Stroked

-Chapter 1-

-Chapter 1-

~Amy~

"Yeah, I woke up feeling really...odd." I say and watch Nora hang on to my every word. She's been eyeing me throughout breakfast; concerned for me as usual.

I pick at my banana nut muffin and take casual sips from my brown paper cup of black coffee. She, however, eats mouthfuls of breakfast and listens. We always come to 'Luca's' for breakfast and to discuss life crises and relationship issues; mainly Nora's.

"Well, you were drinking a lot last night." She points out and I sigh. I may have had a drink or two.

"Thanks to you."

I knew I shouldn't of let her take out the wine and champagne. I usually try to stray away from alcohol but since it was New Year's Eve I felt like I should do at least something special besides wearing my special 'Grinch' pajamas to watch the ball drop on the television. Nora left me to join in the festivities eventually, considering we live in New York.

I just don't really care about standing in the freezing cold when I can hear all the noise in my apartment a few blocks away, but my sister likes to interact with the crowds and the music more. So, I let her. She's stopped begging me to tag along after a few years. I try to drown out the madness outside a couple years ago, but nothing really works. I live in New York, so nothing really works anyways. It's always light, bright, and loud.

"I don't think it's the alcohol, my head is spinning around like a record and I'm really hot." I quickly wipe my forehead to add to my case and push up stray blonde hairs from my forehead.

Nora puts down her fork in her pile of hash browns and starts toying and readjusting her braid of red hair. The cheap cylinder light fixture above us flickers on and off a bit.

"Alcohol has that effect on people sometimes. Besides, you’re wearing a sweater and a jacket." She says and rolls her eyes at me. Because she has the one year age advantage on me she tries to act like she understands a lot of things; to make herself seem more mature.

I'm not saying she's wrong most of the time, like now, so I strip off my brown jacket feeling a little dumb. I press my fingers to the nearby window that's been cooled down by New York's chilling wind and rain, with specks of snow thrown in.

Truthfully, I did wake up feeling a bit off. It didn't feel like a hangover, it felt like something changed overnight within me or something like that. I felt like I woke up from a dream and something has changed. I just wish I remembered if I did have a dream or not and what occurred in it. I watch the taxi's and shoppers pass by outside and suddenly a slap on my arm brings me back to reality.

My arm starts to sting a little from the contact.

"What?" I yell, because frankly, Nora kind of scared me.

"Are you still planning on going to that art exhibit thing today?" She returns to stuffing her face and wipes at it with a green, crumpled napkin.

"Yeah, I guess." I hadn't really thought about it, my mind was a little fuzzy this morning.

Maybe, it had something to do with the mixture of alcohol and not getting much sleep, but I'm not sure. Nora probably had way more than I had and she seems fine, but our tolerances are probably pretty different.

"What time is it?" Nora asks and I have to think on it for a minute, but just a minute, because I've practically glued the time to my brain. It's strange, because I could hardly remember the event until she brought it up even though I've been dying to go to it this year.