From London With Love

02 | a tale of too much tequila

Ophelia was good at many things.

Reading Chaucer with the correct pronunciation. Quoting the lyrics to indie rock songs. Biking back from a farmer's market balancing a basket of bread and cheese, which meant riding without holding the handlebars.

Drinking, however, wasn't one of them.

Unfortunately, Ophelia remembered this around her sixth tequila shot, by which point the room had already started to spin. Damn her competitive streak. Louise had been an Olympic gin drinker since they were teenagers; Ophelia, on the other hand, still struggled to open a corked bottle of wine.

She should never have tried to keep up with her.

But alas.

She forced herself to try to focus on things. The low, sloping ceiling. The sticky brown tabletops. The oil painting of a stern-looking man in a grey wig. But all of it was pleasantly blurry, glittering like a mirage rising above red sand dunes.

"I'm drunk," Ophelia declared. "Extremely drunk, in fact." She pulled a ratty menu towards her, squinting at the floating black letters. "What on earth are crisps?"

"Chips," Louise translated.

Ophelia tapped the menu. "Then what are chips?"

"Fries."

"You know what?" Ophelia shook her head. "I'll just get both."

It had only been a few hours since they'd eaten, but vegetable pakoras could only get you so far. Besides, Ophelia needed to sober up; she sensed that she was heading for a cliff edge, and only greasy food could prevent her from falling.

She crossed unsteadily to the bar, ordering both from a bored-looking young man with a lip piercing. He continued to grow unimpressed as she fumbled with the foreign silver coins, mixing up the five and ten pence, and she let out a sigh of relief when Louise came over to help.

Louise guided her back to the table. "You've been this drunk before, right?"

"Of course I have."

"Like when?"

"Last year, remember?"

It had been Ophelia's second — and last — time at a bar, in fact. The night had been a blur of cocktails and dingy lighting, and it had ended with a horrible cab ride, a misplaced bag of drugs, and her cousin Sophia making international headlines and being subsequently forced to move across the country.

But, you know.

A story for another time.

Both of their phones buzzed. Ophelia squinted down at the screen, trying to make the blue and green bubbles stop moving. Louise grinned.

"It's from Sophia," she explained. "She's reminding you to drink water."

Ophelia groaned. "She's about three hours too late."

"Do you want to text her?"

"Absolutely not."

Ophelia loved her cousin, but she was terrified of her; Sophia had a tongue sharper than a paper cut. Some days, Ophelia felt like she had spent most of her life feeling exasperated, usually by Sophia or Louise or a combination of both. Thank god for their fourth friend, Ella; her quiet sweetness balanced them all out.

Ophelia frowned. It was a miracle that they were all friends, actually; they had clicked more than a decade ago at Lovewood Academy, a private boarding school in Toronto. She was grateful for that. Their shared history.