Page 73 of The Long Way Home

“You don’t say,” she tells the road sarcastically. I glare over at her but she doesn’t seem to notice.

“Maybe she’s just a really great person,” Bridget offers.

“Maybe.” I nod, a bit deflated.

“She’s from Australia, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Guys love Australians because they’re super chill, easy-going, which has got to be at least a little bit of a relief to him, because with you, you’re a h—”

“Bridge—”

“What?” She looks over at me and recognises the despair on my face. “Fuck. Sorry—” She flashes me an apologetic look. “You are though.”

“Bridget.” I sigh.

“You are a handful, Magnolia, but he’ll love you forever anyway.”

But he might not. Those magnolias on the stone. With him and me, it’s never just been just any old reason to touch me, but any reason to see me and to be around me and to hover by me. He had a reason and he passed on it.

“I need a drink,” I tell her.

She gives me a look. “Actually, I think you need several.”

And that’s how I end up at Buckley’s (one of Jonah’s clubs) with my sister a few hours later.

Schmammered.

Me, not her. Bridget’s not much of a drinker. I’ve only seen her drunk a few times. We all do our best to keep her sober because Bridget full-blown drunk is very honest — scathingly honest. She got so drunk Christmas Day last year in New York and she told Harley that she thought he’d ‘sexually regret’ divorcing our mum but emotionally he’d probably made the right choice. She told Tom that he was the better man but she hoped he was prepared to play second-fiddle forever — delivered it to him like she was telling him the weather outside, so matter-of-fact.

She doesn’t take hostages. There are never any winners.

She tried to buzz BJ up into my building when he flew in to win me back. Harley body blocked him from coming inside. I think they had a fight?

Sober Bridget would never do that, so just as a safety precaution for us all, no one ever over-serves Bridget.

I have been over-served though. I’ve over-served myself.

I am completely plastered.

And I don’t know how we ended up at Buckley’s, or why she agreed to take me — it’s probably the baby thing.

The baby thing is why I’m drunk.

And the BJ thing.

But aren’t they actually — when you think of it — one and the same?

We’ve been here I don’t know how long, because before we were at a bar.

I look very pretty — obviously. We went home first. I’m wearing a yellow and pink tweed off-shoulder mini dress from Oscar de la Renta and Bridget said it was too cold to wear it so I definitely wore it, and even though I paired it with the double-breasted brushed wool and cashmere-blend coat from Sergio Hudson, I didn’t put it on because having a sister is weird and I wanted to spite her even if it was at the cost of myself, and during the five second walk from the town car to the club I thought probably I was about to die from hypothermia.

I look great. It doesn’t matter that I look great, it’s just me and my sister, but I can’t not look great in case of photos. There aren’t a great many things I can control in this lifetime — I’m learning this now at the ripe old age of twenty-four. I can’t control how you see me, but I can control how I will be seen. And you will only ever see me very put together. You don’t need to know about the parts of me that aren’t.

I have a distinct feeling that were the public to know about my weaknesses they would be used against me. I watched it happen last year when everyone found out about Paili. You’d think people might be respectful or even just considerate of how that might have hurt me. Listen to me: You must never read the comment section of a photograph you post of yourself and a boy who isn’t the boy the world wants you to be with.

You should probably just never read the comments.