Starring role | l.h

Chapter XVI

Samantha Stewart

I immediately sat up from the sound of an unfamiliar alarm that was blasting around the somehow familiar room I was in. I regretted it immediately and draped a hand over my head hoping for the throbbing to stop.

Where the hell am I?

I looked down at myself and realized that I wasn't in my own clothes. The last thing I remembered was getting on a plane back home before hopping on a cab to get to my house. I remembered grabbing my suitcase from the trunk of the cab and dropping them off somewhere at the back of our house since the front door was locked and mom was still not home.

From there, I emptied the bottle I stole from my dad and everything that comes after that was all a blur. My thoughts were immediately cut off by the sound of a low groan coming from below me. I froze in my spot and started panicking as to what I was going to do.

I decided to hide on the other side of the bed but failing foolishly in the process once I've felt the blankets tangle themselves around me and I fell face flat onto the carpeted floor.

"Sammie? What are you doing?" I immediately looked up at the sound of a very familiar voice and found myself staring back at a sleepy-eyed Luke.

"What am I doing? What are you doing? Why am I here and why am I in your clothes?" He slowly bent down on me with his eyes still half-closed as I tried to get as far away from him as possible.

"Could you stop moving please? I'm trying to help you." He said in his sleepy voice, which was low and hoarse.

I'm trying to help you.

His voice echoed throughout my brain and I started wincing as short and incomprehensible flashes of last night's events started flooding through my mind.

His hands found their way on the blankets around me while he started untangling them from my body. Once he was done, he settled himself on the floor in front of me.

"I found you drunk last night just outside of your house. You said you didn't have your keys with you so I took you in." I looked down at my clothes then back up at him. "You changed inside my bathroom last night, don't you remember? You even started throwing up all over there." I shook my head profusely and couldn't believe what I was hearing.

How could I have let myself get drunk and go fully blown out of control? It was so unlike me and Luke being concern of my well being was so unlike of him either.

I let out a light sneeze and started standing up from where I sat. "Thanks for the help but I have to head home now." I let out another sneeze and started feeling terribly cold.

"Are you alright? You don't look too good." He was already wide awake by then and I caught sight of the quick wave of concern flash in his eyes before it was gone in the blink of an eye.

"Yes, I'm fine. It's just- hangovers, ya' know? Alcohol and immunity system, it messes me up. It's just- hangovers, ya' know?" I started babbling on and let out an awkward laugh before sneezing one more time and holding my throbbing head.

He raised an eyebrow in my direction and crossed his arms over his chest. "Alcohol and immunity system?" I chuckled nervously and started feeling weird around him. His look was telling me something, something that I feel like I should know about but couldn't really put a finger on it.

"It's great to see you again Luke, really. But I seriously have to go-" He caught me by the hand before I could even reach his door and forced me to face him.

"You don't remember anything from last night, do you?" I blinked and thought about it really hard before coming up with nothing since my head wouldn't stop aching and throbbing.