me when he says that, his eyes as scorching as the fire he described.

I’m vaguely aware of the final course being placed on the table, the smell of gelato and berries wafting into my nose. But there’s a buzz coming from somewhere. A white noise I can’t place.

It’s hazy like a dream, what Cerbera tells me. It has to be, otherwise if it’s real, I might very well shatter into a thousand pieces right here at this table.

“Firefighters got there too late, unfortunately. All the animals perished.” He places a spoonful of gelato into his mouth, sucking the metal clean. “Can you imagine that? Being burnt alive? Must have smelt delicious, though, all that meat frying.” He laughs and all of his choir boys join him. I watch it all in slow motion, my brain too tired to process.

But when Cerbera starts to bark, pretending to be a dog howling in pain. My mind cracks in half. Reality swamps in.

I rise from my seat, vomit pulsing at the bottom of my throat.

“Excuse me,” I pant, my legs wobbling, and run for the bathroom.

Away from view, my dinner pours out of my mouth and into the toilet. I cough and gag, my throat stinging from acid. My eyes drip with tears, my entire body trembles, spittle hangs from my lips.

It can’t be real.

The clinic. Burnt. All those precious animals, nothing but ash.

My mother’s legacy, the last real piece of her—gone.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe.

My knees collapse underneath me, my arms wrapping around the toilet full of vomit. I rest my head on the porcelain and shudder.

Someone grabs my shoulders, hauling me up. “Etta. Etta.”

“No,” I moan. “No.”

“Etta, get up right now!”

It’s Martise, and her voice is like steel. Her grip on my arms, equally so. She hauls me up and over to the sink. I stand beside her in a daze, while she dots under my eyes with a wet napkin.

“Is he lying?” I ask, my throat rough.

“I don’t think so,” she answers honestly. “There was… footage. But I couldn’t see.”

Tears threaten to spill, ruining all her efforts to tidy me up. Martise grabs my cheeks. “No. Not here. Do not give him the satisfaction he craves.”

“I can’t,” I whine. As soon as I go back out there, I will crumble.

She squeezes me, holding me together. “You can. You will. You have no other choice.” I shut my eyes, choke back a whimper of despair. All those animals died horribly because of me. “Dinner is done. All we have to do is walk past them and out the door.”

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