Begin Again | ongoing - Chapter 15: Chapter 15

Sunny does not feel good. She feels too much and not enough and her lungs are too small, her heart too big, her head fractured into a million pieces that she can't puzzle back together.
"I'll be back in a sec," she says, mood souring as she scoots out of the booth and stumbles across the bar to the neon signposted toilets, where she finds an empty stall and locks herself inside.
She isn't going to be sick. That'll probably come later but for now, she just needs to breathe deep and wait for this moment to pass because five minutes ago she was having a ball and now she feels this aching hole in her core.
Despite how busy the bar is, the loos are relatively quiet. Someone flushes in another stall and Sunny listens to the tap run, then the whir of a weak hand dryer. She doesn't move. Someone else comes in and Sunny's still sitting there on the lid of the loo, elbows on her knees and her warm hands pressed over her warm face, which has gone weirdly numb. She wonders if she's allergic to alcohol or if something is terribly wrong, another symptom of a brain tumour perhaps, and she doesn't move because she doesn't know what she wants to do next. So she closes her eyes and listens to another woman wash her hands and leave, and she hugs herself for one minute, two, three. Until the door opens again.
"Sunny?" Delilah's voice. The pressure in Sunny's cheat eases.
"Hi."
"Are you throwing up?"
"No. I'm okay."
"Just because you're not throwing up doesn't mean you're okay," Delilah says. She leans against the only locked cubicle. Sunny looks at her feet, at the strip of dark brown ankle between Delilah's shoe and the bottom of the door. "Want to come out?"
She doesn't answer.
"Want me to come in?"
There isn't space in this cubicle for both of them, though the image tickles Sunny. She envisages their bodies wedged between the loo and the wall, someone's foot in the toilet bowl.
"I'm okay," she says again. "I'm not used to drinking. Does it always feel this weird?"
Delilah chuckles. "I wouldn't know. I tend to stop if I start feeling weird."
Sunny unlocks the cubicle and almost faceplants the floor when she loses her footing as she stands. Delilah catches her and together they stumble against the sink, which lets out an ominous creak.
"Oh, shit. Let's go before that thing breaks," Sunny says, back to laughing. She's not sure about this whole drinking alcohol business: her emotions are a seesaw. No, a rollercoaster, because this isn't a predictable back and forth but a wild up and down and upside down that feels like someone grabbing her shirt and tugging her in a new direction every few minutes. Perhaps I didn't drink enough, she thinks as Delilah leads her back to their booth, where her unfinished drink is waiting. It can't be that alcoholic, she reckons, because it tastes like orange and strawberry and sugar and it goes down so easily, a syrupy thickness at the bottom of her glass.
"Where's Fen gone?" she asks when she clocks that there are only four of them at the table. Ravi nods at the dancefloor, and they all turn to watch as Fenfen uses a skinny, tatted white guy like a pole, her body shimmying and grinding on his as he tries to figure out where to put his hands. He decides on her waist, pulling her against him, and he has to bend his neck at an awkward angle when she reaches up to kiss him. She has such a thing for tall guys, even though any guy over five eight is a giant to her. This dude is well over six feet. Even in her strappy heels, Fenfen only just comes up to his shoulder but he doesn't seem to care.
"She's found the only straight guy in here," Fraser says, wrinkling his nose at them. "Dude can't even bust a move. Wanna show them how it's done?"
Ravi protests but allows his boyfriend to drag him onto the floor and when the song changes to It's Raining Men, Fraser hollers and breaks out the moves. He's surprisingly good; his hips have a life of their own and he knows how to hit every beat of the song, using Ravi – poor Ravi with his two left feet – as his prop. Sunny creases up watching them, perched right on the edge of the booth as she jives in her seat, head bobbing and hair swinging. She and Delilah are the only ones at the table, but they aren't alone for long before a leggy redhead with bold make-up and a bolder dress saunters over, trailing her hand along the table top before she rests her hip against it and raises her eyebrows at Sunny.
"Hey," the girl says, taking a coy sip of her drink, her tongue playing with the straw. Sunny leans forward, entranced by the stud in the girl's tongue, which sparkles in the light. She's a magpie, drawn to pretty things that sparkle, and this girl is sparkle from head to toe. Even her hair is glittery, unless that's just the stars in Sunny's eyes. "Love the hair. How about a drink?"
Delilah launches herself across the booth before Sunny can say anything and blurts out, "She has a girlfriend."
The girl holds up a hand, unbothered, and backs away without another word. She is soon lost to the crowd, swinging her hips across the dancefloor, and Sunny turns to her friend with a pout.
"I know you're in a weird place but you don't want to cheat on Viv."
"I wasn't going to do anything," Sunny says, though she doesn't know how true that is. She has never done anything before, but she's drunk. She's emotional. She has no allegiance to Viv yet. She doesn't have the emotional security that comes with more than a year of dating, doesn't have that instinct that tells her how to act because it still takes a while for her brain to kick in and remind her that she's with someone.
"I don't want you to get hurt, Sunny," Delilah says, her hand on Sunny's forearm, "and I don't want you to hurt Viv."
"I don't want to hurt Viv," Sunny says. She doesn't voice her fear that there are so many ways she could hurt her without even realising, that she is going to fuck this up somehow. "It's all so fucking weird and I hate it. I hate that she tells me about our dates and our fucking anniversary and as far as my brain is concerned it's like it never happened!" She throws out her arms and almost smacks Delilah for the hundredth time. "I wanted to skip all the dating and now it's what I miss. How fucking shit is that?"
With a sombre nod, Delilah says, "That's really fucking shit."
"You're a really good person, Delilah Jackson."
"So I've been told."
"I don't tell you that enough."
"You tell me plenty, my beautiful baby buttercup," she says, her alliteration the only sign that she's slightly buzzed from her trio of mojitos, "and you know what?"
"What?"
"I know you're going through some weird stuff right now"—Delilah waves her hand in a circle around Sunny—"but you're a good person too, and you know what's right. You know what you need to do."
"Mmm."
"Does it match what you want to do?"
Sunny thinks hard on that. What does she need to do? She needs to learn how to live this new life. She needs to either reshape it or herself so that the two fit seamlessly together, like they were never separate entities. And what does she want to do? She wants to be happy. She wants to fit in. She wants to—
"I want to go home," she says, and she doesn't mean it in a deep and mournful sense; she isn't missing 1999 right now. She means it literally: she's tired and boozed-up and she wants to crash into her bed. And she doesn't want to be alone. She says as much to Delilah, who looks around for Fenfen. But Fenfen is nowhere to be seen because she's hooking up with the guy she was dancing with, the two of them pressed against a wall next to a door that declares itself to be STAFF ONLY, where it's only a matter of time before someone finds them and kicks them out.
"Okay, let's go home. You can come back with me," Delilah says.
Ravi and Fraser, buzzed and sweating, trip away from the dancefloor and towards the booth just in time to hear that. Fraser asks, "Are you guys getting the bus too?"
"Oh my god, please no," Sunny cries. "I can't climb your hill, Lilah, please don't make me climb it." She tips out her purse on the table and grabs a ten-pound note, holding it aloft. "Taxi money!"
A laughing Delilah scoops Sunny into her arms, and Sunny may be tall but she easily folds against her friend when her tired legs decide they don't need to work anymore. A few minutes later, all four of them spill into one of the taxis that hang around outside waiting for a fare, and after a pit stop at Jupiter Court to let Ravi and Fraser out – only once Ravi has ascertained that yes, Sunny is definitely all right and yes, Delilah will keep an eye on her – they trundle up to the top of Sandy Hill.
It's a struggle to get Sunny upstairs but they make it in the end, stumbling into the flat that smells delightfully like a candle shop, and after a quick stop in the kitchen to rehydrate, they're both lying on top of Delilah's leaf-patterned duvet in time to hear the rain that starts to pitter patter outside. They're on the top floor, the roof right above them, and the sound is intoxicating.
"I love the rain," Sunny says, staring at the ceiling. It's the most amazing ceiling she has ever seen, and she's seen pictures of the Sistine Chapel. Over the course of a four-day weekend, Delilah mapped out and painted realistic stars on her ceiling, bright white flecks against a navy base coat; the stars of the twelve zodiac constellations are linked with thin white lines. Sunny finds Cancer, the upside-down Y shape, and Gemini, which looks like a beaker mid-pour, right next to each other. "Just like us," she muses, and Delilah follows her gaze, follows what she's saying.
"What happened today?" Delilah asks when she feels the moment is right, when Sunny is calm and breathing deep. She isn't stupid; she knows shit has gone down but she can't figure out what. As far as she's aware, Sunny's already going through a lot. More than most people. For Delilah, her biggest worry at the moment is the fact that her landlord has sent her a written warning about lighting candles in the flat, while Sunny's biggest worry? It's literally out of this world.
Sunny sighs. It's a heavy sigh, the kind that makes her body sink deeper into the covers. She rocks her cheek against the firm, plump pillow and looks straight into Delilah's eyes, and she tells her, in no uncertain terms, exactly what happened.
She tells her about standing on the doorstep for an eon that turned out to be a smattering of seconds; she tells her about the cupboard full of tea and the comforting spice of the vanilla chai she chose; she tells her about Astrid and Celeste in the most excruciating detail because she can't bear to forget. She needs to share this with someone else so she knows it happened, so she can get rid of this weight on her chest that she has been dragging around all day.
Words spill between them, collecting in the folds of the duvet like beads of water on the oily feathers of a duck. Some of the words fade into the night, escaping the pale glow of the streetlight outside. Some stand out in neon colour: the names and their fates burn bright. Delilah holds her breath as Sunny lets loose everything she's been holding in, as though this infliction could be catching.
"I don't want to die," Sunny says at last, once she has run through her entire day up until the moment she met her friends outside Lickety Split. "I'm scared and confused and so fucking lost all the time at the moment, it's like this black hole inside me. Which"—she snags a tangent and runs away with it—"is funny, seeing as that's how I think of what happened to me. I fell into a black hole. And I have a black hole inside myself." Her eyes bore deep into Delilah's. "Do you think I've done this to myself? Is it all in my head? Am I losing my mind, Lilah? Please be honest with me."
"You're not losing your mind," Delilah says. She reaches out, patting around until she finds Sunny's hand and holds it close. It may not be the truth, because she's not sure they'll ever have the truth, not every atom of it, but it's what matters. It's what Sunny needs to hear.
"What if I imagined Astrid and Celeste? What if I had some kind of episode and none of it even happened, and I just tidied all day and fever-dreamed them?"
Delilah smiles. "I don't believe that," she says. "You would never spend a whole day tidying."
That makes Sunny smile. All her friends know her so well. She's a messy bitch, and she's not exactly proud, but she's not going to change any time soon.
"And Sunny? You're not going to die." She squeezes tighter now, the kind of squeeze that says I'm not going anywhere. We're in this together. "You have the upper hand here: you have a decent idea of what's happened to you, and you have all of us around you. We're not going to abandon you. Ravi and Fraser and Viv and me – we're here for you. Your parents are, too."
"They don't know what happened."
"Do they need to?"
"No."
"If you ever want to try to tell them, know that you've got me and the others and we'll back you up. Hell, I'm sure Astrid and Celeste would too, if you needed them. But your parents don't need to know if you don't want them to, and you know what?"
"What?"
"Not every person needs to know everything you're going through. That doesn't make it any less real."
They sit with that feeling for a while. Sunny rolls over so she's facing Delilah, holding both hands in the space between them, the words cleared away. Her chest is so full of love for her friend and she doesn't know what to say, can't find the perfect words amidst the increasing fog in her brain, so she shuffles closer and wraps Delilah up in her arms. They hold each other like that for a long time.
The rain gets louder, fat droplets slapping the window and lashing the pavement as they pelt down from the heavy clouds above. It's April showers in full force, sapping the heat from the day with a downpour. They listen to it, eyes closed, bodies tangled together in a platonic embrace.
"I'm so lucky to have you as a friend," Sunny murmurs at last. "I can't believe I've missed a year of your life."
Delilah chuckles and says, "As sad as it sounds, you haven't missed much. My life is pretty steady."
"Any celestial discoveries? Any dates?" She knows Delilah's priorities, knows which to ask first.
"No and yes," Delilah says. "I went on two whole dates with that girl from Spar, you know the one that rents videos?"
"Oh my god, yeah! Sheila?"
"Shirley."
"She's cute!"
"And desperately boring." Delilah giggles. "I gave her a second chance in case it was first date nerves but nope, she was painfully dull. The next week, I went home and helped my dad paint the spare room and it was literally more interesting waiting for each coat to dry than it was listening to Shirley droning on and on about goodness knows what."
"Oh, no." Sunny puts on an exaggerated pout. "Is she the only one?"
"Fraser set me up with his cousin a few months ago, but she turned out to be a twat."
"In what way?"
"She managed to make it clear three times in our one single solitary date that her type is usually petite blondes. Like, okay, I get it, do you need to rub it in? Sure I can throw on a wig but I'll always be fat and Black."
"What an absolute fuck," Sunny says. "Also, what the fuck kind of shallow bitch has a physical type?"
"Right? Pathetic." Delilah rests her head back on the pillow, hands crossed over her stomach, and sighs. "And there you go, you're all caught up on a year of my life."
"Lilah..." Sunny trails off because she knows Delilah hates pity, but this isn't really pity. It's love with a touch of concern, because she knows that flippancy is often a mask for something a little more tender.
"I'm fine, Sunny, don't worry. I've got my books and my stars. That's all I need. And you." She gives Sunny a tender look. "I am perfectly happy, just as I am."
The rain abates. The quiet that fills the flat is jarring until it sinks into the bones of the place and it's like it never left. There is only the occasional drip from the gutter, or a drop from the tip of a leaf on a waterlogged tree.
"Tell me about Viv," Sunny says after a while.
"What about her? You know her better than I d—"
The silence thickens. It's Sunny who breaks it with a laugh because if she can't laugh at this situation then she will absolutely cry.
"Sorry, I didn't mean that," Delilah says.
"It's fine. There's a version of me who knows her inside out. Probably millions of versions, if your multiverse theory is right."
Whether that thought is terrifying or quite nice, Sunny hasn't decided yet. It is what it is. If there are infinite universes out there, there's nothing she can do but enjoy the one she's in. Even if it's not the one she stays in.
delilah's flat is my dream home