The Trio

-V-

                    There was a bright light shining in my eyes. That's all I knew for a few minutes, I felt like it was piercing right through my closed eyelids and straight into my eyes. I shifted slightly, then moaned as a wave of pain passed through my lower belly. I lay still for a few minutes, waiting for the ache to pass, instead it rose to my throat in the form of a rancid liquid. Throwing myself out of bed, I ran for the bathroom, jerked up the toilet lid, and leaned my head over just before I hurled.

I emptied my stomach into the toilet bowl several times before leaning my forehead against my arms wearily, moaning as my stomach gurgled, its contents threatening to resurface. Resting there a few minutes, I allowed myself time to catch my breath and my stomach to calm down a bit, before carefully standing, grasping onto the counter as I leaned over and grabbed at a cup sitting there.

I filled it with the sink faucet and then took small sips until the taste of rancid puke was gone from my mouth. Afterward, I glanced around, my eyes landing upon the bottle of aspirin on the other side of the counter. Gratefully I snatched the bottle up and shook out two of the white, round pills into my hand before popping them in my mouth and sinking to the floor, my back against the wall.

Closing my eyes, I rested my head back, sighing deeply. Oh yeah, now I remembered why I tried not to drink beyond what I could handle. Then I thought about getting picked up by the police and calling Dylan. Oh shit. Dylan. I swore softly under my breath. I was so fucked. My stomach rolled and I moaned.

I puked once more and spent twice as long dry heaving before stumbling back to my room to collapse wearily on my bed. Burying my face in my pillow, my stomach, and bottom clenching in anticipation, I wondered what was to come and fought through the pain in my belly and head.

I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew I was being shaken awake by someone. Peeling my heavy-lidded eyes open, I made out the blurry figure of a broad-shouldered person seated on my bed, then as my vision cleared, I found Dylan there, looking down upon me with a slightly concerned, but stern face.

He felt my forehead. "How do you feel," I squirmed under his hand. "Okay, I guess," I mumbled. Dylan dropped his hand and sighed, looking at me for a long minute under scrutinizing eyes. I groaned and turned over to bury my face into the folds of my pillow.

Dylan reached out to squeeze my shoulder. "Hey, sit up, we need to talk," When I tried to shrug off his hand Dylan gave me a little shake. "Caden. Sit up, come on, right now." I buried my face further into my goose-down pillow and tossed off my elder brother's hand.

All of a sudden, I heard a loud SMACK and the force of Dylan's blow lit up my left ass cheek. Before I could react, Dylan had already smacked the other one and was headed back for seconds. I jumped up, spinning my body away from him, both hands behind me, massaging my hurt bottom. "OWW, Dylan. That hurt!" I protested angrily.

Dylan sighed and met my pouting voice with his even, stern tone that made me squirm in my place, feeling like a small naughty child again. "I'd already asked you twice, Caden, you completely deserved that." Letting out a hot huff of irritation, I glared at the wrinkled bedspread and rubbed at my bottom sourly.

"We need to have a long talk, Caden, but it can go one of two ways. One, you open up and talk to me, and tell me everything, or two, you can refuse to talk, and I will warn you, it's not going to go so well if you do that, okay?" I shot him a glare. Dylan raised his eyebrows. "Fine." I grumbled. Dylan nodded. "Good choice. Now tell me everything that happened last night."

Sighing my annoyance, I said, "I snuck out of the house, drove over to Jake's house, had some drinks, and fooled around with some friends and then drove home- or tried to before getting picked up by the police. Then I called you and you brought me home." Dylan stared at me silently. "What?! I told you what happened!" I protested.