Hangover.
What a strange word. When I wake, the first thing I do is realise that I am incredibly, hilariously hungover, and the second thing I do is wonder why that word is used to describe this feeling. Is it because you want to hang over a sink and retch until what you drank last night exits the way it entered? Or because the memory of the night before, though fogged, still hangs over you like a suffocating blanket? Or because you want to hang yourself so it’s all over?
Okay, the last one’s a little extreme. But really, I feel like death personified.
I roll over and grab my phone, holding down the power key to no avail. Out of charge. With a groan I plug it in and while I am waiting for the screen to animate I fall back asleep.
The next time I wake, it is to the muffled sound of sobbing.
Shaking my head to get rid of the dream, one that I cannot remember but must have involved someone crying, I look to my phone once more.
Three messages:
Oliver Smith (Will)- Hey, you alive? My head feels like a midget terrorist crawled in there and set off a bomb, but last night was great, so thanks ;) <3 xx
Kate Wooding- Oh shit, Chloe. I am in so much shit. I want to die.
Josh Gibbons- Kate’s home safe- hope you are too :) J x
I don’t know who to reply to first. While I think of ways to flirt with Will, comfort Kate and thank Josh, I hear the sounds of crying again and my stomach twists painfully as I realise that perhaps it wasn’t a dream. Before I reply, I crawl sluggishly out of bed and tiptoe across the landing, using the stair banister to hold me up.
A sharp knife of light spills from the doorway to my mother’s room, and a terrible sense of foreboding takes me by the hand, leading me closer. The palette of my mouth goes dry. I rest my forehead against the wood and peer inside through half-closed eyelids.
As I feared, my mother sits atop her bed, sobbing, her tears a waterfall that crushes me. I am unable to move. The woman I see before me is so broken that I want to curl up into a ball and strip myself of all memories just so I never have to witness the sight again. In her hands she clutches a teddy bear, her fingers tightly enfolded in the soft fur.
“Mum?” I whisper.
“Chloe.”
“Mum, I-”
“It’s been four years,” she croaks, and I know from her voice that her throat is sore. “Four whole years and it still doesn’t hurt less.”
I freeze. At her words I realise what day it is, and I realise that I had forgotten until now, and I feel like a murderer all over again. How could I be so blind, so selfish? Just looking at the teddy in my mother’s hands makes me well up and suddenly I am crying too.
“Come here, baby,” my mother sobs. However hard it is for me, it’s so much worse for her.
I know it will hurt her more, but there’s something I need to do first. “No,” I say. “I have to- I have to go. One moment.”
And I shuffle from the room, flashing back to being thirteen with each step, hating myself more and more as memories resurface. My mum’s choking sobs follow me back to my room.
I pick up my phone and send replies.
Josh: I’m home safe too. Thanks again, Josh.
Kate: Never say that again. Don’t you ever say you want to die or we can’t be friends.
Will: I need some space. Don’t text me for a few days, okay? X
YOU ARE READING
Her List of Kisses
Teen FictionWhen she was thirteen, Chloe Golding wrote a list. On this list was every type of kiss she hoped to experience in her teenage years. They ranged from an innocent peck on the back of the hand, to passionate make-out sessions and kisses on the private...
