Breaking the Ice

twenty-seven

I woke up feeling like Hell.

I remember movement the first time, getting dragged to my feet, feeling arms hauling me under my armpits. The vertigo. Streetlamps flashing in my face. And then the lull of sleep.

Again, more movement, this time under me. A gentle vibration, a question that I remember answering.

And then the third time, stinking like vodka, I felt myself stir.

My eyes peeled open, and I groaned at the bright, pulsing lights and sudden stimulus of it all. I smelled like alcohol, tasted bile in the back of my throat, and felt heavy and sticky all over, like being stuck in quicksand. I threw a lead arm over my face to block the light, but it was pulled off by a strong hand.

"Is he alright? Should we call someone?"

"No, wait. Luke, can you hear us?"

My friends were standing over me, Jason holding my arm like I had the plague, and when I squinted I could see Hector holding the clear water bottle full of vodka I had been drinking from the night before. It was about half of the way gone, somehow.

"What?" I slurred, my mouth tasting like liquor and my tongue made of cotton. I grimaced. "Shit, I think I need to throw up."

"What did he say?"

"Move, Jase!" Simon was quick to throw a trash can under my face and I heaved into it, gripping the sides tightly as I vomited clear vodka into the bag.

"Jesus Christ, don't get it on the carpet," Jason sighed. I spat out a long string of saliva and bile, looking up at his disgruntled expression through my eyelashes and frowning.

"Sorry," I rasped, shakily letting go of the trash can and hauling myself to sit upright on the... sofa? It was unfamiliar: pink with little flowers. "Where am I?"

"Some random fucking stranger used your phone to call me at four in the fucking morning since I'm your emergency contact. You were passed out drunk in the driver's seat of your car in a random, bumfuck nowhere parking lot," Jason churned. "You're lucky I was with the guys, so we could haul your fat ass into the backseat and get you out of there before you got charged with a fucking DUI, but we couldn't take you to ours'. This is Harper's place, her parents are out of town."

Just then, the hostess herself walked in: Harper was dressed in knee-length cotton shorts and a too-big T-shirt I recognized as Jase's, her hair tossed into a sloppy, curly bun. She held a tall glass of water out as she came to me.

"Luke, how are you feeling?" she smiled kindly. Her Brazilian accent was thin but noticeable, curling the edges of her words.

I took the water from her with a nod of thanks, bringing it to my lips. "Been better. Thank you."

"Thank goodness you're up, we thought we'd have to call an ambulance. Jason stayed with you all night to make sure you wouldn't choke if you threw up," she said as I drank the water. There was a pause while I chugged, until Harper's tentative voice asked: "are you still drunk?"

I finished the glass, gasped in a breath, and thought about the question. My world was still swimming a little in the corners of my vision. "Shit, I think so."

"What the fuck were you thinking?!" Jason clipped promptly from beside Harper, pinching his nose and glaring sharply at me. "Getting wasted in a random parking lot? Alone? Were you drunk driving? How did you expect to get home? Did you?! Is this the shit you've been doing since you started bailing on us? Just getting fucking piss drunk by yourself, losing your shit, and–!"

"Jase," Hector cautioned, cutting him off.

"I think what he's trying to say is that you had–have–all of us worried to death with all this, ah, substance stuff," Simon said, helping me lay back down across the couch. I felt dizzy at the movement and groaned.