Page 14 of Something Blue

Mas doesn’t have much else to say to me, so when his coffee is finished he leaves, and I’m left on my own again. Thinking about Neve and our future.

CHAPTER FIVE

Neve

Ihear a loud, pain filled groan before I open my eyes. At first I’m not sure if it was me that made the noise or not, but as I slowly get dragged into the devastating reality of my hangover - Dalila groans again.

“What the hell.” I mumble, rolling over and an intense, heavy headache throbs behind my eyes. “How much did we drink?”

“All of it.” Is her only answer, and it makes me chuckle. But laughing hurts even more so I put a stop to that.

“I think I might puke.” Her voiceis tight.

“As long as it isn’t anywhere where I’d have to clean it up - “

She sits up and looks over at me, her hair a tangled mess, knotted in yesterday’s braids. I reach up and touch my own, already worried about how much of a challenge it’s going to be to get these braids out - but my hair is silky soft and falling over my shoulders in neat waves.

There isn’t a single braid in my hair and all the pins and clips are set on the bedside table.

“What the fuck?” I mumble. There is no way I did that last night. I couldn’t even strong a sentence together - never mind worrying about brushing my hair.

“Did you take my braids out?” I ask.

She lifts one corner of her lip and squints one of her eyes. “Are you kidding me?” she says.

I can’t for the life of me figure it out, but there are more immediate things that need my attention right now. Like painkillers. Coffee. Water. More pain killers. And please, for the love of all things that are good and wonderful on this green Earth - I need to get out of this wedding dress. It’s cuttinginto me in the most uncomfortable ways and the skirt is completely twisted around my legs. I have no idea how I slept throughout the night wearing it - well I guess I know - I was freakishly drunk.

I stand up, hating how it feels, clutching onto one of the four-bed pillars.

The world spins a little and I swallow back a nauseous wave.

“Coffee.” She says.

“Coffee.” I agree.

Thank goodness they have one of those one push button machines that does it all for you.

I really hope my stomach can handle this coffee because my brain desperately needs it.

“Here.” Dalila says, handing me a couple of painkillers.

“Thanks.” I murmur.

“Are you doing ok?” She asks, and I know she isn’t referring to the hangover.

I sigh softly and bite at my lower lip. “I don’t know. I think I need to first get over this wakingup thing - I can assess how I am emotionally after that.” I say, not having the mental or physical capacity to unpack that disaster and all its intricacies.

We sit quietly drinking coffee and waiting for the headaches to stop drumming entire songs inside our skull. Dalila scrapes herself off the chair and sighs. “I better get going. Nevio is asking where I am and if I don’t start moving now I’m going to climb back into that bed and stay there all day.”

“Same. I’m going to hop into the shower and get out of this damned dress. Before you go, will you help me untie the corset thingy?”

She giggles. “Where would you be with without me?”

Checking my phone was a mistake.

It’s not like I expected anything other than what it is - but now I have anxiety on top of everything else.

My face is on every possible news site, plastered all over social media and most likely on every newspaper throughout the city.

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