'Heard from Jess?' A guy dances over towards Kate and yells in her direction.

'Nope.' Kate grabs your arm, 'But this is Jess' cousin.'

The guy stares at you, 'Hi!' He smiles and shakes your hand.

'I am actually a person too, you know. Not just Jess' cousin!'

He laughs.

'Sorry!' Kate puts her hand over her mouth, 'We've all been introducing you all day as "the cousin".'

'Well it is something amazing to be.' The guy is still laughing.

'Why.' You stop moving with the music and stand still in the middle of the heaving crowd. 'WHY?' What the fuck did Jess do to you people? Is anyone gonna tell me or what?'

Kate and the guy exchange looks.

'Bye. Good to meet you, not-just-Jess'-cousin.' He bows and disappears into the crowd.

'Look. I don't really think it's my place to tell you what happened. Mainly because I don't know.' Kate has lead you into a quiet corner near the pool tables. 'The first I knew was Jess had gone. Packed the car and taken off. We had the bond to cover the bills so it wasn't a total asswipe thing to do but it was pretty sudden and pretty weird. If you really wanna know you'd have to ask Ned or Pol. But good luck, I've tried and neither of them knows or else they're not saying to much.'

'But there's so many knowing looks and little comments.'

'Most of them are probably just doing that to pretend like they know cos they figure everybody else does. They're fucked.'

'Can we get out of here?'

'Sure. I'll just say bye to a few people and meet you at the door.'

You wait for her not sure if you really want to go back to the house or not. But you will; you've got nowhere else to go.