A Choice Of Abiding

↠revelation in the light of day↞

On the day before Christmas, Lucy woke up in an unfamiliar room. She had a hammering headache and every last memory, how she got into that room, was gone. As she tried to sit up, her stomach revolted, forcing her back into the sheets. As soon as reflex to gag faded, she dared to take another look. The first thing, she was happy to notice was, that she was alone. Her keys laid on the nightstand beside her. Her clothes were distributed all over the floor. She must have been blacked out drunk yesterday, considering her headache, nausea and the lack of memories. Her phone was nowhere to be found.

She finally managed to sit up. Other than her stuff, she didn't recognize anything about the room. Sunlight fell through a small crack in the curtains on the grey bedsheets. There wasn't much furniture in the room: a little shelf with books, the bed and the nightstand. All seemed unused. Considering her lack of memory of the last evening, Lucy started to panic. What happened last night? Where was Caroline? And where the hell was she herself?
"Okay, calm down!" she thought, "Think this through logically. Retrace your steps. What can you remember?"

It all started after the traditional cinema trip with her family. Caroline and her were in her room, with a bottle of the nonetheless traditional, brutally sweet wine. Lucy loved to celebrate her birthday like this, no matter how old she got. They had built a pillow castle in one of the corners of the room, like they had done when they were younger. Back then, out of fear to get caught drinking the stolen wine, that Lucy's father used to get from his patients for Christmas. Only this time around the pillow castle served more nostalgic reasons. Lucy had bought the wine herself.

They've been gossiping like at any good sleepover. Over their former neighbors, a little bit about Caroline's latest date. A guy from her one of her university courses. The date had been a total disaster.

"Ugh, who needs guys anyways." Caroline concluded the conversation, "I don't get them, they never get me. It's awaste of my precious time."

Lucy laughed, a little tipsy already and took another sip of the wine. It still tasted as sweet as eating a sugar cube. Lucy knew at that time already, she would regret that devil's drink in the morning.

"I want to go dancing!" Caroline groaned after a big sip of her glass, "You want to sneak out and hit the clubs?"

Lucy almost spat out her wine from laughing this time.

"You are aware that we're not teenagers anymore, right? We don't need to sneak out. We could use the front door for that!"

"But where's the fun in that?" Caroline said, her cheeks red in excitement, "Come on, let's dress up and sneak through the window. For old times sake!"

Lucy was feeling pretty nostalgic, so she grinned and said: "All right. For old times sake."

Climbing through a window dressed up and tipsy, turned out more difficult, then she remembered. Had the leap to the garage had always been this big? Had her arms always felt like jelly after letting herself down from the garage to the ground? Maybe she was getting old.

All that didn't matter anymore the moment the girls stumbled into the club. Of course, they had not been coming here, when they were younger. Caro would have been way too young for that. Most of the time, they stole away for going to the movies. Sometimes, they would visit parties of Lucy's school friends. Occasionally, they'd be driving around in Caroline's dads pick up truck to find a place where they could watch the stars. For the latest, they obviously were not as drunk as they were now.

They showed the security officer with shiny cheeks their IDs and he waved them in with a bored look.

"I'm way to used to get declined at the doors in Berlin!" Caroline screamed against the loud music inside the night club, "I am genuinely surprised we got in."