Page 69 of Fangs for the Memories
I don’t have a home, not here, not anymore. My bewildered brain considers, for a brief second, going back to my mother in Sussex, but I think I’d rather lie down on the airport tarmac and never leave. In the end I give them the one address I can think of.
“What the…” Lucy opens the door and does the best double take I think I’ve ever seen. “Why are you here?” she exclaims.
“It’s complicated,” I respond. “Can I come in?”
“Of course.” She waves me past her and glares out the door. “Who are they?”
“I don’t know,” I say wearily. “They’re sort of with me, but they’ll stay outside.”
“Fuck, Grace…” Lucy shuts the door. “What have you done?”
I stare at my friend, a familiar face in a sea of emotions.
And I burst into tears.
Grace
“Here.” Lucy places a steaming mug of tea in front of me.
It has the sloganAbsolutely not vodkawritten on the side.
The scent of it makes me queasy. I’ve got used to Kórnel’s delicious coffee.
“Thanks,” I say automatically.
“I didn’t think you were coming back,” Lucy says, curling up in her squashy armchair opposite me. “Or rather we didn’t.”
After my meltdown, I’ve been installed on her big couch with a box of tissues. Her hallway is also full of cases, something she gave me a sharp look about and I had to shake my head and mumble,“I’ll tell you later.”
“I probably…” I look at the tea, unable to meet her eyes. “I probably wasn’t. I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”
“You’ve got it real good,” Lucy says with warmth in her voice. “Whoever he is.”
“He’s a Hungarian werewolf mafia boss.” This time I hold her gaze.
Lucy holds mine. The room is silent save for the occasional sound of a passing car.
“You don’t do things by halves, do you?” she says finally.
“You mean like being jilted a week before my wedding, going on a not-honeymoon, and coming back mated to a werewolf?”
Lucy barks out a laugh.
“Something like that,” she says, taking a sip of her tea. “I didn’t even think you were that into monsters,” she adds.
“I wasn’t.”
Lucy looks down at her mug. “I think this calls for something stronger than tea,” she says.
Before I can respond, she’s out of her chair and rattling in her small galley kitchen at the back of her ground floor Victorian terraced flat. I hear the sound of clinking glass, and bile rises within me.
Lucy returns with a bottle of wine and two glasses, plonking them down on the table as she twists off the top.
Just the smell of the alcohol tips me over the edge, and I’m racing out of the room, through her cluttered kitchen to the bathroom at the rear, ready to throw my guts up.
Lucy’s not far behind, holding my hair and rubbing my shoulders gently as I retch into the bowl.
“I’m sorry,” I gasp when I think I’m done. “It’s been a day, and I will tell you about it, but I think this is all the adrenaline coming out.”
