Chapter 2
I have no memory of getting back to school, or of getting up into my dorm, or changing clothes.
I have a vague memory of Anton stating "He's wasted", and Saracen answering "He's very wasted", and then of Ghastly tucking me into bed and talking to me like I'm a toddler and for some reason, that calms me and I fall asleep.
When I wake up, this warm feeling lingers for another second or two before it fades and I realize that I'm miserable.
My head hurts like I stood next to the amplifier at a rock concert for 16 hours straight — and yes, I know what that does to you because I actually did that once, no questions, if you please! — and my throat is horribly sore and my eyes feel just as sore. My stomach aches, too, and my heart still feels like it's been smashed to dust with a mythical hammer.
"Ouch," I whimper. I don't dare opening my eyes, imagining how bloody much the light will hurt if I open them.
"Dexter?" a familiar voice says, sounding concerned. It takes me a moment to place the voice and to realize it's talking to me — that I am Dexter. Dexter Vex. Yes, that's my name.
"Dexter?" Ghastly asks again, his voice soft and concerned and he's obviously trying to be gentle on me, at least for now.
"Are you awake?"
I make a slightly disgruntled sound and hear my friend and dorm mate chuckle softly.
"You're proper hungover, aren't you?" he asks. I can hear both the smile and the concern.
"Mhm," I grunt. "Just a tad."
"You're a Boozer, you are," comes the teasing off-comment from Anton.
"Hush, I'm trying to play it nice, Anton," Ghastly scolds him. A second later, the door of our dorm clicks shut and I can feel that there's only Ghastly in the room with me now.
"Dexter, buddy, are you still awake?"
"Uh-uh. Unfortunately," I whimper. More quite chuckling from Ghastly.
"Sorry but I have to ask you to open your eyes and sit up a bit," he says gently. My initial reflex is to salute and say 'Yes, Mum!' but I'm too miserable to move or be cocky.
"No," I whine instead. A miserable, pathetic sound. "Why?"
"Because you need to get some fluid back into your system. I have a nice bottle of cold tap water for you," Ghastly reasons patiently.
I roll the idea over in my head and all of a sudden I feel incredibly thirsty and his offer sounds pretty much irresistible.
"Can I have it with my eyes closed and not moving?" I try, mumbling weakly into my pillow.
"I'm afraid you can't. Firstly, you'll probably get the water everywhere but im your mouth, and secondly, I want to make sure you won't puke before I give you anything," Ghastly explains calmly, sounding very Mum-ish now. It's good to have a friend like him. Gives you those at-home-vibes: the warmth, the calm, the safety — and that underlying sternness clearly saying 'Kiddo, if you want to be difficult, I can pull other strings as well.'
Begrudgingly, I force myself to open my eyes for the tiniest slits. It takes a lot of blinking and squinting until I get them to open properly.
"Now, there's a good boy," grins Ghastly.
I scowl at him. He doesn't seem to care, merely raises an eyebrow.
"You're making fun of me. I'm miserable! You can't make fun of me!", I pout.
The smile makes Ghastly's scarred face look really gentle and, in a way, handsome. Not as handsome as my own face, of course, though right now I'd rather not have a mirror. I have an unpleasant feeling Ghastly would currently beat to it in terms of looking handsome.
"You know what would save both being miserable and being made fun of?", he asks softly, still smiling. I scowl a little more. Mostly because I know what he's pointing at and he's very right about that one and it annoys me that he's right about it.
"Exactly," Ghastly nods as though he read my thoughts. "What would have saved you your current situation, Dexter, would have been not going on a drinking binge."
"That sounds like I did it on purpose."
"According to Saracen, you did."
"I didn't," I grumble defiantly because, yes, I sort of did it on purpose. "It just happened. You may as well call it an accident."
I push myself up, scooting back a little, until I sit somewhat upright propped up by my pillow and the headboard of my dorm bed.
Ghastly watches me closely, searching for any signs of sudden sickness. His hands already twitch, assumedly to grab a bin positioned next to my bed. There's no way my friends wouldn't have put a bin next to my bed, frankly speaking. Not exactly my first hangover.
When I sit, more held by my bed's headboard than my own strength, and don't start to pale or choke or just start puking, Ghastly thankfully finally, finally hands me the bottle he's filled to the brim with cold tap water.
Not without unscrewing it for me, though. And he's not exactly handing it to me but holding it to my lips, forcing me to take a fee tiny sips before taking the water away again. Definitely Mum-ish. I think I'll get him a card for Mother's day. One of those with a cute, big-eyed puppy having a heart-shaped balloon tied to the color, reading "World's Best Mum."
"How do you feel?" Ghastly asks, sounding as casual as he sounds genuine. I try to shrug — shrug off the heavy and the misery and the humiliation of having my heart crushed and the shame of drinking too much on purpose and breaking the promise I gave my best friend.
I'm not doing a good job at shrugging all of it off, so I sigh and drop my head back against the wall.
"Saracen's mad at me, right?" I whine, grimacing at the thought of my best friend who'll wait lecturing me on promises and drinking habits and bad choices until I'm in a less miserable state so he can send me back into being totally miserable because a best friend doesn't sugarcoat or treat you with kid gloves.
"Would you please not make stupid head movements, Dexter? I'd prefer it you don't empty your empty stomach even more, yes?" Ghastly says kindly. I can feel his weight sinking in the mattress when he sits down on my bed. He takes on of my hands in his and starts massaging some smooth, cooling ointment on the scraped skin.
"As for Saracen," he continues after a pause, "Yes, I'd say he most certainly is quite mad at you. According to him, you promised not to act out and get all wasted, right before you walked in on that party and went straight for the drinks."
Okay, when he recounts it like that, it does sound a lot like I did it on purpose. I mean, I did, but I thought I was less obvious about in my memory. As I recall it, I was sneaky and smart about it.
Plus, that's really not what happened. I wanted a word with Amara, begged Saracen to go to the party and make sure I get my word with Amara, then promised not to act out and kill every thought and feeling with alcohol should it go heavily wrong despite knowing myself that was exactly why I felt confronting her at a party was a good choice, and only after Amara crushed my heart to the finest dust ever seen did I seek out the liquid relief — and, as I said, I did so very sneaky and smart so Saracen wouldn't notice I intended to get drunk enough to scorch out every bloody memory of Amara.
"I didn't went straight to the drinks," I sulk while Ghastly reaches for my other hand, caressing my palm with the ointment. Oh, boy, this feels good! I didn't realize how much it hurt until Ghastly gave me this break from the pain!
"Dexter, you may call me bias, but I tend to believe Saracen more than you on this. You're reckless and impulsive and fail to judge your own actions correctly," my friend says. His voice ist soft and calm, sounding almost distracted with his full focus on treating my wounds.
He looks up briefly, searching for my eyes before he continues with an audible smile.
"Which, if I daresay, is quite remarkable because with everyone else, your judgement is usually very precise. I'd normally say you're smart, too, but getting drunk like that was astonishingly dumb."
I surrender. There's no arguing with Ghastly when he's being so Mum-ish anyway but mostly, it bothers me he's taking the 'smart' away from me. Man, that actually stings!
"Alright," I groan in my defeat. "There's a possibility I had some intention once I actually went for a drink, okay?"
Ghastly lets go off my hand and eyes me with raised brows, clearly unconvinced.
"But I really didn't go straight for the drinks," I hastily continue. "Honestly! I swear, Ghastly, that's not what happened and wasn't my initial intention to go to the party. We got in and there were so many people, and one of them happened to be ..."
My voice cracks.
I instantly shut up but my lower lip trembles lightly and there's an itching, a burning in my eyes and the burning makes them fill up with water.
Ghastly closes his eyes for a second or two. He takes several deep breathes before leaning forward and gently wiping at the tears that spill down my cheeks. Embarrassing, humiliating tears but I don't hold them back because I'm too damn hungover and too damn broken and mostly, because it's only Ghastly round to witness it. He won't tell anyone. He won't tease me, not about this.
"So it's about Amara, huh?"
I sniff and a horribly pathetic whiny whimper escapes my lips. Ghastly moves a bit closer, his hands carefully gliding down from my face to my shoulders and then behind my back, until he's hugging me. Actually hugging me, and I let myself be hugged and my face sinks into his shoulder, willing his shirt to soak up my tears, willing Ghastly to hold me as my body shakes with the sobs and the crying and the overload of emotions I tried to scorch out of me with too much alcohol.
Breakups tend to bring out the worst in me.
***