Needless to say, the next morning I woke up with the hangover to end all hangovers. The pounding in my head was absolutely excruciating and I solemnly made a promise to myself to never drink again as I buried my face into the pillow. What made me feel even more shitty was the fact that I could remember most of last night and I didn’t like it. It wasn’t even the fact that my mom had the nerve to talk to me and try to play everything off like it wasn’t a big deal. No that didn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. It was the fact that I knew I had hurt Jess last night. I seemed to be doing that a lot lately.
I could hear Jess singing as she moved around downstairs. She must have been cleaning or something while I was laying here dying of a massive hangover. Okay, not exactly dying but whatever. I opened my eyes slowly, wincing as the bright sunlight coming through the windows intensified my headache. The first thing I noticed was the glass of water next to the bed which had pills laying next to it. I recognized two of them as my antidepressants and the others were painkillers. Yet another thing to add to the list of reasons why Jess was way too good for me.
I dragged myself out of bed despite my headache and decided to jump into the shower while the painkillers did their thing. I couldn’t handle the smell of alcohol and cigarettes any longer and I’m positive that Jess would be less tolerant of it this morning as well.
As I stood in the shower and mindlessly let the water pour over me, my thoughts wandered to the issue of my mother. Well, her and everyone else back at home. I never expected her to contact me but in the back of my mind I’d always hoped that my dad would at least try. We had a slightly better relationship than I did with my mom. Although he never agreed with my choices, he never did treat me quite as badly as mom did when it came right down to it. Did he know that mom had been trying to call? Were they even still together? Even so, I wondered what mom’s intentions were behind calling me.
Shaking my head slightly, I shut the water off and decided it was about time I got out. I was surprised Jess hadn’t come barging through the door prepared to save me from drowning considering how long I’d been in here.
I wrapped a towel around myself and walked into the bedroom to find Jess sitting on the bed waiting for me. She looked deep in thought and didn’t say anything as I came into the room. I wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not but I made my way over to the closet to get out some clothes. My headache was down to a dull ache which I preferred to the sharp throbbing I was experiencing this morning.
I felt Jess’s eyes on me as I got dressed but still nothing was said. Was she angry at me for last night? I wouldn’t blame her but still, the thought bothered me. My clothes for the day consisted of stretch pants and a plain shirt seeing as I didn’t have to work or anything today anyway. When I was finished I grabbed my hairbrush and sat at the edge of the bed, eyeing Jess cautiously as I did.
“You’re quiet this morning,” I commented in an attempt to get some sort of conversation out of her.
“You look like shit,” she said, a smirk evident on her face. Wow.
“Well, thank you for the compliment. Such a wonderful thing to hear from the love of my life,” I said, letting the sarcasm drip through my tone. I started running the brush through my hair until I felt Jess stop me.
“Here let me,” she offered, scooting herself over so that she was sat behind me. I let her have the brush and moved so that I was sat between her legs as she took over. Well, at least she wasn’t mad at me. Unless she was planning on scalping me or some shit but evidently that wasn’t the case as she moved the brush carefully through my hair so she wouldn’t pull.
“You’re too nice to me,” I mused. I heard Jess laugh behind me but I was serious.
“I love you. There’s no such thing as being too nice when it comes to you,” she answered seriously.
