The Good, the Bad, and the Gwen | ✔️

29 - Bastian Knows Best

I wake up in the morning with an uncomfortable burning in my belly and Hartley's arm snaked tight around my middle. Her curly blonde head is nuzzled in the crook of my neck.

Sometime in the middle of the night, she'd held my hair back as I threw up the alcohol—and whatever else I'd consumed during the day—in the bathroom across the hall, praying Penny or Jolie didn't wake up and overhear. They'd been in bed when we walked home from Melanie's, their TV leaking noises between the cracked bedroom door.

The room is still spinning, images of Hartley's belongings lagging like they're on a delay every time I move my head. Sunlight is too bright. Birds tweeting outside the window too loud. I don't know why I thought downing that vodka would make me forget. In the cruel light of day, I'm not only thinking about my parents, but I'm obsessing over the complete ass I made of myself, too. In front of Sully, no less.

I smack my lips together, my tongue dry and fuzzy as it moves around my mouth. A gurgling noise erupts from the pit of my stomach.

Without waiting to see what it means, I hop out of bed, yank open Hartley's door, and bound into the bathroom, my arms hugging the toilet bowl as the churning begins. I spend the next several minutes dry-heaving over royal blue toilet water from the cleaning packet Hartley dropped in the tank last week. It reminds me of Melanie's fiber optic pool lights which only makes me gag harder.

When I'm satisfied there's nothing left, I plod back to the bedroom, ignoring the bathroom mirror on the way. Hartley's sitting on the edge of her bed fully dressed. Her hands push through her tangled curls, her eyes still droopy with sleep.

She gives me a sympathetic smile. "How do you feel?"

I sink into the space beside her. "Not good. I think my liver hates me."

"Well, I still love you. And really," her shoulder nudges mine, "you didn't have that much to drink. This could be so much worse."

"I'm sure. But I promised myself I wouldn't drink at all and I did. It doesn't trust me anymore."

"Livers aren't supposed to trust you. They're supposed to produce bile and proteins and a bunch of other stuff I refuse to remember because it's summer vacation and I don't want to think about school." She sucks in a breath. "Besides, you needed to let loose. You've been keeping too much bottled up."

"Throwing up all over your bathroom is not my idea of letting loose."

She cocks her head. "Maybe not. But it's a start. You know what today is, don't you?"

I shake my head.

"It's my first morning working at Lady Bijou's."

My shoulders slump forward, any energy I had left seeping out my pores. "I completely forgot."

"You're still going with me, right?"

"I want to, but I really feel like sh—"

"You're the best!" she interrupts, hooking her arm around my neck. "Why don't you hop in the shower and I'll make breakfast? I'll clean up when we get back. There's no telling what kind of gross things he's going to make me do."

Half an hour later I'm only feeling slightly better. I force my lazy muscles down the stairs and into a kitchen chair. The house is silent, other than the sound Hartley flitting back and forth between the refrigerator, sink, and microwave. "Where's your mom and Jolie?"

"They always spend Saturday mornings at the farmer's market in the Warehouse District. They do a lot of their grocery shopping there. Plus, there are food demonstrations where you get to meet local chefs."