Solitaire
: Part 1 – Chapter 27

THERE IS A tornado of people around me, screaming in all directions, and I can’t go anywhere. After several minutes of pandemonium, the flow steadily softens into one direction rather than a whirlpool, and I am torn out of the house in the current. Everyone is in the garden. Someone cries out, “Karma, motherfucker!”

Is this karma?

Two boys hold Ben Hope while several others hurl punches and kicks at him. Blood splatters onto the snow, and the spectacle gets wild cheers every time a hit is made. Only a few meters away, Nick and Charlie are standing in the crowd, Nick’s arm around Charlie, both of their expressions unreadable. Charlie steps forward, as if he’s about to intervene, but Nick pulls him back. They exchange a look and then turn away from the show. They walk out of the crowd and disappear.

I couldn’t stick up for Charlie, and now Solitaire’s doing my job for me. I’ve never been able to do my job properly, I suppose.

Then again, maybe this isn’t about Charlie.

I think back to what Michael said to me in Café Rivière.

Oh God.

Maybe it’s about me.

I laugh, tears still falling, so hard that my stomach aches. Silly. Silly thought. Silly me. Selfish. Nothing is ever about me.

Another hit. The crowd shrieks with joy, waving their drinks in the air, like they’re at a concert, like they’re happy.

Nobody is trying to help.

Nobody

nobody.

I don’t know what to do. If this were a film, I would be there, I would be the hero stopping this false justice. But this isn’t a film. I am not the hero.

I start to panic. I turn back into the crowd and break out through the other side. My eyes won’t focus. Sirens start to blare, distant in the town. Ambulance? Police? Justice is everything? Patience Kills?

Michael, out of nowhere, grabs me by the shoulders. He’s not looking at me. He’s looking at the scene, just like the rest of the crowd, watching but doing nothing, not caring.

I throw his hands off me, muttering crazily, “This is what we are. Solitaire. We could just—they just—they’ll kill him. You think you’ve met bad people, and then you meet people who are worse. They’re doing nothing—they’re not—we’re just as bad. We’re just as bad for doing nothing. We don’t care. We don’t care that they could kill him—”

“Tori.” Michael takes hold of my shoulders again, but I step backward and his arms drop. “I’ll take you home.”

“I don’t want you to take me home.”

“I’m your friend, Tori. This is what we do.”

“I don’t have any friends. You are not my friend. Stop pretending that you fucking care.”

Before he can argue, I’m gone. I’m running. I’m out of the house. I’m out of the garden. I’m out of the world. The giants and demons are rising and I am chasing them. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be sick. Am I hallucinating this? I am not the hero. It’s funny because it’s true. I begin to laugh, or maybe I’m crying. Maybe I don’t care anymore. Maybe I’m going to pass out. Maybe I’ll die when I’m twenty-seven.

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