TEA AND SYMPATHY

BRIELLE

I slide my thumb over my screen and check my notifications. Nothing. He’s been gone for hours, almost as long as I’ve been in the country, and it’s hard not to take that personally. It’s hard to believe the words that came out of his mouth were from the same man I fell in love with, but then, I guess he’s no longer that man. Grief changes you. Drugs and alcohol change you, and my Levi—the Levi from the south of France who was quick with wit and innuendo, who wielded his humour as if it were a sword to distract from the pain he was really feeling—that Levi is long gone. I don’t even know the man who stands in his place.

Still, all of the anger does not stop me from worrying whether he is lying face down in a ditch somewhere, or whether he is in the arms of another lover. Possibly more than one, if I know him at all.

I glance around the living room, at his friends, who are certainly more family than his own seems to be. I can tell they are all exhausted, and grief-stricken, too. Levi wasn’t the only one who lost a band member, though none of them are out drinking themselves to death.

“Why don’t you go home?” I say, finally standing and making myself of use. After I emerged from the shower this morning, I didn’t know what had happened. I called Ali and told her that he was missing. She confessed to having stolen his drugs so he wouldn’t be high at the viewing, but she didn’t think he would leave in search of another fix. Not when I was here. I guess neither of us know the true Levi. “I have Ali’s number and can text when he comes back?”

“We don’t mind,” Cooper says. His arm is wrapped around his wife’s shoulder. The two look tired but content in each other’s arms. “You guys go,” Cooper says to Zed. “Take my sister home.”

“Call me once you hear something?” Zed asks.

Cooper nods. “Yeah.”

Zed and Deb make to leave, and I see them to the door, though it feels ridiculous playing hostess in an apartment that I barely know. I am tired, jetlagged, and all I want to do is cry, or fly back to Paris, back to Monsieur Chat and forget I ever came here, but I can’t. I would never forgive myself, so I walk his friends to the door, and I apologise for his bad behaviour, and I wonder if this is what my life will be now, if I just sealed my fate with that airline ticket to be here and wait for him, and apologise on his behalf to the people who love him.

“You want a beer?” Coop says.

“Non, merci. I will make a tea.” I head to the kitchen and stop dead in my tracks because I remember who’s house I am in. “Oh, he probably does not even have tea.”

“Think you’re fresh out of luck there,” Cooper says. “Unless it’ll fuck you up, Levi is unlikely to have it.”

Ali rolls her eyes and joins us in the kitchen. “He has throat tea. I bought it for him last week.”

“Oh, thank God. I could kiss you, Ali.”

“I wouldn’t say no to seeing that,” Coop mutters.

Ali shoots him a grin. “I’m not sure I would either. Brie’s hot.”

“Just so you know, I’m not having sex with either of you. This band is far too incestual as it is.” I chuckle. The front door slams, and Levi stumbles into the room. I almost drop the boiling kettle in my hands.

“Well shit. Didn’t know I was missing the party,” Levi slurs. His eyes are bloodshot, his pupils so dilated I can barely see the ring of perfect hazel around them, and the look he gives all three of us is particularly nasty. “Where’s the fucking booze?”

“Where have you been?” I demand, my voice quavering as I set the kettle down and step away from the countertop.

“There she is, my Angry French Girl. I was beginning to think she’d gone away for good, which would suck, because you’re fucking hot when you’re angry.”

I narrow my eyes. “And you are a disappointing drunk.”

“Disappointing? That’s one I haven’t been called before.” He chuckles darkly as he staggers forward and wraps his arms around me, clumsily laying sloppy kisses on my neck. He reeks of alcohol, and his mouth when he kisses me is bitter and makes my own lips tingly and numb at the same time.

“Stop.” I push him away. He staggers back several steps. He can barely keep his eyes open. “You’re high.”

“What’s the matter, baby? You pissed I didn’t save you any? I got more. We can get fucked up, and fuck all night long. I can have that greedy little cunt of yours coming for me in seconds.”

“That’s enough,” Cooper says, wedging himself between us.

Levi glares and stumbles around him toward the kitchen. “I need a drink, anyway.”

Cooper steps in front of him. “Where the fuck were you today?”

“Why do you care, Coop?” he sneers, and he almost topples as he bends over to pull a bottle of whisky from the cupboard. “Oh, I forgot, you’ve gotta be in charge of everyone, right?”

“Don’t fucking start. I realise that you think the entire world revolves around you, because you’re an absolute child, but we were supposed to view Ash’s body today, and you thought it was a better idea just to go and get fucked up. Brie has been here all goddamn day, worried sick. She hasn’t even been in the country a full twenty-four hours and already you’re fucking shit up.”

“Jesus.” Levi scrubs a hand over his face. He is clumsy, and pathetic, and I want so badly to hurt him the way he’s hurt me, but I walk back to the counter and finish making tea, because if I don’t, I’ll probably stab him with his kitchen knives. “Do you hear yourself? Who died and made you so fucking self-righteous?” He laughs “Oh yeah, Ash died. My best friend, my brother. You didn’t give a fuck about him.”

“And you did? Goddamit, Levi, he came to visit you two weeks before he died, and you had your head buried so far up your arse you couldn’t even see there was something majorly wrong.”

“Did you? Did you stop for once this last damn week to let him rest?” he roars. “We all knew he was sick as a dog. Maybe we didn’t know he had AIDS, but you probably ran him into the fucking ground with your precious practice schedule.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Ali says. “We’re leaving. Brie, if you don’t feel safe here, you can come with us.”

I wrap my arms around myself and shiver. I don’t want to stay with him when he is like this, but I’m more afraid of the idiot swine hurting himself when left to his own devices.

“I’m fine,” I say with courage I don’t feel. “He won’t hurt me.”

Ali and Cooper exchange a look, and I’m suddenly not so certain of the truth in my words. “Well, you call us if you need to.”

“She doesn’t need a fucking babysitter. She’s a big girl. Aren’t you, AFG?” He flops down on the couch, swigging alcohol directly from the bottle as if he were a toddler sucking on juice. “You take care of everyone ... but yourself, that is.”

I ignore Levi and stalk through the lounge to see Cooper and Ali out. When the door closes behind them, he sighs. “Thank fuck the fun police are gone.”

“Non. Do not talk to me until you are sober.”

“Babe—”

“Don’t you fucking dare ‘babe’ me. We were worried sick about you. You disappear off the face of the earth, and come back twelve hours later high as a kite? Non. I will not talk to you tonight until the liquor and drugs are out of your system.”

“Brie ...” he whines. I have no sympathy. I storm into the bedroom and shut the door, locking it behind me. He pounds on the wood, and a few moments later, I hear him slump against it as I sit down heavily on the bed and cry. I don’t know if they are tears of frustration or heartbreak, all I know is this is not the man I travelled seventeen thousand kilometres for. I don’t even know this man, and I don’t want to.