Learning To Swim For Real

Chapter 17: Picking Up the Pieces

Jack propped one eye open, and wondered if a person could simultaneously have a brain aneurism while dying of thirst at the same time. He was looking at at something greenish blue, in a familiar pattern. He tried to lift his head, but it felt like someone was trying to twist it off at his neck, so he carefully lowered it and just looked around with his one open eye.

After a few minutes, the greenish blue came into better focus, and he realized it was the candle that sat on his coffee table. Kelsey had brought it over a few days before and lit it, to help with the chlorine smell that seemed to pervade everything. Its scent was something called Ocean Breezes or something, Jack recalled.

So that would mean he was lying on his sofa.

Alone?

He put a cautious hand out and felt nothing warm, nothing but sofa. So far so good. He again attempted to lift his head, this time ignoring the monstrous, pounding pain, and managed to sit up. It was morning, it appeared. The sun was shining in at the correct window, anyway. And the apartment was quiet, so maybe his company had left.

He gained his feet and managed to remain that way, swaying slightly. He was wearing only the briefs he'd put on before the party, and he wondered where his slacks were. He vaguely remembered pulling his shirt off as he entered his room last night, and the girls exclaiming over his muscles, and one of them saying something about her mother.

Oh no.

He walked carefully toward his open bedroom door, needing to look, but afraid to.

His bed was a complete wreck, but an empty wreck, for which he was moderately grateful. His locked phone was still where he'd left it, for which he was more grateful.

He suddenly realized he had to piss like a racehorse, and when he went to the bathroom, he found the classic morning after cliché of countless movies: one of the girls had left him a note on the mirror in lipstick.

"You were sleeping so cute that we didn't want to wake you up. Thanks for everything!"

It was signed with a J and an A in a little heart.

Jack used the bathroom, and wandered out to the kitchen to make himself some tea and find something for his headache.

Half an hour and a shower later, he felt marginally better. He sat on his sofa, sipping tea and rifling through his memories of the previous night. More and more was coming back, and he felt fairly certain that nothing had happened in his bedroom. He remembered the two girls making out with each other, and trying to draw him in, but he also remembered putting a stop to it pretty quickly, excusing himself and throwing himself down on the sofa.

Good.

In the cold light of day, he could coldly assess his behavior and wonder at his idiocy. Why had he gotten drunk? To get back at Kelsey? And had he actually gotten back at her? As far as he could see, all he'd done was make a fool of himself, and give himself a screaming hangover. If this was what drinking got a person, he didn't need it, no way.

He took another sip of tea.

And what about Kelsey? What was going on between them? Were they over? Had they ever begun? Had he misjudged everything? He'd just assumed that they were a couple, whatever that meant in this day and age. Maybe to her, sleeping with someone, even if it was his first time, was just something friendly and nice, like sharing a towel.

Maybe it wasn't that important to her.

Maybe he needed to talk to Zach. He'd never been in this position before, and he had no idea what to do. He had a feeing, though, that even Zach, or Toby or Jeff, for that matter, wouldn't have the savoir-faire to deal with a situation like this.