The Morning After
Bright light pressed against my eyelids painfully, the morning sun demanding I open my eyes and wake up. Moving my head away from the brilliant light, I turned onto my side. I wasn’t ready to admit that I was awake, not even to myself. Moving hurt my head. Pounding started from what felt like an inch behind my eyeballs all the way to the back of my skull, where the throbbing sensation resonated off of my cranium and bounced back to my eyeballs, which seemed to be pulsing in rhythm.
I have a hangover?
I’d never had a hangover before. I’d only been drunk a few times before, and it didn’t feel like this. I’d definitely never had this thumping in my temples before. Sleep. I needed more sleep. My friends told me that sleeping was the answer, and then coffee. I peeled an eyelid open . . . coffee? That was a reason to bear the blinding pain that rushed into my head as my open eyelid allowed light in, and I hastily closed my eye again. No. Not even coffee was worth this pain.There’s a sentence I never thought I’d say, I thought ruefully.
Sleep,thatI could manage.
Settling in under the sheet, pulling it high up over my face to block out the light, I promised myself five more minutes.
Running water had my eyes peeking open again, and slowly, I moved my head from under the sheet to look around. I could hear the shower. As my eyes adjusted to the horrific brightness, I slowly realized three things.
This was not my room.
These were not my sheets.
This was not my bed.
Cautiously, tentatively, my hand slipped under the blanket and explored as a worrying realization crept into my foggy head.I’m naked?Why am I naked? Where are my clothes?Alarm andpanic were quickly replacing the pain in my head from too much alcohol the night before.
The bathroom door opened, and I hastily dropped my head under the sheet, closing my eyes as the rest of my body froze.
“I can’t believe you’re still here,” a male voice muttered.
So, he knew I was here, and from the sounds of it, he wasn’t happy about it. But the more important question to me was, who washe?
“Yo, chick.”
Chick?
“Yo, girl.”
Slightly better.
“Woman!” he said loudly, his irritation bleeding into his tone. “Wake the fuck up and get the fuck out. I don’t have time for this.”
I will never drink again, Lord, if you send me a sign that I did not have sex with this guy.
I heard a door being flung open, as it bounced off what I assumed was the wall, announcing that there was another person in the room. “There’s a girl in your bed?” the new person said, and I wasn’t sure in my hungover, dying-of-humiliation state if he was stating a fact or asking a question.
“Yeah, she’s not waking up either.”
“Fuck.” I heard the hesitation. “She dead?”
“Are you fucking stupid?” I heard the scorn in Bathroom Guy’s voice, and between the pain in my head from the hangover and the burning embarrassment, something niggled that I recognized his voice. “You think I fucked her to death?” I could hear his amusement as his movements sounded louder in the room, and I guessed he was getting dressed.
Cue a snort-laugh from the other guy. “Maybe she’s just passed out in bliss?”
“My dick feels raw, so I definitely fucked her more than once . . . so . . . not impossible.”
He did? Cold horror crept slowly up my body.I had sex?With him?He sounded like a complete dickhead. It was taking all my willpower to lie there and breathe evenly when, in reality, I wanted to bolt out of the room and then crawl into the nearest hole that I could find.
“Well, that was TMI,” the other one said with a small laugh. “You better have wrapped it up.”
“Obviously. Can’t remember much, but I picked up enough wrappers when I went to the shower this morning,” I heard him tell the other one, and then I heard him stamp his feet. Was he putting shoes on? “She isn’t waking up.” The irritation was back in his voice.
“Back up a minute. You?You’refuzzy on the details?” the other guy asked curiously. “I thought you weren’t drinking last night?”
