Gonna Get 'Cha!

Chapter Three: "Pounding Head, Pounding Heart"

Fried eggs and bacon wafted in the air and lingered, but the sun filtering through the transparent blinds went right to my eyes, awakening me from a deep slumber almost an instant, then scratching both my eyes with the back of my hands before retreating to an upright sitting position—watching some guy cook over the kitchen's stove with his back turned towards me.

"Oh good, you're awake."

I narrowed my eyes and stared at the cup of coffee handed over in my direction groggily, shrugging away the impulsive thoughts that go over my head, trying to jog up memories of where I'd seen this guy from.

The guy chuckled. "I take it that was your first hangover, wasn't it?" He raised a quizzical brow to which I zonedout and averted my gaze to the funny-shaped full-length mirror next to the TV set, now another layer opened up in my brain, flashing blurry images of me huddled together with the guy in front of me right now and some others stand in front of said mirror to take a picture.

"Jake, right?"

Jake stifled another laugh wholeheartedly, putting down the cup of coffee on the table in front of me. "Just drink the coffee, Molly, it'd help the dizziness. And maybe bring back some of your alertness before going to school later." He suggested.

My mouth agape at the mention of the school, then noticing the clock above the TV set, realizing how late it must have been. First day of school. Faye's last words alerted way deep in my conscious, about how we were supposed to meet for the first time and catch up on things that we'd all missed with each other. The coffee left a cloud of smoky puffs into the air, wafting up its original coffee beans scent to my senses.

"School!" I shrieked, my voice coming out hoarser than intended as my throat felt like there was a lump blocking its way to function properly. "I'm so late! On first day as well! And how'd I get home last night? Oh wait, I didn't, did I? God, I'm also so dead!" My fight-or-flight responses had just erupted out of me, bursting like a volcano, in the middle of a boy's living room.

"Chill out." Jake sat on the armchair, biting off his sandwich as the crust fell on the floor. "First day of school is like not that important anyway. All you have to do is sit back and watch teachers introduce themselves and given out their module for the year. My friends are planning to skip out on all that, actually." He explained.

"But." I squealed, hugging the cup of coffee to my chest, the warmth spread through me. "Faye's going to flip if she finds that I'm not there, Seth coming back as well, though I don't know about that, but I think he jokes a lot, and he definitely is coming back." I argued, downing another sip of the coffee to my throat, that was surprisingly easing up the throbbing over my head.

"Seth, huh?" Jake raised his brows, impressed. "That your friend?" He asked.

Nodding eagerly at the question as if I was a puppy and he a master of mine. "Well, technically, he said something about not going to the party with Logan, but I couldn't help it. God, what would my parents say about me missing? They must be so worried. I can't believe I didn't listen to them." I burst out another string of complaints into the surprisingly neat and clean small apartment complex. "Wait, is this your home? What, you don't live with your parents?"

Jake clicked his tongue, looking away into glass door to the right that was filled with pots hanging over and sticking to the glass. "Yeah, my parents are away a lot on business so they gave me money to make up for it. Saved up enough and finally able to build this little house myself." He confessed.

"That's so lucky." I complemented, in awe of the revelation. "So you're like a living Brooke Davis or any other teen drama characters whose parents are hardly ever present." My attention shifted to the remote on the coffee table, which from my last memory, it was scattered on the floor.