The Next Morning
Tony sat straight up in his bed, gasping for air as though he had been under water. He could feel how dry his mouth was and how weak his body felt, but he couldn't make out the details. All he remembers was Pierce's house. The joint. The coughing. The crosswalk. The puke. All passing shadows of memories, and not a full story.
He rolled over to face his clock. 3:15pm. He had missed his first two classes of the day, so why bother going to the next? He flopped onto his back and threw his arm over his eyes, but as he did the smell of puke invaded his nostrils. He gagged at the memory, deciding it was best to shower now. So he sat up and threw off his shirt, his small frame now exposed to the cool temperature of the air conditioned room, as he rubbed his hands over his face.
He gathered his things and tried to force himself into remembering more from last night, but he couldn't. There wasn't anything new he could collect, all he had was broken pieces of a fucked up puzzle. He walked out of his room and down the hall towards his shower as he watched each step his feet made on the ground, to be sure he didn't miss a moment. But before he could get very far, he heard the sigh. The one ingrained in his mind from the start. The one he knew meant certain death.
No. No, no, no, no.
He slowly turned around to see his father, accompanied by two campus police officers, standing just beside the entrance to his dorm.
"Mind telling us where you were last night, Anthony?" Howard Stark's voice rang out, almost taunting him.
I wish I knew.