Moving On

Moving On (6)

Chapter Six

“Vincent?” I groaned, poking his face. He moved a little, groaned, and turned around to lie in a different position.

I, myself, am not sure how I managed to make it out of the bathtub without puncturing a hole in my body or losing an eye or a toe. When I woke up, my feet were sprawled across the edge of the bathtub, and my head was in the hollow part of it. To put it simply, I looked exactly like what I had expected: an alcoholic that had passed out from too much inhalation of alcohol.

I poked Vincent again. “Vincent,” I whined. “Get up.”

He moved again and finally opened his left eye drowsily. “Is your apartment on fire?” He asked lazily.

I frowned, then shook my head, confused. “No?” I replied, but it came out sounding like a question.

“Then I don’t care.” Vincent flipped over, closed his eyes, and started to snore. I rolled my eyes at him. He was obviously faking it; I knew Vincent didn’t snore.

I took a deep breath in and decided I needed to up my efforts to get him to wake up. So I kicked his shin.

A shrill scream erupted the silence in the otherwise quiet bathroom, and for a few seconds I was not sure where it had come from. But when I glanced at Vincent, who had gotten up and was now massaging his shin furiously, I realized my kick had instigated the scream from him.

It took me a few seconds to grasp the situation and the fact that Vincent had just screamed like a girl, despite being the manly man he was, and that’s when I started to laugh crazily. I didn’t stop until tears came flowing down my face.

“Oh, Vincent, you funny little creature,” I said, then shook my head and stumbled out of the bathroom.

The hangover was just starting to settle in. I wasn’t even sure how much I had drunk last night but I was secretly hoping I had drunk a lot so I would be declared the winner of our game. I’d hate to be Vincent’s slave for a whole day. Imagine how sad that would be; he would probably make me do unimaginable things.

My head throbbed as I awkwardly stumbled to my kitchen to turn on the coffee pot. I needed some caffeine in me if I wanted to rid myself of this humungous headache. I turned on the pot and walked in to the other washroom, the one not being occupied by Vincent, to freshen up a little.

I grimaced as soon as I saw my face in the mirror. It was grimy and sooty. I wondered what I had poked my face into last night to look like the remains of a fireplace. My dark brown hair was extremely tangled and I realized I would have to take a shower if I didn’t want it to fall out completely.

I quickly took a shower and brushed my teeth. I walked out of the washroom looking slightly presentable again, and made my way to the kitchen while drying my wet hair with a towel.

Vincent was standing at the stove. He had a pan in his hand and he expertly waved it up. The omelette on the pan flipped and I had to smile. He knew how to cook. Impressive.

“Who won?” I asked as I glanced to the table where all of our empty glasses were lined up.

I didn’t bother to check and instead waited for Vincent to answer. He turned around to look at me and said, “I did, of course.”

I squinted and my lips curved downwards into a frown. “You’re lying.” I replied, because apparently I could tell when someone wasn’t being truthful.

“I swear. Here, look at the shot glasses if you want. I drank 19, and you drank 15.” Vincent stated, then pointed towards the glasses and said, “You can check if you want.”

I grimaced, and keeping an eye on Vincent, I moved towards the table and began counting the glasses. He was right. I was screwed.

I took a deep breath in and began to prepare the speech I had thought of in the shower just in case this circumstance came to be true. “Vincent,” I whined, dragging out the word so I sounded something similar to a dying cat, “Could you let me go this one time?” I pouted.

Vincent scrunched his eyebrows at me and looked at me like I was stupid. “Your pout ain’t convincing me, pumpkin. Now I suggest you move your butt and go get some plates so we can eat,” He ordered.

I groaned and dragged my feet to my cupboard to pick up two china plates. “You’re an ass.” I muttered.

Vincent scoffed. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

I pouted and grabbed some cutlery from the drawers and we both made our ways to the living room to sit on the couches and eat.

“Can’t you let me go this one time, Vincent?” I begged shamelessly, really not wanting to be his slave for a whole day. “I wasn’t in my right mind last night, that’s why I couldn’t drink as much.”

Vincent smirked. “That has to be the first time I’ve heard someone apologizing for not drinking enough rather than drinking way too much.” His booming laughter echoed through the room and when he calmed down, he took one look at my pitiful face and sighed. “Alright, fine. You have two choices. Either you’re my slave for the whole day, or you have to answer any and every question I ask you in the span of sixty minutes.”

I raised my eyebrows. “What kind of questions?” I asked.

“Which option do you want, pumpkin? Time’s a ticking, hurry up.” Vincent smirked. He was enjoying this a lot. Curse those vodka shots. If only they had not been so alcoholic and drowsiness-inducing, I wouldn’t be in this position right now.

“The second option,” I groaned, knowing I would probably regret it eventually.

“Awesome!” Vincent clapped his hands together and smiled widely. “Let’s begin.”

Just analyzing the smirk on his face, I could tell how much of a jerk he would be during this game of questions.

At first, Vincent asked me many silly questions; ones that made me reveal my most embarrassing moments. He found it hilarious, of course, and he laughed all the while as I sat there on my loveseat wondering why the hell I had invited stupid Vincent into my apartment in the first place.

All of a sudden, Vincent got all serious. “Alia, listen to me very carefully. These next set of questions I’m going to ask might be very personal, but I really need you to answer them. It’s not because I want to invade your personal information, but it’s more that I want you to express your feelings. Preferably not to an inanimate object like your diary. So here I am. I’m all ears, and I’m ready to listen to anything you say. And I promise I will not judge you or anything that happened to you. I will be a good friend, and if you want, I won’t even say a word. I’ll simply listen.”

I listened to his speech and although I understood exactly what he was talking about, I decided it would be better for me to act completely indifferent.

“What the heck are you talking about? I think you’ve lost your pea-sized brain cells,” I said, laughing nervously to puncture the awkward silence.

Vincent remained serious. “What’s his name, Alia?” He asked seriously.

I stayed quiet for a few minutes. I did not want his memories to ruin my day. But I had to get this over with. Someday, somewhere, somehow. It just happened that it was going to be right here, right now, in this way. "Cedric Hill." I gulped and stared right into Vincent's eyes.

He smiled and even without him telling I could tell he was proud of me. Stupid Vincent and his charming eyes had broken my wall of defense. I should've just been his slave. At least that wouldn't have had consequences. Ugh.