The Wanderers

Chapter 18

I woke up in the morning with a killer headache. I pulled the covers back and noticed I was still wearing the same clothes as yesterday. "What the?" I said to myself, confused. I looked over to see Josie was sound asleep in her bed. Then I looked around the room for some clues as to what happened, but the more I tried the worse my headache got. I got up slowly and got some aspirin from the first aid kit, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, and popped the maximum dosage allowed. Then I changed out of my clothes, into some sweats, and went back to bed. I knew from experience that sleep was the best thing for this migraine.

When I woke up the second time, the headache was gone, and Josie was sitting on her bed eating a piping, hot pizza. "Pizza?" she said, offering me a slice.

"For breakfast?"

"Ella, it's one o'clock in the afternoon."

I rolled over and looked at my clock. She was right. "I can't believe I slept that long. Why didn't you wake me?"

Josie shrugged. "You looked so peaceful. I didn't want to disturb you." I sat up and looked at the delicious pizza. I watched the steam rise and rubbed my grumbling belly. Josie pushed the box towards me and I helped myself to a slice. "So how was your date with Jack last night?"

"Good, I guess."

"You guess?"

"Well, I don't really remember much," I said, scratching my head, feeling a slight headache starting to return. "We went to dinner, then coffee, and then I don't remember anything after that," I said, pressing my fingers to my temples to try and relieve some of the pressure.

"You okay?" Josie asked concerned.

"Yeah, I just keep getting this killer headache."

"I had a small one when I woke up, but now it's gone. You think maybe it started last night and that's why you don't remember much."

"That would explain why I still had my clothes on from last night."

"Wait, you fell asleep in your clothes? Me too, how weird is that? You don't think, oh my God, what if there's a gas leak and we -"

"Stop right there," I said, ending her ridiculous ramble. "First off I'm sure it was just a coincidence we both fell asleep in our clothes or a totally reasonable explanation."

"Okay but we both had headaches and –"

"And we both woke up. If there was a gas leak so bad that we passed out neither of us would be here right now. We'd be in the hospital with everyone else on our floor, hooked up to oxygen tanks."

"Oh yeah, I guess you're right," she said, blushing at her overreaction. "Care to share your reasonable explanation?"

"Well mine is easy. Clearly I had one of my migraines. That would explain why I didn't remember much and why I was still wearing my same clothes from the night before, which also reminds me I should apologize to Jack."