Misplaced (COMPLETED)

2. surely my luck is not this bad

Despite drinking next to nothing last night, I wake up with a pounding headache and a mood fit to kill the first person who dares irritate me today. Objectively, these side effects might be caused a little less from the booze and more from embarrassment and old heart wounds that haven't yet scarred suddenly resurfacing. Pulling a blanket above my head, I try not to hypothesise what he must think of me now. Granted, he knew me pretty well before so nothing should shock him now. But what did I just do? I saw my ex and instead of battling it out with frosty indifference towards him, I turned and ran the other way dodging chunks of Lucy's regurgitated pizza and beer as I went. Do I even remember what dignity is?

Perhaps the only perk of this increasingly horror-fuelled holiday, is the luxurious hotel room my mother has splurged for. Well-cleaned with high ceilings and windows to match allowing light to tumble through the cosy space, it's almost enough to make me forget the horrors to occur last night. Almost.

Sighing, I roll commando-style out from my warm cocoon of covers and head towards the bathroom to get ready. After a hot shower I apply a minimal amount of make-up and slip on a pair of denim shorts and dark, baggy T-shirt before heading towards the breakfast bar in the hotel's restaurant. The fluorescent numbers on my phone tell me the time is just past ten in the morning. No doubt, my family are still slowly munching through a wad of bacon whilst waiting for my late appearance.

As I approach the tantalising smell of hot food, the screeching of metal forks on porcelain smashes through my ears and straight into the pit of my brain like a tribe of tradesmen constructing a 40-storey skyscraper. Lifting an arm to block the noise as subtly as I can manage, I try my best to mask the throbbing blasts and shuffle towards the circular table I spot my family and outer friendship group crowded around.

"Have a good sleep?" Mum asks after I've ungracefully settled myself into one of the few remaining vacant seats.

I nod wearily. While my Mum believes she has adopted a 'chill' parenting style, I know her well enough to know she'd freak if I was to admit symptoms of a hangover and re-shattered heart over a boy I had severely downplayed our breakup to.

"How was the party?" My mother persists, leaning towards me like a teenager hungry for some juicy gossip. "Meet anyone interesting? I'm sensing Lucy had a good time."

My eyes flick over my black-haired hero who saved me last night. Her head flinches at every noise and her eyes, draped in dark rings, have obtained a chronic squint. It is not difficult to understand why dear old mother has come to that conclusion as it is not hard to figure Lucy is very much hung over from last night and perhaps still a little intoxicated too.

Looking back at Mum and her wide, eager brown eyes, I manage to crack a half-legitimate smile, "Yeah, it was alright. Not a whole lot happened. Mainly just stayed with Zoe and Lucy."

Mum smiles back, glad I've at least made an attempt to involve her in my wildly uninteresting life and gushes into a story of her own wild party life when she was my age. Boys, booze and bras I wouldn't even know how to put on, over the years Mum has informed me of far too much information regarding her adolescence. Needless to say, if mum was in my year at school, it is likely we would not have been close friends.

She continues to babble on about one eventful night - New Years, I think - but I'm hardly listening, something else has blazed distastefully across my peripherals. Or someone, should I say. Black thongs, black shorts and a green Hawaiian shirt drizzled over a plain white singlet that puts a perfect emphasis on his grassy eyes, I almost fall off my seat in shock. Seeing him at the party last night was bad luck but surely, surely, my luck is not so bad as staying in the same hotel as Zachary Evans.