Colorblind [h.s]

1

Waking up at 7:00 am violently hungover should be an Olympic sport. If it was, I'd win a  gold medal. It's currently 7:41 and I'm hauling ass across campus to make it in time for my 8:00 am lecture on business analytics.

Our night ended way later than we had originally planned. I'm the only one out of the five of us with a class this early in the day, so every time we end up hammered on a Sunday night, I'm the only one that regrets it the next morning.

But because it's happened so many times, I've developed a routine that seems to work for me.

It consists of waking up at the ass crack of dawn to puke my guts out, sleeping until 7 am (which is usually only one hour of sleep after I'm finished emptying the contents of my stomach), spending no more than 20 minutes trying to make myself look presentable, popping at least 3 Ibuprofen and packing extra for the day ahead, stopping at the mini-mart next to our apartment to get a Glacier Freeze gatorade, and then sprinting across campus to make my 8:00 am.

On worse mornings, I usually have to stop once or twice to vomit again, but today my stomach seems to be on my side.

I sit down in the lecture hall at 8 on the dot, and take a big swig of my gatorade to swallow the bile rising in my throat.

Just don't think about it, Vi. Focus on Professor Adams for 75 minutes and then you have an hour to get it all out before Capital Marketing and then you can go home and sleep for the rest of the day. Piece of cake!

Somehow, I manage to make it through my classes and back to my apartment without vomiting, but the second I step through the door, I drop my things and rush to the bathroom, slamming the door behind me.

"Vi, you okay in there?" Caroline's voice sounds softly through the wood.

My head is too far down the toilet to answer her.

"I'll get you some water."

A minute later, I hear her come in and sit down next to me, placing a glass of water to my right and rubbing my back.

The feeling only increases my nausea, and I groan as more bile comes out of my mouth, falling into the toilet.

"Oh babe, went a bit too hard last night, huh?" She asks.

I nod meekly, pulling my head up from the toilet and flushing it after wiping my face and nose with toilet paper.

"This happens every time I drink too much red wine," I complain. "My stomach always wants to murder me the next day."

"Maybe chill on the red then?" She laughs softly. "You don't vomit as much when you drink rosé or white."

"I'm never drinking red again." I say, lifting myself to my feet as she follows me out of the bathroom.

"You always say that."

"I mean it this time. We have too much of a love-hate relationship for it to last. I love it, but it hates me," I laugh, plopping down on our couch.

My stomach feels much better now that it's completely empty, and my headache has subsided thanks to the Ibuprofen I took earlier and then subsequently threw up.

"Don't say stupid things, Violet. Of course you don't mean that," Bella says, entering the room.

"Yes, I do. I'm never drinking red again."