NOT THE ONLY ONES

19. HANGOVER

I wake up with my phone ringing and as soon as I wake up I get a hell of a headache. Whoa! I try to get up but fall on the pillow again. Ahh, there's pain in my feet too.

I reach to my phone and I see 58 missed calls and 60 new messages. They are from Roma, Twinkle, and Professor.

Professor? Why did he call? It must be something important. I should call him back, but first I need to get over this headache.

I look around myself and then look at the clock, it's a little after 9am. God! I slept too much.

Then I notice someone sleeping beside me. ROBERT?!??
How did that happen? I try to recollect yesterday night's events, Jiya was kissing Veer and then I ran to the washroom, Robert found me there and took me to his car, I was thirsty and so I drank water, no wait! It wasn't water. It was alcohol, I was drunk last night.

But I don't remember anything after that, and seriously not the part about Robert and I sleeping on the same bed.

"Robert, what happened? Why are you sleeping in my room?"

He wakes up startled, did I speak too loudly? And then looks at me, he puts his hands up in defence.

"You were drunk last night, I brought you home and then we slept " Robert says.

"Thanks for bringing me home but why did you sleep here in my room?"

"Coz you asked for it, I was going away and then you asked me to stay with you and sleep with you" he says.

"Hey! I was drunk last night I get that but at whatever cost I couldn't have asked you to sleep WITH me!!!"

"Again, you misunderstood, you did the same last night " he says.

"Oh! I'm sorry, what else did I do or say?"

"You don't want to know " he says.

"Oh! Dear, I was really bad and stupid wasn't I? "

"Not much but yes you gave me a great time" he says and chuckles probably recollecting something I did.

He gives me a complete run down of my deeds from last night and I feel so embarrassed. I slept with my head on his chest!

Okay, forget about it Mallika, You have more important things to do. And sleeping on his chest wouldn't have hurt, you love him after all.

"Robert, I am having a terrible headache, could you please find me some meds, till then I'll go and get fresh "

"Yeah sure" he says and goes away.

I brush quickly and hurriedly take a hot shower, I dress up in a cute pink t-shirt and purple shorts.

I wobble to the kitchen to get something to eat but I see note addressed to me-

Dear Mallika,

We came home very late yesterday night, we wanted to speak to you but you were asleep, you must have been tired coz of your Autumn formal.
We won't be home early today, there's some emergency at the hospital. We are leaving early for the hospital today.
In case if you don't feel good or have any trouble, just call me or your dad, sorry, but you'll have to be all by yourself today.

Love mom.

It's ok mom, I'll be okay and I don't think I'll be alone, Robert will be there with me.

"Mallika, where are you?" Robert asks.

"I'm in the kitchen"

He comes to the kitchen and hands me an analgesic. I notice that he's cleaned up too, he's dressed up in a white shirt and khaki pants.