CASUAL AFFAIR; brendon urie

Chapter Fourteen

Wiping the graphite pencil from the side of my hand with a make-up wipe, I didn't feel the fatigue in my limbs until I threw myself down at my vanity, ready to go scrutinise the girl in front of me.

Even though I was conscious, I wasn't, you know, awake. My eyes were now weighted down with tiredness, something that had been delayed for the past three hours, and I yawned so hard that my jaw clicked. It was all I could do to prop my head up with my hands and not face plant the desk in front of me.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the moments when I woke up at the most ungodly and strange points of early morning, gripped with a new, exciting, fresh idea, buzzing and alive in my mind, just ready to go to my fingers and translate onto paper. But I always paid for it, later, when I was finished.

Like now.

Aggressive music pounded in my ears, and I pulled my earbuds out with a groan. It took all my will power to turn my iPod off and not smash it repeatedly against the vanity desk until it shut up. Screwing my eyes shut, I rubbed them fiercely before forcing them wide open again, and looking at the girl in the mirror before me.

The girl stared right back, with the same big, brown eyes as she had always stared back with.

Hair spilled out from a high, messy ponytail in haphazard dark waves, not yet ready for public sight, a red housewife hairband pushing the fringe back from the eyes, tied in a sloppy knot. Cheeks stained a warm pink, even a little reddened, and one of them had a smudge of grey pencil across it. So did the pointed chin, the tip of the nose and just above the right, dark eyebrow.

"Goddamit." I pulled another wipe out from the packet and began scrubbing at the pencil. I always seemed to get an itch somewhere on my face as soon as I started working. And graphite pencils were the worst for getting everywhere.

As soon as I was done, and I deposited the wipe beside the other, my eyes automatically travelled to my neck. It was an unconscious thing now, every time I looked in the mirror, for the past two days. It was less prominent now, but it was still a purpley red, and a bitch to conceal. I put the tips of my fingers to it, and I swear, I could still feel heat, Brendon's lips, his teeth grazing the skin ...

"You look like you need coffee." I said to myself, my words sounding dead even to my own ears. I yawned one more time, rubbed my eyes, and pushed myself up by my knuckles. The girl in the mirror could wait until I got back. I tripped on ascent, my feet clunky, and my hip banged heavily and sharply on the very corner of the vanity.

Nothing like a sharp little burst of pain to wake you up enough to curse, and slap your hand to the source of agony. I pulled my top up and yanked my shorts down a little to see the damage. It was angry, and red. And very, very likely to bruise. I shook my head, and winced 'coffee.'

I'd get ready to face the world after I'd had my caffeinated high

My feet dragged, my keys jangled together as they half hang out my back pocket, and I gripped onto the railing in an attempt not to fall face first down the staircase. One injury was enough for one day.

It seemed like Jesh was expecting me, which he probably was, back turned to me, already pulling out a cup and putting a hand on the machine as he half looked over his shoulder and said "I suppose you're not interested in one of my non-addictive narcotic drinks this fine morning, Miss Weekes?"

"You know, it's scary when the guy you get your coffee from every morning knows you better than you do." I said lightly, folding one arm across my chest as I came to a stop in front of the little mobile coffee shop.

"You kidding?" Jesh said, as the machine clanked and whirred to life, streaming out black liquid gold. "I'm but five steps from knowing your national security number." He swirled the cup a little so the coffee wouldn't dreg. "Seriously, you are my most loyal customer."