Strawberry

Two Piece

At breakfast, Rhea is mending her hangover by cracking a raw egg into her orange juice. The sight of it makes you sick but it's an old family ailment that seemed to work wonders. Nevertheless, when she offers you the concoction, you pass with a shaky wave of your hand. The shining sun that dazzled its way through the panes of glass was more than enough to make you ill.

Your father tears a bite off his burnt bacon (one of his more questionable preferences in food) and waves the stiff pork in your direction. "By the looks of it, it's a good thing it's Saturday." He's smiling, despite the joke. You can't help but narrow your eyes at him.

"So..." your father continues, eyes bright with a healthy shine. He was always able to hold his liquor well, even in his old age. You hope that one day you could say the same. "What's on the agenda for the day?"

The idea of doing anything but laying in bed before a box fan makes you shiver with sickness. "Sleep," you answer, the sound muffled by your face in your hands; your head was threatening to fall into your eggs otherwise.

Charlotte nods in agreement, but then groans in pain when doing it too quickly. You sense a wave of sympathetic nausea bubble in the back of your throat like acid. She was worse off than you or Rhea who – while not as tolerant to spirits as your father – were capable of avoiding a panic attack after a heavy night of drinking. Charlotte kept you up all night from the toilet the two of you shared, her nightgown pooled upon the tile floor as she knelt over the porcelain bowl. You held her hair out of her face and brushed the loose strands that dangled in her eyes. When her stomach had been emptied of all contents, you fetched her a cool washcloth and placed it over her forehead, and then made sure she fell asleep on her side to avoid from choking in her sleep.

She squeaks out "hydrate" in response to your father's question and then takes a sip of her water as a point.

Rhea is poking at her breakfast with a pair of glazed-over eyes and dried, crusted lips. Her hair was in disarray, cheeks sullen from lack of color. She shut down when suffering from a hangover – or any illness for that matter. Her giant t-shirt swallowed her whole, the sleeves threatening to dip in the yolk of the egg, but she didn't pay any attention to it.

Your father begins to form his next words but falls short when the front door opens. The sound of the screen banging shut echoes throughout the home against the backdrop of clinking silverware and the morning song of birds. All four of you perk at the foreign sound – even Rhea lifts her eyes to watch as Din walks through the archway of the sun room.

"Ah! Din! Come join us!" your father exclaims all too loudly. The three of you girls gasp at the noise and massage your temples in unison.

Din notices and resists the urge to grin – you can tell by the way his full mouth twitches just slightly, but he's too much of a gentleman to let his amusement show. He looks well rested; skin glowing in the sunlight as it soaks upon him, dark eyes swimming with hearty verdure. You wish you could say the same, especially considering the pathetic ache to impress him at all costs. With heavy bags beneath your sunken eyes and trembling fingers (which is surely your body reacting to the withdrawal), you can only imagine how sickly and how – let's face it – ugly you looked.

After last night, the golden-hazed memory of him tending to your wound kept replaying in your head repeatedly; the way his fingers nimbly prodded against the puncture within the delicate arch of your foot, how he massaged your heel with the gentleness only a lover might do with their partner. It felt intimate – foreign but welcome all the same. And yet, for some reason, it was – in all honesty – irritating. Irritating because it could never be more than a man playing nurse and feeling sorry for the drunken woman before him.