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I should’ve just stayed with Frank and Beans, knocking back shots until I passed out. Beans had told me I was ‘one of them’ now. I should’ve just embraced it. I could become their third and spend my days wearing tighty-whities and karate-chopping random objects. Change my name to Coleslaw.

Looking back down at my phone, I typed out a quick text to Nev.

Rafe: Will tell you later. Feel like death.

Grabbing the blanket off the back of the couch, I curled up into a pathetic ball and spent the next hour and a half slowly slotting tortilla chips into my mouth, almost choking several times because I refused to sit up to eat. I told myself I was actually paying attention to the movie, but I wasn’t. I was just lying there replaying last night’s events on a loop in my head, cringing non-stop and wondering how I was ever going to show my face at work again. Or outside my own house.

By the time the movie ended, my headache was gone and my stomach wasn’t so shaky. Restless energy made me shove off the blanket and sit up, clawing back my messy hair.

I couldn’t just lie here all day torturing myself with memories of my own drunken, horny stupidity. I grabbed the remote and turned off the TV, then stared at my pathetic reflection in the black screen.

Making a decision, I grabbed my soda and stood to head back upstairs. In the bathroom, I pulled all my hair dyeing supplies out from under the sink. I’d been meaning to re-bleach my hair and dye it a new colour for a while now, seeing as the blue was fading and turning a gross shade of green, and this would keep my mind off things.

It was still a little steamy and warm in here from my bath, which made the nausea start to rise again as I went light-headed, so I grabbed my old, stained towel and carried everything downstairs to the kitchen.

After spreading out the towel and getting situated on the floor, I began setting out everything I needed in a neat line—in order of usage, obviously, for efficiency’s sake. I already had some baby pink dye that I’d bought a while back. It had been a while since I’d had pink hair, and I was looking forward to the change.

I knew I should’ve got it done professionally, but I despised going to the hair salon even to have my hair trimmed. I wouldn’t survive sitting there for hours getting it bleached and dyed, having to make small talk with the stylist and be surrounded by other people.

I’d rather go bald, to be honest.

Gradually, as I measured out the bleach and propped my mirror up on a chair at just the right angle, I began to relax, my shoulders unclenching. By the time I was brushing the last of the bleach onto my roots and covering my head with a plastic bag, I actually felt somewhat okay. Marginally. Still hungover as shit, still contemplating whether I should just ghost Goliaths, sublet my house and find an apartment on the other side of town so I never had to see Ewen again, but I no longer wanted to crawl out of my own skin.

The bleach fumes were going to my head a little, so I unlocked my back door and propped it open to let in some fresh air, beyond relieved that Ewen had finally fixed my fence so I didn’t have to worry about potentially seeing him in his yard.

When I wandered into the living room and heard my phone vibrating under the couch cushion, I sighed and dragged myself over, already knowing what name I’d see on the screen. He wouldn’t stop until I answered him.

“Hi, Nev,” I said dully.

“I’m on my break. Tell me what happened.”

“No.” I collected my empty chip bowl and carried it into the kitchen.

He huffed. “Rafe!”

“You can’t make me tell you anything.”

“Wanna bet?”

“Yeah, sure, I do actually,” I said flatly. “You called me crying once when you sent me a text with an accidental frowny face at the end of it, because you were worried I’d think you were mad at me. You’re not gonna threaten me with anything, Nev.”

He exhaled dramatically. “Well excuse me for being sensitive and wanting to only uplift my friends and brighten their days. You don’t get to weaponise that. Dick.” Without giving me time to answer, he then whined, “Tell meeee.”

I sighed and scrubbed a hand over my face. In a voice almost as whiny, I mumbled, “I don’t wanna.”

“Rafe, come on.” Nev laughed lightly. “It can’t be that bad, can it?”

“It can.” I turned on speakerphone and set my phone down on the kitchen island so I could start clearing up the bleaching stuff. “It is.”

“So it’s worse than chubbing up in front of all your co-workers?”

I cringed. “Yes.”

“Just tell me.”

“No.”

I heard a sigh, then a long pause. Eventually, Nev threatened, “I’ll start guessing. And I’ll guess the weirdest shit I can think of. Stuff that makes you sound like a really depraved pervert.”