Eden

Chapter 17

I woke up feeling like shit.

My alarm(phone) was screaming at the top of its mechanical lungs as it vibrated on my bedstand, the wood itself shaking along with the tiny device.

Talk about ants moving mountains.

I groaned as I reached out and grabbed the little shit off the bedside table. The time read 5 am and I was happy that drunk me at least had some sobriety left in him to set the alarm for 5 am instead of 5:30 am. I would have been late for my first swim practice and I didn't want to get on coach's bad side. My head was splitting -no, shattering- into hundreds of millions of pieces as a strong headache raged on. Why the headache, you ask? Well, I'll have you know that we ended the movie on a tipsy note last night.

After the movies -amazing, by the way-, we all decided to head for the many restaurants that situated themselves in the city mall. Now, our little town wasn't really all that far from the city. It would take you about twenty to thirty minutes to get from there to here if you drove like a sloth, that is. Then why did our little suburban town decide to have a mini-city of its own and place it a ten-minute drive away from the city and away from the suburbs? I have no idea. It did make moving around and entertainment easy for everyone, though. Most people didn't like the hustle and bustle of the city, so those big corps in the city decided to build many miniature outlets for us here in our small but mighty town. So those city ass-lickers(me) who loved the noise and the overall hustle of the city could always unfurl their wings(drag the stick from Gear P to Gear D) and flutter away to the city. To each their own.

After we sat down and ate some food, Camila noticed that her brother was down in the dumps[albeit because of our earlier conversation that we had in my car, but Camila didn't have to know about that] and decided that we should go out to some pub and get a 'few' drinks to lighten the mood. I, of course, agreed, and by the power of democracy, Ivan had to, too.

We went off to some raunchy club/pub kind of setting, ordering a few drinks and all that. Initially, Ivan was reluctant to drink, pulling me off to the side to warn me that he was scared of accidentally coming to his sister in a drunken stupor. I shushed him, obviously, drunkenly iterating that it would be nigh on impossible for that to happen[I might have also promised to seal his mouth shut by 'kissing him' as a joke or strangling him in front of Camila to throw her off if he ever tried to tell her, but I remember him throwing me off with a layer of ketchup on his nose, ears, and face] because he should trust his gut.

I do remember us driving(swaying) our cars back home last night—thank God we have one of those random breath test police cars on the road or we would have been fined and gotten our license taken for at least nine months. I stood up from bed and stretched. A bad idea seeing as the world started spinning the moment I did that. I tightened my core like my life depended on it and waited for the reaction to kick in and stop me from failing or vomiting. I blindly navigated for the light switch by my room door and flicked it on, the light blinding me even more and causing my head to split even more. As quickly as I could[without vomiting], I ran down the stairs and went into the kitchen, quietly opening the cabinet and grabbing the pill that people usually take to help with hangovers. I decided to make a small breakfast for myself and brush later seeing as I was already downstairs. I didn't make anything too heavy so I wouldn't get cramps inside the pool today, settling on four slices of toast and two sunny-side-ups with orange juice—all easy to digest. I washed up after fucking that plate up and took a quick shower before brushing my teeth and changing into something light and comfortable for the day. I slung my swim bag over my shoulder and went down tiptoed down the steps and opened the house doors and stepped out into the frigid air and shit was it cold.