Accidental Housemate

18: drinking

I sat on the balcony floor, dazed and… unwell.

I had the iron rails behind me and a wall on my right side. I clicked the alcohol bottle in my right hand against the wall in accordance with the song playing in my head. I was unsure what song it was, but my hand seemed to remember the melody. The liquid in the bottle bubbled with every hit.

The sky was dark, but the moon was there. I followed the light from the lightbulb above me, and my eyesight landed on another alcohol bottle, but that one was empty. I whined and moved my long hair to the side to rub my nape, trying to ignore the fact I was on my second bottle.

My thoughts were all over the place; I liked them that way. Better for my sanity. I liked that I wasn’t able to focus, but rather, just stare blankly and feel nothing except the shiver of the cold. I sank my head deeper into my hoodie, shielding my red nose from the coldness.

I convinced myself I was doing well. I hadn’t broken down that day. What an achievement. I patted myself on the shoulder with my free hand. Although I couldn’t report Hannah, but I pushed that to the end of my list. Maybe another day. I tried to focus on the better news: my money was coming back.

The door from the living room to the balcony opened, revealing Dave in trousers and a black jumper. His chiselled jaw and dishevelled hair looked noticeably more handsome than usual to me.

“Dave,” I rasped in a hoarse voice with a drunken smile.

“What are you doing in the cold, Perrie?”

I didn’t understand why he asked that. He could see the alcohol bottles, I believed, so figuring out I was drinking and enjoying the buzz in the cold shouldn’t be rocket science.

When he finally got it, and his eyes stopped roaming around, he asked, “How drunk?”

I put my hand in front of my face. “I can still see five.”

I felt he wanted to giggle, but stopped himself. Instead, he sat beside me, stuck to me, and took the bottle from my hand. I tried to protest, but it was on his lips before I could even exhale. I blushed, thinking my lips were once on the same bottle too, and he didn’t mind that.

He grimaced, squeezing his eyes shut. “Didn’t know you drank vodka,” he said as we both looked ahead of us.

I shrugged. “It does the job.”

“What happened to you today?”

I snickered. “It’s unethical of you to try to get words out of me in this state.”

“Figuring you out is hard, Perrie. You’re driving me to the point I think it’s something I did sometimes.”

I shook my head. “Don’t worry. If anything, you’re the best person I’ve ever met.” I wasn’t exaggerating. In my life, where I made money for my family by letting numerous men objectify and touch me, Dave stood out as the odd one.

His turn to snicker came. “I’ll try to believe you don’t lie as much when you’re drunk.”

I looked at him and pouted. “That was…” I was about to say ‘offensive’, but I bit it back. He was right, but the fact he felt I lied to him often gutted me. “Forget it. Anyway, I meant what I said.”

Dave took another sip. I watched his face wrinkle again, and I’d have called it cute if we weren’t drinking alcohol.

“Why do you care?”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, please. Not only are you blind, but forgetful as well. I already answered that before.”

I picked one word from his statement. “Blind?”