Bad at Endings.

Chapter 5

Sunday.

I might actually be dying.

When I manage to wake up sometime pretty close to noon my head is thrumming so painfully and so loud I am afraid the neighbors might hear it.
My skin is taut and dry and my throat feels hoarse and constricted and when I swallow I can still faintly taste last night's beer.

This is the worst hangover I have ever had.
Probably also because it's the only hangover I have ever had.
I used to be this shy and awkward gay nerd who never got invited to parties and who never drank and now....... I make an uncoordinated grab for my phone. During the night it has miraculously stayed in place next to my pillow where it had slipped out of my hand as I finally fell asleep.
The light of the screen is too bright for my itching eyes and so I squint as I scroll through the app that handles my messages.

There are no new messages.

No calls.

Nothing.

I try not to panic.

Maybe John is just as hungover as I am.
Maybe he's still asleep.
I left the party before he did after all.
Who knows what happened after I made my way home.
After....

I groan and try to sit up. My brain sloshes around in my skull precariously as I do so.
I swing my feet over the side of the bed and for a moment the floor and ceiling seem to switch places only to right themselves again most violently.
I groan as I close my eyes and take a moment to try and make sense of the world around me again.
As I hoist myself upright into something vaguely resembling a standing position I vow to never drink again and, shuffling, using the hallway walls as support for my wrecked body, I slowly but surely make my way towards the bathroom.

*********************************************

I turn up the shower's heat as far as I can bear without literally burning alive.
It revives my numb skin, making it glow with an irritated pink hue, and soothes my aching head and body somewhat.
But not enough.
Not quite enough.

My phone is perched on top of a towel beneath the sink on the other side of the bathroom.
Just in case....
Just in case John texts....
He said he would.
He never promised it would be today though but maybe....just maybe....
I turn my face up towards the spray of hot water and let it pelt my face...the lids of my closed eyes....my nose....my lips.....my throat....I sputter slightly as some of it flows up my nose and into the back of my mouth.

Last night.

What had I done last night....

What had we done.....

I normally would have never....... if I hadn't been so drunk.....

Maybe that's why John's not messaging me.

Maybe he hadn't liked....

It sure had seemed like he had liked what I'd done to him.

Oh, god....the warmth of his breath and body as he pushed himself up against me. Through my hand. Hard and velvety soft at the same time. And hot. So hot. I had felt as if I had been melting underneath him. His grasping hands. His hooded, lust-filled eyes. Slowly dissolving me. And him. The feeling of his lips on the skin of my neck as he groaned out fragments of sentences in the private space just beneath my ear....