The Dollhouse

Chapter 4: The Morning After

Evelyn

My head aches and feels heavy as I force open my eyes. Light streams in from the open window making me wish I had shut the shades last night before I went to bed. I looked over at the clock on my nightstand to see 9:04 flashing at me.

I roll over and rub my eyes when it hits me, that wasn't my clock.

I quickly roll back over, my head feeling like I swirled it's around in a fishbowl as I do, and take a second look at the clock before sitting up and looking around the room.

I racked my brain trying to remember the events from last night. I remember our date and going out to dinner, but leaving the restaurant is where things get cloudy.

I place my head up at my forehead in dismay, angry with myself for getting so drunk and ending up at a man home who I barely know.

I look down to see clothes other than my own, a white t-shirt and black sweatpants and instantly feel sick to my stomach. Did we sleep together?

I let my legs fall over the edge of the bed and make contact with the cool dark floor.

I can smell the scent of bacon coming through under the crack of the door.

I decide to use the bathroom attached to the room first before I go out and face my embarrassment with Liam.

I step in and flick the lights on and take a look at myself in the mirror. I don't look too horrid after last night. My hair is slightly a mess and I take my hand to smooth it down and set angle it as much as possible. It's frizzier than I'd prefer but it will do. I move on to my makeup. My lipstick has practically disappeared, but my mascara and eyeliner was giving me the appearance of a raccoon. I grabbed some toilet paper and blotted at my skin until it was clear on the black residue under my eyes.

"This will have to do," I say to myself as I use the ponytail around my wrist to pull my long still semi curled hair up into a high pony.

I did my business and headed out the bathroom and to the door to who knows where. I pull the handle and hear the click it makes as it opens and see a living room and kitchen in front of me.

Everything is lavishly decorated in a contemporary modern style. White leather couches sit around a glass and chrome table. Minimal artwork appears on the walls, hardly any is needed with the floor to ceiling windows that stretch across the wall to the right of the room I am leaving.

I see Liam stirring something in a bowl at the large white marble island with floor to ceiling white cabinets wrapping around the wall behind him.

As I get closer, his eyes shoot up to meet mine and a large smile spreads across his face. "Good morning," he says to me as I sit down at one of the stools opposite him at the island.

"Morning," I say already feeling embarrassed about whatever happened last night.

"Did you sleep good," he asked and placed a dollop of the batter from the bowl onto a griddle making a perfectly round pancake.

"Well actually, I feel like last night is a blur. I don't remember coming here at all." I said staring down at my fingers that I have started to twiddle nervously. "Did we sleep together," I ask hesitantly not wanting to meet his eyes.