Adrenaline

Chapter 7

I've always believed hangovers are a form of self-punishment. When drunk every word, action and thought is just a shout into the void, utterly sincere yet forgotten; left to rot away, a passing motion just like the inevitable nausea and throbbing headaches the following morning.
It's our bodies way of punishing us. Punishing us for shouting our sober, unspoken thoughts. Punishing us for doing something, someone, that we shouldn't have. Punishing us for living the life we wished for.

Obviously, last night left me deserving of a severe, unrelenting punishment.

The feeling of eyes burning into my pounding skull is alarming enough to warrant my sudden burst of adrenaline as I push myself up, the rock hard mattress barely flinching.
I'm the jealous type, it's the way I'm built but usually it's an emotion I can suppress, hidden behind piles of resentment and anger; however, the sole thought of Alec sleeping soundly in his plush king-size is enough to make anyone feel more than murderous.

"Morning, sunshine." Autumn waves from behind a large book, no doubt trying to distract herself from the wild night it appears she's had. Last nights mascara has taken residency under her large doe eyes, her hair placed in a unstable bun doing a bad balancing act atop her head. It's too much of a contrast to her usual, well put together appearance to go unnoticed.

Temporary amnesia is annoying at the best of times, but something, call it instinct, a sixth sense, whatever, but something is screaming at me that last night I fucked myself over and the smug smile on Autumns face is the exact opposite of comforting.

"Why are you smiling like that?" Narrowing my eyes are her increasingly wide grin, she crawls from her bed onto mine, sitting cross legged at the opposite end as if we were 13 year olds about to have 'girl talk' during a sleepover.

"You need to look in a mirror."

"Should I be offended?" Autumn shakes her head slightly before grabbing the small compact mirror from her thin duvet and handing it to me, the smirk still taking pride of place across her lips. Frowning at her unchanging expression I look away and into the mirror.

The breath catches in my throat, forcing me to cough as I study the features staring back at me, more specifically: the black eye. No-one has ever gotten close to giving me any type of facial injury before yet I spend one night with these people and I look like the poster child for a mugging victim.

"Who?" The word slips past my lips as a unsteady breath, my eyes refusing to leave the mirror. I have a black eye. Me. Shit.

"It wasn't someone we know," the brief sentence allows me to breathe a little easier, slowly calming the burning murderous sensation settled in my stomach, "you made out with his girlfriend, he didn't take that lightly. Caught you off guard too, you were too busy making sure his girl was... preoccupied."

As if a switch was flipped I begin to remember, wincing at the memories as they cloud my head, making the headache fizzle into extreme grogginess.

"Shit. Did I kill him?"

To any other person that would be a hyperbole. A pure exaggeration on the events that could have happened. I mean, who'd kill someone over a black eye?

Me. I would, without question and if not me, Alec.

"You were gonna but Seth stopped you. Your brother was worried because you'd been gone a while so they went lookin'." A slight glint appears in Autumns eyes as she wears the still unwavering smile, waiting for me to answer, for me to comment on something I barely remember.

In response I raise my eyebrows and nod once before standing and moving over to my small pile of clothes in the far corner. Her eyes are still on me and I can't help but feel like she's waiting for me to come to some life-changing realisation.
Maybe she's still drunk, it'd explain a lot.