Trust No Bitch: Part 2

Alice Jenkins

Over the years, Alice had self-medicated in many different places, all of them behind a closed door, sequestering bags of powder or pill bottles in the most inventive of places. Her surreptitious drug habit, however, had never felt as deplorable as it did whilst washing down Ritalin with water she'd acquired from a nightclub bathroom tap just to stop herself from keeling over in the middle of the dance floor, before checking her hair and makeup in a dismally cleaned mirror. It all felt very Lindsay Lohan circa 2007 and whilst it was throwback night, that was not what Alice was aiming for. It was always that moment, walking out of the toilets, when she just felt like the first person she saw would know.

They would see it in her eyes.

Her sister, Vanessa, had that day when she'd spilt tea on that ridiculous silk dressing gown. Her mother could too, otherwise she would never have picked up the phone to call that second rehab facility. Cleo, must have known somehow; that photo she'd showed Alice of her bathroom cabinet, that same photo that the Supplier now held over her head like a machete, just ready to slice her down the middle, well, why would Cleo have thought to go looking through Alice's flat in the first place unless she suspected her of something? And Alice didn't know, leaving the nightclub toilets moments later, why she was filled with such an extraordinary amount of terror at that prospect; Clara was probably off her face somewhere on coke, half the people down on the dance floor below her were most likely on MDMA and she'd even seen a syringe on the floor of the neighbouring cubicle. Christ, Alice, calm down, she'd told herself as looked over the balcony to try and find Gemma. She should be back from the "drive" by now, she thought, looking around the "chill out area" where the toilets were located. The place was usually barren but not that night. There was a woman standing there, probably a student too; Alice couldn't see her face. She was inspecting the notice board in front of her, the one with the small tribute to Mia Jackson, that infamous photo used to help push the "reckless party girl" stuck up there with a few smaller ones underneath. Alice frowned and approached the woman slowly, not wanting to startle her. Only once next to her could Alice see the look of abject despondency on her face; it must be a friend, she thought to herself.

"Hi." The woman said, without turning her head to address Alice, still staring at that photo, the one the press had used; Mia's irises could be carved from ice, her dark hair unkempt as ever and her skin the colour of walnuts. She was looking over her shoulder with slightly parted lips, the ridges of her spine obtruding down her back like a stegosaurus, made visible by the tiny crop top that she wore, which also just revealed the side of her xylophone chest. It was clearly taken in a club, the dark around Mia almost consuming her tiny frame, the bodies around her just faceless, nameless blurs; she looked nymph-like, lost, lonely. Of course it fit the narrative, Alice thought bitterly, trying to keep the acid from her tone as she greeted the woman with a quiet "Hi.".

"It's a load of bullshit, the stuff they wrote about her." The woman replied, however, her voice as acrid as the one in Alice's head. "That she killed herself."

"You think?" Alice asked, tentatively.

"You don't?"

"No, you're right." Alice murmured. "I mean...yeah, I always thought official story sounded a bit...off."

"I was friends with her." The woman said. "Mia was happy, for the first time in a long time. And not the pretending to be happy kind of happy, the like, real kind of happy. I know the difference. She was really strong, you know. She never told anyone this, but I don't see any reason keeping it a secret now. She was...uh, assaulted in Boston." It felt wrong for the friend to tell Alice that, all the times that she'd scoffed about the "mysterious reason" why Mia had left America, and all the times she'd looked upon this woman that she really barely knew, with her reproachful eye. She'd never even spoken to Mia Jackson and yet here this friend of hers was just blurting out everything Mia had probably guarded within an inch of her life, buried away so deep inside her that none of it ever saw sunlight. Blurting it out like it was worth nothing more than the empty cider bottle that lay rolling back and forth periodically across the floor next to their feet.