Siren Bay

VI

December 17th | Fourteen Days until NYE

The sound of someone upchucking woke me up. For the first time in two days not having snuck out in the early hours of the morning, I hadn't set my alarm in a frugal attempt to catch up on my lack of sleep. As I heard the rapid flush of the toilet, and someone dry heaving, I realised rest wasn't going to come to me now.

Groaning, wiping the sleep from my eyes, I sat up and took in the golden light already filling the room, the rumpled blankets from someone quickly running to the bathroom, and Leah, sitting on the sofa, looking worse for wear.

"Benji?" I croaked.

"Benji," Leah confirmed, her head in a hand while looking at her watch. "Been at it for a bit."

"What..." I shook the confusion away. "What set him off? Is it food poisoning?"

"Probably the pork last night."

I crawled out of my sleeping bag. "It's always pork with him - why does he keep eating it?"

"Dunno," Leah paused as more horrid sounds emerged from the bathroom. "Probably regrets it now but in a few days he'll see a roast and the idiot will have his appetite back."

I gagged at Benji's obvious sounds of discomfort and grabbed a pair of fresh clothes; a long blue top brushing the pockets of my shorts, leaving my hair free to fall where it wanted. I'd run coconut oil through it so my hair was slick and tame, but I knew having curly hair meant a different style each day - my curls never fell the same way twice.

"Did you want me to get anything from the chemist?" I asked as I walked back out and scrunched my nose up at Benji's groaning through the door. It seemed excessive, I thought, as Leah jumped at him slapping the wall.

"Oh no!" Benji wailed through the toilet door. "No, the agony! It's all too much!"

Leah rolled her eyes at his dramatic commentary. "Look, if I give you Benji's keys, would you drive down and get some electrolites or something for him? Maureen doesn't have any in the house and she's still asleep."

"How can she sleep through his shrieking?" I wondered.

"I've thrown up my lungs! My mind will be next!"

"You lost your mind when One Direction broke up!" Leah snapped while slapping her forehead.

I winced at the high-pitched siren call echoing through the house. Benji spent all of our school life obsessed with the band before they split, and each time he was in charge of the music and one of their songs emerged, he froze in place and threw himself into what he called his Harry-aoke. "You know better than to bring up his 1D phase, Leah. He already feels horrible."

"He offended my music taste last week," Leah shrugged. "He should know not to talk shit about EXO and BLACKPINK in my presence."

"Leah, he's literally talking shit."

"Ew, Syl," Leah scrunched up her nose. "Now I feel bad."

I gagged at more of Benji's loud dry heaving. "Look, I can't listen to this. I'll grab everything I can from the chemist for him, did you want anything while I'm there?"

"A new set of eardrums?"

"I'll pick up two." I grabbed Benji's keys off the hook by the door.

"Don't forget some appetites for us, I lost mine forty-seven minutes ago."

"Forty seven minutes?" I asked, a hand on the front door after grabbing my bag.

"That's when Benji got up."