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It was not so much that she feared she would die; she had begun to dread that she wouldn't.
The headache lanced across her temples with such bright, crystalline pain it was as if she had laid hands on some great electric charge; her spine twisted with it, unable to move until that swift, sharp shock subsided into a slightly less intolerable toothy throb. Her tongue felt glued to the roof of her mouth, heavy and thick with churned saliva, yet her lips were so dry she could feel their skin cracking as she cautiously sought to peel them apart. Her neck ached with a low, muscular throb; it had never been quite right since her fall from the ladder, but it had never been this bad before, even immediately afterwards.
She subsided back against the bed, giving up for the moment her pretensions towards mobility, and reveled in the scant relief the cool, smooth sheets gave her.
Wine. It must have been the wine. She ground her teeth in frustration and shame, then immediately stopped as the motion sent a fresh wave of agony through her tender skull. She had always found it terribly unfair; she could down martinis with the best of them, but two glasses of sugary grape-piss and she was doomed. Yet it was the height of rudeness to refuse to share a drink with a moneyed patron, and hard liquor did not exactly mesh with the refined atmosphere said patrons tried to cultivate with the addition of a hired concert pianist. Margaritas didn't do this to her; why should smashed fruit guts be so devastating?
She was so thirsty.
At least she had managed to make it home in relatively good order, though the soft sursurrus of the sheets told her she had not so much as managed to get her nylons off; too much to hope that she had downed some aspirin on autopilot—not that it had done any good, if she had. She raised a hand to her cool, clammy brow, repulsed by the thin sheen of sweat that covered it. Disgusting. She never indulged until after a performance, so she had probably managed to refrain from making too much of a fool of herself, but—disgusting. She hated the knowledge of her failings as much, if not more, than suffering their consequences.
So much for the for the genius ingenue, untouched by worldly matters.
The thirsty ingenue. Ugh.
Cautiously, she levered an eyelid open, and was pleasantly surprised to be spared a blinding stab of illumination; it must still be the middle of the night. Wincing, she stretched herself, her lip curling in pain as her abused muscles rammed home the fact of her dehydration. Licking her lips, she reached for the nightstand, hoping against hope that the glass of water she typically left there would have something in it, but her fingers only encountered smooth wood. If she'd knocked it over and spoiled the carpet—well, she would deserve the hit to her damage deposit. Disgusting. Idiotic behavior.
The sudden, angry roil of her stomach put an abrupt end to her plans of sitting up; she wrapped her arms around her midsection and clenched her teeth against the choking wave of nausea. The moments seemed endless as the dizziness washed over; she lost count of the long, even breaths she tried to make herself take before she became confident she would retain possession of her dinner. Struggling gamely against the dry ache of her joints, she managed to flop one leg over the edge of the bed and plant her foot flat on the floor. She had heard somewhere that doing so would keep the room from spinning, stabilize your inner ear, somehow; it had never worked for her, but she invariably found herself falling back on the vain hope that it would during times like these.
She lay still after that, wracked as much by the headache as the feeling of shameful, overwhelming helplessness. She wanted her mother, a nurse, a friend; someone to bring her some aspirin and something fizzy to drink, to assure her that everything really was going to be okay. Yet she did not even have the thin comfort of self-pity to console herself with; her suffering was entirely of her own doing.
There was nothing else for it: she would have to make it to the bathroom. The journey would be her penance. She could drink out of the toothglass, and chew the bitter pills if her throat proved too sore for swallowing. Lying on the cool tile might be soothing; proximity to the toilet could only be helpful. Perhaps she should simply throw up; less poison for her system to deal with.
Decisions, decisions.
Levering herself up on one elbow did not prove as difficult as she feared; the back of her skull felt like it was going to fall off, but the nausea did not return. Nothing to it but to do it. Without giving herself a chance to lose her nerve, she sat the rest of the way up, set her other foot on the floor, and hoisted herself upright. Her stomach continued to behave, but her head felt as if its contents were sloshing around. She threw out an arm to brace herself against the wall, but found only empty air; with a dull feeling of alarm, she stagger-stepped sideways until she collided with it, slithering downward until her elbow caught against the edge of the wood paneling that girded the room. She froze, panting with the unexpected effort, willing the dizziness to subside.
Finally, the room steadied; she dared not risk opening her eyes, but she was fairly certain that up and down were going to remain where she expected them to. Her elbow had gone numb from the pressure she'd been placing upon it; she shifted her weight to her shoulder and flexed her fingers, checking automatically for any tingling or pain. It would serve her right if she somehow managed to pinch a nerve, but she didn't dare risk it; her sojourn in Romania had gone better than she'd hoped, but not well enough to accommodate time off to recover from an injury.
Nothing. Good. She propped her head against the wall, but the ache in her neck was too severe to remain bent that way; with a sigh, she began to shuffle forward. All she had to do was follow the wall; the private bath she'd insisted upon was at the far end of the room. She could find it blindfolded.
She'd thought herself lucky to find such a charming flat; after resigning herself to staying in hostels when she had first begun planning her tour, a room in the tumbledown, ornate manse had struck her as delightfully continental. The reality, alas, had proved to be something else again. It wasn't simply that she lived in terror of harming the furniture—the house was stocked with antique everything, most of it probably worth more than she was—but that she had never lived in such an old building, and was utterly unprepared for the problems that came with them. Noises, always; from the creaking of the floorboards to the clanging rattle of pipes to the wind whistling beneath the eaves, there was invariably some kind of creepy noise to disturb her in the middle of the night. She hadn't gotten a decent night's sleep in what seemed like weeks; the nightmares were pretty constant. One teased at the corners of her beleaguered thoughts even now; something grabbing at her, holding her wrist... a dead body... she swallowed thickly, driving the ghostly, frenetic images from her mind with a grimace. She couldn't even get drunk enough not to dream.
Her fingers brushed against the wallpaper as she went, and even in her current state she could not help but enjoy its softness; it was probably silk, velvet, some other sumptuous thing Americans would never dream of sticking on walls. Something about it felt odd beneath her fingertips, but she put it out of her mind as she continued her slow trudge; it wasn't as if she'd spent a lot of time feeling it. But that niggled at her too; there was something else, something... the massive, four-poster bed took up so much space that... but she'd had to stagger... well, so what? She'd tripped.
Her elbow. She'd braced her elbow against the lip of the paneling... which she didn't have.
She blinked her bleary eyes furiously, willing them to focus, her heart sinking as she was forced to confront the indisputable evidence of her senses: deeply burnished wood, gleaming faintly in the dim light.
She hadn't made it home, after all.
Cringing with shame, she sagged back against the wall, gazing about her in horrified realization. No posts on the bed—no night table—no carpet, for that matter, only bare stone—she didn't have the faintest idea where she was; she'd never seen this place before. Her temples throbbed anew, as if to congratulate her for her genius deduction.
Time to think. Think, think, think. She reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut and willing the headache away. Where had she been? How had she gotten here? There'd been a private performance... there was always a private performance. Not the gallery opening; she'd been loath to do that one, as she had a performance with the symphony the following night, which she had done...
No. The woman in the fur coat, the car... it had been because of the symphony recital... Messieur Ash... Club Muse. The names brought a slight degree of relief, allowed her to push away that stark bolt of terror. She must be... had she gone home with him? No. No, her stockings were still on; she rubbed one nylon-covered toe against the floor to reassure herself of that fact.
She must still be at the club. She must have gotten so wretchedly, falling-down drunk they'd felt it prudent to deposit her in a back room somewhere to sleep it off. Oh, God. She might have wept, if she'd had the moisture to spare; she gulped for air, unsure whether she was going to sob or puke. This was inexcusable. She'd never done anything like this before. The embarrassment was so all encompassing it was nearly a physical thing, crushing the breath from her lungs; her head spun with it, driving all other thought away. God, what kind of an ass had she made of herself, and in front of whom? What if she'd botched her performance?
And hadn't she? With a sick, scouring sense of dread, she rather thought she might have. She had a memory of slamming her palms down on the keyboard with inordinate force; real ivory, older than she was; she'd felt bad even as she'd done it, but—oh God.
She might be able to sneak out—but, no, she wasn't that craven. Nor was she in any condition, she realized as her thighs began to quiver with the effort of supporting herself. She forced herself to straighten, turning to rest her back against the wall. She still had to find a bathroom; then she had to locate her host and apologize as deeply as she could. Hopefully, if she abased herself thoroughly enough, no one would be inclined to mention this to the symphony director. The private recitals provided a nice stream of income, but if she lost her name billing—she shuddered at the thought, unable to bring herself to contemplate how completely that would ruin her.
But her head ached so much, and she felt as parched as she'd ever been; her heart raced, her muscles trembled. Yet she'd gotten herself into this; she'd have to get herself out of it as tactfully—and rapidly—as she could. She let her head loll forward on her sore neck, reaching up to massage the muscles at the base of her skull in an attempt to drive the pounding misery down to a manageable level—and recoiled in disgust at the dry crust her fingers encountered.
Her eyes flicked to the bed, and away again just as quickly. She'd thrown up. She had gotten plastered, blown a performance, done God knows what else, and capped it all off by puking all over herself and her host's bed. What an excellent job! At this rate, there was little point in apologizing; she might as well simply pack her things, head back to Minnesota, and hope to land a job giving piano lessons, if the background checks weren't too thorough. Christ. She swiped at her neck angrily, hoping to rub some of the filth away, and was rewarded with a sudden stab of pain and a new flinch of revulsion when she realized that some of it was still wet. She raised her hand, meaning to wipe it on her shirt front—
—it was red.
Her lip curled—red wine; of course!—but... no. She raised her fingers to her face, spreading them carefully, hardly able to believe what she was seeing; but once the smell hit her, she knew.
Blood.
She was bleeding.
She was falling.
The sharp pain of her knees striking the stone floor was almost enough to bring her back from the brink; but as she remembered—what had grabbed her—why she'd slammed the keyboard—she was glad enough for the embrace of darkness.