Finding Paris

What Happened Last Night

 Finding Paris

Chapter Eight: What Happened Last Night

My mother had always prided herself on raising me well, despite being a single mother. I wasn't a problematic kid, nor was I a kid who caused problems. I came home on time, I ate my vegetables, I did my homework, I worked hard at school, I listened to what she had to say. The neighbors never had reason to gossip about my poor upbringing and the lack of a father figure in my life. I never drank, never smoked pot, never slept in a bed other than my own. I was a good kid, if I may say so myself.

Which is why sitting on a stool at one of the empty wooden tables of the basement tavern, I felt like- pardon my French - crap.

Not just literally, too. Aside from the weird queasy feeling I couldn't quite place and the light-headiness caused by exhaustion, guilt was ripping my insides out, mixed with glaring shame and embarrassment. I could not remember much of last night, but there's a feeling at the pit of my stomach that strongly resembled dread telling me that I have done something I really should not have.

I cupped a steaming cup of tea with both hands, just staring at the pale amber liquid, an unusually light color for tea. I suspected the flavor to be bland as the color was pale. Funny how tea can look a lot like alcohol. I didn't dare take a sip after last night. After all, an innocent little brownie with a fairy tale name turned out not so innocent after all. 

Ah. Last night. I winced at the memory. Or rather lack thereof.

I cautioned another humiliated look at Jared.

Jared was leaning on the vacant tavern counter watching me with a tired, annoyed look in his eyes. He looked obviously exhausted, but still ruggedly handsome, even I had to admit. Suddenly, I was all too aware of us being alone in the empty space. I resisted the urge to flinch away in shame and instead, fixed my eyes on the wall clock behind the counter above his head. It was almost mid-afternoon, I saw with alarm. It was almost three in the afternoon of this time zone, and I had just woken up!

"So," I said quietly, prolonging my vowels, "Where's Cloud?"

"He went to celebrate at the festival next town over with all your new friends from last night," Jared said stonily with a hint of underlying sarcasm at the word 'friends'. He said it in a way of a man who doesn't want to be talking, but I couldn't help myself.

"Did you have a good night's sleep?" I asked carefully, like a girl trotting on thin ice.

"Do I look like I got any sleep at all?" he snapped, pointing at his bloodshot eyes.

"Jeez! Why are you so grumpy?" I grumbled. Well, he probably had a rough night or something but I do not understand why he's taking it out on me.

"Oh my god," he said enunciating each word slowly, as if a realization had just dawned on him, "You don't remember anything from last night, do you?"

"Everything's sort of hazy like a dream," I confessed in a small voice, my cheeks flushed.

"Unbelievable," he muttered more to himself, and gave a little mirthless laugh, "What do you remember then?"

"Eating a brownie, seeing pink elephant thingies, trying to fight my way up to the room  but getting held back by a bunch of funny smelling hippies- who appeared to be Cloud's friends- with a nonsense sense of humour that was somehow funny, dancing, laughing, talking," I paused, trying to regain the little scrap of dignity I had left, "Then waking up on the floor behind that counter behind you."

"So basically you don't remember ...?" he prompted, as though expecting me to get what he was saying.

I frowned at him, "Remember what?"