"Darling," Kitty clasps me by the shoulders in a way that's become familiar, as she presses her cheek to mine with a ginger air-kiss. My back's to the bar, and with the three of them stood lined up before me, it feels like being initiated at the popular kids' table for lunch, except with a few more complicated details. "Oh, you look positively adorable."

When she smiles, her layered hair falls against her defined cheekbones, and there isn't a singular crease in her visage, but to my mind her glamour's muted, and all I can see is her opaque eyes. She has Faith's eyes. Or Faith had hers, I guess.

"Nelly, don't you think so? Don't you think Evangeline looks adorable?" When she's asked, Nelly's smiles a tight-lipped grimace, and, looking pained, turns her attention away from me in an instant, like she can't look away fast enough. I don't blame her, though. It's my fault all her memories of her sister are dredged up on a night that she should be enjoying. I wouldn't want to look at me either.

"I think you look precious, Jelly," Louisa says. She's been burning a hole in the side of my head since I came over, and I can't tell what she has planned. Eric says that I can trust her, that we can trust her, but tonight, under low lounge lights without him by my side, I don't feel so sure. Her upturned eyes are thickly lined, and I find myself hoping that it's just shadows turning her irises black.

"How've you found the night, darling?" Kitty shakes her full curtain bangs, and that's her third 'darling' of the evening.

"It's been go-"

"God, I'm sure it's been awful, hasn't it?" Kitty cuts me off with a pout. "A load of people you don't know talking about things you've got no clue or care about; I imagine you've been so awfully bored."

I laugh, out of politeness and nothing else,

"No, it's been alright! The food's been wonderful - and Eric's introduced me to a few lovely people."

"You've enjoyed the sushi! Oh, I'm so glad. It's a bit of an acquired taste, but," she leans into me to whisper, and I'd take a step back if I had enough space for one, "I'm sure you'll have an opportunity to try it again at some point."

"Oh, this isn't actually my first time – I have it pretty often at home."

"Oh yes, I'm sure, darling! I only meant real sushi. You know, the first-rate kind."

I blink a few times, and I'm sure I've misheard her, but before I've even fully understood what she's hinting, Kitty's flipped hair over her shoulder,

"I'm sure Aubs would take you for some if he wasn't so busy." Kitty and Lolly's heads are turned to watch Eric, horsing about with suited men, and as I go to answer, Nelly jerks her neck slightly. The movement's too minute, and the lights too dark for me to make it out, but it looks like a terse shake of her head. In this dimness it could just as easily have been nothing. 

"It's alright," I shrug, "he said things would be busy out here. I'm sure we can find sushi somewhere back home."

Once 'home' leaves my lips, Kitty's gaze whips around, and trains on me with owl-like severity. I watch her with still breath as her skin tightens over a clenched jaw, and my pulse quickens almost instantly. Fuck, did I say home?

"Home being...?" She asks, her neck rigid.

"Um, i-in London?" I don't know what the right answer is, but her glare compels it. Her hard eyes soften, and she holds a close-lipped smile before she speaks.

"London... Yes, I suppose you could. Wasn't Auby's last girlfriend from London?"

I tense. Kitty's opaque owl eyes finally release me, turning aside to Louisa, and as much as I want to go somewhere where I can see clearly, where I can breathe freely, the line of ladies barricades me in with my back to the bar, and I get the impression that I'm supposed to be here – supposed to shut up and listen.

"Not the Israeli? Or do you mean the Sheikh's niece?"

"God no, the blonde one."

"Oh, the Duchess' daughter!"

"No no, with the long blonde hair, ridiculously thin brows..."

"The Swede!"

"That's it, the Swede!"

Intrigue's kept me in place, I didn't know Eric had had so many girlfriends, but I shouldn't be here. As soon as Kitty motioned the length of Lea's hair, I should have stepped away, found an excuse, ducked out of this icy ring and found Eric. I feel my sweat prick and I know it's too late. I know I won't like how this ends.

"God, she was something... Wasn't it her he brought to the garden party, for the swan upping?"

Louisa nods, her look knowing and entertained, and it feels as though I'm watching a performance from behind a panel of one-way glass. They know I'm here, every word is for me to hear, and though they won't acknowledge me, the show goes on.

"She had a background rather likes yours actually, Evangeline," Kitty says, kind enough to throw a limp hand in my direction in place of eye contact, "only it was both of her parents who had emigrated. Poor thing. I don't imagine it was a surprise to anyone when Auby left her." What?

"When he left her?" I stammer.

Memories of Eric's trembling body, the heaves that tore through his chest that afternoon, scribble themselves in my muddled mind. His croaky words ring again: 'she left. She's not coming back.'

My head is hot, but my core's gone ice-cold, and my body feels in a fight with itself. He left her? Why would he lie to me about that? All the things I don't know seem to pile on top of one another, and the version of truth I grasped to a week ago keeps floating further and further away. 

"Yes... I just don't know why he insists on going for those sorts of girls when they never end up being the right fit. I'm sure you understand, Evangeline, being Irish," ‌ Kitty's cold hand raises to my arm again. She doesn't move it when I flinch at her touch. "We'd never dream of being at all prejudicial, but those sort of... extra-national associations never do end up working out for him."

She leans in with a daring brow raised, and I find myself tilting in to meet her, although it's the last thing I want to do,

"Fundamental differences, you see. They always seem to show themselves."

My mouth opens, and I want to say that I'm lost, that I don't understand, but I don't even know what it is I don't understand. I know the eyes are nasty now, I know that the air's turned thick, but it's happened so quickly that I feel paralysed. Was that some sort of warning?

When my breath hitches in my throat, I try to back away, but my spine hits the edge of the bar. I feel myself grow pale.

Kitty draws her hand back to her straw, stirring her drink slowly. Her voice comes out slow too, and, with her unwavering eyes, her words immobilise me like venom.

"I'd say there's no use in pretending to be suited to this sphere of life if one's simply... ordinary. Wouldn't you agree, Evangeline?"

I know that she sees the fear in my eyes. It only seems to spur her on, and the thinly veiled meaning of her words is plain in her enigmatic smile: you aren't good enough.

Kitty steps in front of Nelly, and the line of three becomes Kafka's Two.

Louisa's staring me down, and there's no harmless smirk about her now. Pure malice seeps from her dark orbs when Kitty leans, whispering with my wrist in the tight grasp of her talons, 

"Price tag's still showing, darling."

I gasp, and I only remember that the coconut drink's in my hand when I almost drop it in my rush to reach for the back of my Topshop dress.

"Careful there, Jelly," Louisa catches it without letting her stare stray. She brings both of my hands firmly to either side of the drink and holds them there, her tight, cold grip gluing my hands to their spot. My stomach turns at the sound of her voice, capricious as venom-laced honey.

"My dress," I croak, and I didn't realise it had been so long since I spoke, "the tag, I need to fix it, I-"

"Oh, sorry! Of course, go ahead," she steps aside, and I spot the silver-plated sign for the ladies' room. It can't be more than 20 metres away. I can make that. If I hold my breath, walk fast and look down so I can blink back the tears, I can make it there before I fall apart.

I squeak a thank you and step into the space between the two ladies.

"Only," and with one word, Louisa's shuffled back in front of me, and my escape is kicked out of reach. My heart shouts 'where's Eric? He's always here when we need him, where is he?', but my head calls me stupid, naïve. Don't you get it? He's off having fun because this is where he belongs. You're here, in tears, because you don't.

"I just wanted to say how sorry I was, Jelly."

I look up. The blood doesn't return to my face, but my runaway-train-pulse begins to slow, tentatively, hopefully.

"Sorry?"

"Well yes, I... I saw how Auby abandoned you earlier. At the opera. I just felt so bad for you. Did you see that, Nel?"

Nelly's crept into the tiny gap left between her mother and me, and the tight grip around her glass and the strain in her brows reads torment, worry, but she looks away from Louisa again, away from me, and now I'm utterly alone.

Ordinarily, Louisa and I are about the same height. Tonight, my heels even brought me a few inches higher, but when she mentions Eric, I feel the tears threaten and I have to look down to hold them in. If I meet her eyes for a second longer, they'll run over.

"Oh, yeah well," ‌ I try to clear my rasping throat, but I know the trembling betrays me, "it's not a big deal. He, um, he saw some old friends, and I said I didn't mind, so..."

"Yeah, yes, of course!" She says, vigorous in her accord, "But I mean, I don't understand why he'd want to spend a second without you on his birthday. It's odd, don't you think?"

'Think' makes my lip tremble. I can't think. I don't know what to think. I feel paralysed and powerless, and all I want is to go home. My real home.

When I don't respond, Louisa sighs, shaking her head with Kitty.

"It's just so sad that he's wasting poor Jelly's time. Aubs' can be a real charmer, but..." She trails off and I know it's a trap. I know every murmur and motion is orchestrated to bring my panic closer and closer to the surface, until it bubbles out me like an eruption, but I can't help but give in. In all the voices and stories, I'm losing sight of who my Eric is, and my desperate eyes ask the silent question: but what?

"He's always said he likes his girls clueless and cute."

"Fucking alright, Lolly! You've upset her enough, leave off."

They're wrong, they're wrong, they're wrong. If I chant enough, I'll know that I believe it, for real. She's bluffing. She wants to hurt me. She wants to hurt me with bullshit and lies and 'Auby this, Auby that'. I know Eric, my Eric, and he'd never say that. Would he?

I almost don't recognise Nelly's voice when she erupts like that. I haven't ever heard her so heated. I still can't see her – Kitty's in the way – but I hope, dear God, I hope this means it's over.

But Louisa only casts her a smirking look of surprise as she straightens her posture.

"No need to get uptight, Nel. I'm only telling her what a catch she is." I watch her eyes as they travel up the bar, then snap back to mine.

"You really don't know how gorgeous you are, Jelly. Oh, Aunty Kitty, isn't that just so Auby?"

"Unfortunately, Louisa, I have to agree with you..."

Suddenly my hands go hot. Louisa's taken the icy drink from my hand and is wading the straw through the creamy liquid.

"I'll bet," ‌ she says between stirs, and her eyes are back at the top of the bar, "that you didn't even know that that Brummie barman was flirting with you."

She lifts her thin brows, encouraging my eyes to follow hers, and when they do, they meet Daisuke's hazel-eyed stare. In a flustered instant, he drops his head and looks away.

"'Ave got a free drink for you, I 'ave." When she mocks him, her mouth stretches unnaturally wide, as though the parlance couldn't belong to anyone remotely human and as ugly as it is, when she sneers smugly she resembles Kitty more than ever.

"You know, they say those Midlands twangs complement the Irish accent quite nicely." She sips my drink with innocent eyes. "Perhaps you should drop him your number, Jelly. The two of you might make a good pair."

I'm sure I hear Kitty titter into her champagne flute, and the eyes, the lights, and the fierce focus, all on me, forces a tear beyond the brim.

"You've gone awfully pale, Evangeline," Kitty coos, and the softness of her voice stings, "I do hope we haven't upset you."

The sight of them, Lolly with her red lips around the straw my drink, and Kitty with her cobalt glare boring into mine, turns the tear hot, and in a surge of frustration, I use my shoulder to push out of the ring.

The room's becoming infinitely busier, the dance floor having spilled over into the seating areas, and in the growing, swaying throngs, I can't see Eric, but I catch Pip's eye. He's over by the aquarium, sat with a group of his friends, but once he sees my red-faced tears, and the ravens gathered behind me at the bar, his expression turns stern. Are you alright? He mouths.

In a moment of honesty, I breathe out shakily, renouncing the 'perfect adult' picture, and shake my head. Another tear falls with my silent, empty laugh. Pip pushes away from his table with an urgency and nods his head in the direction of the balcony window he's striding towards.

For a moment, while I wind through the crowd towards the door with misty eyes, I spot him. My Eric. The birthday boy, the man of steel.

Drink in hand, he's hoisted in the air like the cardboard crowd's king, with his tongue out and wagging, and his slick hair dishevelled as he bellows a song. For a moment, and a one very ill-timed moment at that, he looks like a man I don't recognise.