Vigilant | N.H.

Seven.

New Year's Day, 2016.

"Ugh," I groan and immediately palm my face with my right hand.

Hangovers are the worst.

"Delaney" I begin to cry out. "I need Advil and water, stat." Fortunately, she's out of bed already, which leads me to believe that her hangover isn't as bad as mine. She enters my room and sits down on the side of my bed.

"Here you go," she says as she hands me two pill capsules and a glass of ice-cold water.

"You're an angel, do you know that?" I thank her.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," she says as she rolls her eyes and exits my room. After about 20 minutes of laying there and staring at my blank, white wall, I finally decidd to get up and begin my day. I attempt to cleanse the events of last night off by showering, though I doubt it worked.

At least I don't look crusty anymore.

I walk over to my closet and toss on a pair of lavender sweatpants and a white cropped t-shirt. My hair is wrapped up in a towel to keep it from dripping all over the hardwood floors. I make my way out to our living room area and see Delaney laying down with an ice pack on her forehead. "How bad is it?" I ask. She opens her left eye and lets out a groan.

"Fucking terrible, how about yours?"

"Same. This is the worst one I've ever had," I admit. "Let's just go back to bed, I'll postmate us something later—my treat."

"Sounds perfect, I'm gonna need something in my stomach after I throw all of this alcohol up." We both chuckle and doze off for about 2 hours.

At noon our Nando's order arrives—thank God they put one in Chicago, I've been hooked on it ever since I first tried it in Vancouver.

I ordered a double chicken wrap, a side of spicy rice, and an order of mild wings, while Delaney got a double chicken wrap with only cheese. We share the wings because there's just too much for me to consume by myself all in one sitting.

I turn on season 5, episode 28 of The Office and we laugh at the events that unfold at the company picnic. We currently don't have any plans for today, but I proposed the idea of possibly meeting up with Olivia and Aspen to go ice skating or something.

NIALL'S POV:

"Fuck," I grunt out. "My head is fucking throbbing," I complain to Harry.

"Who's isn't," he snarkily replies. "Your whining isn't helping mine, either," he says as he throws a pillow at my face.

Fucking prick.

I'm surprised nobody else decided to crash here last night—I for sure thought Louis was going to, he hates rooming with Zayn when he's drunk. Zayn is always so energetic which can be a bit much for Louis—especially when they're both drunk. It's weird being the only one out of our little group that lives alone, but I like it. Plus, I'm around them almost all of the time anyway due to...work things, I guess you could call them.

It takes almost everything in my body to get up out of bed, but I manage to do it.

I deserve a fucking gold star for that.