Page 54 of Falling

“You just said she made you feel… something.”

He waves a hand dismissively. “I felt my heart for a second, big deal. She’s gone now.”

I inhale sharply. “You really are one fucked up mess, aren’t you?”

“I don’t think I need you to point that out.” He pulls himself forward and approaches, pointing at me with a finger from the hand holding his glass. “Do you think you can fix me too?”

I stand my ground. “I doubt it. Only you can do that.”

“Yeah? I’m fine as I am.”

“Your girlfriend just died of a drug overdose! How is that fine as you are?”

“Shit happens.”

“I don’t believe that’s what you really think,” I snap, “You just said you thought you loved her!”

“This week, yeah.” He switches his gaze to a spot on the wall behind me.

Jem mended his slip in defences already, the alcohol re-entering his system and rebuilding his wall.

“Well, unless you want arresting, I suggest you call your manager and ask for his help.”

Jem pulls his phone out and slings it on the kitchen counter. “He tried to call. I’ll call him when I’m ready.”

“When you’re drunk enough?”

“Heh.” He empties his fourth glass since we began the conversation and tops it up again. “Gotta have a drink or two. If I do talk to them I want to be my normal self, right?”

Deciding this conversation is going nowhere, I walk back into the room where the huge plasma TV still plays the news. As I sit, a picture of a covered body wheeled to the ambulance flicks across the screen. A glass flies across the room and smashes against the opposite wall. Brown liquid streaks down, and I jump to my feet, spinning round.

Jem stares at the TV report, the reality of the world he ran from in Technicolor. A picture of him and Liv appears on screen and he storms over.

“Switch it off!” yells Jem. I scrabble around for the remote. “I said switch the fucking thing off!”

The room falls silent as I hit the off button and Jem slumps into the chair opposite, eyes vacant, and the sudden swing in mood gone. He remains motionless, staring into space and I realise Jem has gone too.

The slumped figure is at odds with the arrogant, cocky bastard I met a few months ago—different to the snide star who told stories about Dylan I didn’t want to hear. Knowing his lifestyle, and listening to Dylan, I was aware Jem is killing himself. Now by association, someone else has died and I don’t know his role in her death. How has this affected him?

His outburst frightened me, but the Jem, who freaked me out at Dylan’s house isn’t the Jem in the room with me now. Whatever this situation wakes inside him is about to kick reality straight into his limbo world.

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