Unscripted || ✔

Chapter 3

Kevin emerged from who knows where. What are the odds? Don't get me wrong, Kevin is a great guy, but I don't like having him around. It makes the situation too uncomfortable. He's one of those persons who were a part of your past by accident. He went to the same school as us, but we never talked too much. Having that kind of person around after your paths had parted always creates the tension. You wanted to say something. You could see they wanted to say something, yet nobody seemed able to find the right words. We tried to find the right words, I did, and August did, and I could see Kevin struggled with this too. As for the others, well, Valerie was in no condition to have a catching-up chat right now. George never had a problem with choosing his words. They weren't good words, but he didn't seem to notice the way nobody found him interesting. And Nina, Nina didn't know Kevin, so she didn't even try to find the words.

Why he decided to join us, I have no idea. The official excuse was that his house was on the way to Valerie's so he'd go with us. My theory is that he was bored, and watching Valerie throw up was entertaining enough for him to stick with us.

Walk to Valerie's house was too long. In normal conditions, we needed only fifteen minutes of uphill walking to get there. But these were not normal conditions. It definitely helped us that Nina and I almost had to carry Valerie the entire way. Valerie stopping to throw up ten times helped a lot. Valerie trying to kick George twelve times definitely didn't cause her and both, Nina and I, to almost fall. Taking all this into account it's a miracle that we managed to get to Valerie's place in this lifetime. August and Kevin tried to order a pizza because we have, by then, all decided we're hungry. We failed to get the food. When you live in a small town there aren't many pizza places, and none of them worked or delivered at 2 AM. Somehow, we reached Valerie's building. Nina and I walked her down many sets of stairs. She struggled to unlock the doors and stumbled inside.

Step one of the altered, but still great, plan - completed.

"Jonah, Nina", August said as he the others walked up to us, "we should go eat something".

"Fine with me", I said raising my hands. I ain't much of a leader. If everyone wants to ditch the club and go for a late dinner, or early breakfast, I was okay with it. Nina agreed to this too. It was another change of plans, but I was okay with it. All the alcohol was drained out of my bloodstream, leaving me tired. The idea of food and sleep seemed heavenly. It took us an hour to walk downhill, and it seemed as though the atmosphere was going downhill with us. We couldn't hold the conversation, and even George stopped talking after a while. A lot of times we found ourselves walking in silence. Not that I was able to think too much about my social abilities, I was hungry. It took us a while, but we got to the only bakery in town that was opened non-stop.

There, I came to one realization. The only people who were visiting bakeries in this ungodly hour were truck drivers. I urged August and Nina to ask them if we can join their club, but they refused to do so. Without membership of an after-midnight, pastry-eating trucker's club, we sat down on the concrete and ate our food. It wasn't long until George ate everything he had and started being boring again. He kept going on and on about how his parents are away and he is home alone. 3 AM and I have to listen to this. Somebody remind me at what point in my life have I signed up for death by irritation.