The Arrangement: It Led Me To Love

Chapter 21 - Ellison's POV

I am more aware of my cracking headache than the layer of dehydrated saliva that coats my cracked lips. Groggily I open my eyes, and see that I am on a balcony. Balcony? What is going on? I just arrived at the party. Didn't I? Gosh, my head hurts. It is then that I realise I have a terrible hangover. It feels like a balloon under my cranium, slowly being inflated, pressure mounting. Looking down I realise I am missing my shoes and shirt. Alarm bells ring in my head, and panic surfaces. What happened? Surveying the scene, I realise that I am still in Bemus's house, but the light suggests that it is afternoon. Have I been asleep all evening and morning? Where is Laurene? If anything has happened to her, I will never forgive myself!

With a groan, I am up on my feet, but the room swaying almost causes me to loose balance, so I stumble over to the wall. My hand slips along the high sheen paint and I sprawl onto the carpet with a crashing thump. The room swirls before becoming stationary again, and I use the bedstead to pull myself to standing. This feeling must mean I had had some fun the last night, but somehow it is not there in my memory. I walk towards the bathroom and splash cold water on my face just to feel something refreshing, and instantly wish I could wash my brain free of the toxins too.

My eyesight struggles to cope with the daylight and I fumble trying to do up the buttons on my shirt. With my brain still struggling to recover from the previous night's abuse, I have very few options on what to do. However, the main thing is that I must find Laurene. I find my shoes near the side of the bed – presumably they were kicked off in a hurry, and yank them back on. I find my phone a couple of minutes later, hiding in the bed. I do not want to think about why it may be in there... alternatively, what I was doing in there. After calling Laurene four times and each time it worryingly going to voicemail, I decide to try to search the rest of the house for her. Swallowing to get some moisture into my mouth, I make my way to the door, still stumbling around as if I have a broken leg.

There are cleaners all over the house, too busy trying to get Bemus's house back to its designer state to acknowledge me. There are a few stragglers from the party around, all of them looking horrible and ill. Much like me. I do not run into Bemus, luckily. I am in no mood to talk with him right now. After searching for half an hour, and taking an Advil whilst in the kitchen, I start to brighten up a bit, but I am panicked, as Laurene is not in the house, as far as I can tell. She must have called some one to take her home... on the other hand, she might have gone home with some one. I grit my teeth and clench my fists thinking about that scenario. I wish I could remember what went down last night. It's another mystery to add to the collection that have currently stolen all of my trains of thought this morning.

I find a pair of sunglasses on the floor, and put them on to hide my blood shot eyes and try to block out some of the harsh sun, which is very disconcerting. Making my way out of the building, I trek down the cobblestone driveway until I reach the gate. I receive some odd looks from the security – probably because I look a little worse for wear, but they proceed to let me through which is a good sign. Last time I was here, things ended with Bemus in hospital and me a night in prison. It would have ended a lot worse, if Bemus's sister and my other cousin Celina was not there to stop us from fighting. If only she knew what we were fighting about, and maybe she might be a bit more lenient and have waited until her brother's face was a little less recognisable before stepping in.

The street is quiet, with only the distant hum of a bird or chatter of people, and a car chugging along about half a mile away. The car is crawling along at about fifteen miles an hour – they are probably trying to find the right driveway to turn into. Every house up here is worth no less then a million euros, and they all have driveways leading up to their mansions – some go on for miles. My phone has now died, so I cannot call anyone to pick me up, and there is no way that I am going to lower my pride and ask Bemus for a ride.