the art of letting go

ten - the aftermath

the art of the aftermath

- - -

I woke up to soft tappings of raindrops on the glass window, and my phone buzzing next to me. Letting out a small groan, I pulled myself up and grabbed my phone to silence the vibration.

I had a few missed calls from Frankie, including one at 3am - had to be a drunken 'Kezz, I love you so much' dial - and a few messages off Shaylah that I was not prepared to look at. I threw myself back down on the bed, head hurting as I turned back onto my side and let out another groan.

Mornings were definitely not my thing.

I always wanted to be that person who woke up at 5am to work out, drank several bottles of water in the morning partnered with a healthy breakfast. Prepared to start the day right and all that bullshit that Pinterest and Health Blogs told you to do. Meditation and mindfulness and getting the recommended hours of sleep. But, no. Instead I was the person who rolled out of bed at two in the afternoon, had ice cream for breakfast and lunch, and would only get out of bed for nature.

Kareem told me once that if it wasn't for the natural living processes, I'd never move from my bed and my brother, surprisingly, was correct.

Even a broken clock was right twice a day.

I could always sleep for hours on end, pretty much anywhere. Perks of childhood neglect, I suppose. But the one issue is, when I was awake then I was awake. Not going back to sleep for another few hours and with that in mind, I unwillingly pulled myself up again and mentally prepared myself for physically moving.

With all my usual AM dramatics, I hadn't really taken my surroundings into account. As my eyes ran over the room, acknowledging that this was in fact not my apartment, my gaze fell on the curled up figure next to me. Nico appeared to be fast asleep, a few strands of his brown hair sticking out from beneath the covers.

Yup. Memory was now fully functioning. Sodium pumping into my lovely neurons as I recalled last night's events. We had slept together. As in fucked. For the first time since we were seventeen. I just thanked myself internally that I hadn't had the stupidity to get in bed with him naked so at least we had a few layers of an unusually thick fabric separating us.

I was so fucked.

My phone started buzzing again, this time without stopping. I leaned over to look at the screen and saw Shaylah as the caller ID. I'd not even replied to her influx of messages and she never seemed to get the hint.

I swiped the screen to answer, forcing myself up and leaving Nico in his bedroom. "What?"

"The fuck are you?"

"What?" I hissed, keeping my voice down so Nico wouldn't be able to hear me. I opened his front door and stepped into the hallway.

"I'm outside your apartment and I've been knocking for about twenty minutes so, I repeat, where are you?"

"Frankie's." I answered without hesitation, my inbuilt reflex appearing without my brain even comprehending what I was saying, which used to come in handy when lying to the big brother.

"Frankie's passed out in Times Square. Brayden went live on Instagram to show everyone an hour ago so I doubt that." Shaylah responded, sounding way too chipper for ten in the morning. Of course he had to go and get drunk when I needed an alibi. Shaylah decided to try again, "Where are you?"

Wracking my head for names, I come to the next excuse and decide to drag it out for emphasis. "Fine, I didn't want to tell you this but I'm at Kady's."

"Strike two, Kady's currently standing next to me." "Hey, boo" "So where are you really?"