The Morning

I slipped out from between the sheets. Sat on the edge of the bed. Took a second to get my bearings. It was cold. It was also early. Around five in the morning was my guess. What time had we finally gone to sleep? I tried to think back, rack my brain but my mind was a blank. Empty except for one big fat question mark. What the fuck happened?

The early morning air kissed my bare skin, causing it to break out into a rash of goose pimples. A slight chill running down the length of my back, I looked around the still dark room for any article of clothing that might be mine. Shirt, socks…anything. All I could spot were my jeans. No boxers, no belt. I sighed,

“Well at least it’s better than nothing,” I mused to myself and got up to slip them on.

The room smelled of sex and alcohol…and was that reefer? I sniffed at my fingers. Yup, it was definitely reefer. That wasn’t the only thing my fingers smelled of, though. I turned to look back at the bed and there she lay, peaceful, a small smile on her lips. Like heaven itself had come down and kissed her on the forehead. And with that small smile, that little piece of perfection, came a tiny ray of light. It may have been no more than a flash but it was more than enough.

There had been a party…here. Her party. It had been her birthday. Twenty five. She had invited me even though I had thought that she wouldn’t. Even though I’m sure her friends had told her that she shouldn’t.

“And this,” I thought, taking a brief look around already beating myself up about it, “was probably the reason why.”

Fucking old habits man. Add some bottle popping; a little puff passing and the fact that it was her first birthday single in years and you had one hell of a recipe for trouble.

Fuck this was bad. What had I been thinking…? Oh yeah, that’s right, I hadn’t been. I let my guard down. We were friends. And it was her birthday. I should have just told her. Gotten it out of the way. If I had, none of this would have happened. Damn it.

Calm down Lloyd, it’s not a complete disaster. Maybe you can still salvage this. All you have to do is make it out of here before she wakes up. And maybe, just maybe, if she wakes up and you’re not here when she does, she won’t remember a thing.

That’s a big fucking maybe.

And it’s a pretty dick move. But what choice do I have?

Well, you could be a grown up about it. Wait for her to wake up so that you can talk to her about it. Let her know just how serious this is.

I shook my head. I would rather just find the rest of my clothes and take off while I still can. It was getting light out. The clock was ticking.

I turned around in circle. Now where the hell were my clothes?

As if in answer my phone began to ring. I had kept it in the breast pocket of my blazer and somehow, my blazer had wound up under the bed. How the hell it had gotten there beats me. But then, how it got there didn’t really matter. All that mattered was that 1) only one person would be calling me this early and 2) sleeping beauty was no longer sleeping.

Moaning, Samantha made a move to massage her temples with the heels of her palms.

“What is that?” she croaked, rolling onto my side of the bed, expecting to meet the hardness of my body. Finding that I wasn’t there however, Samantha sat up on one elbow and looked around. “And what are you doing over there?”

“I better get that.” I said hurriedly, avoiding both questions and then, probably looking quite strange to her, I got down on all fours so that I could fish my jacket out from under the bed.

Retrieving it, I freed the still ringing phone from its suede & polyester blend holding cell. It was exactly who I thought it would be. And as much as I didn’t want to answer it, I knew I had to. Pressing the ‘answer’ key, I put the phone up to my ear.

“Hello?”

“Where the hell are you Lloyd? It’s six o’clock in the morning and you’re still not home. We talked about this. You can’t be staying out like this. I don’t like it. And if it was me I’m sure you wouldn’t either. Now, where are you?”

Taking a deep breath, I sat on the edge of the bed and for the next 67 seconds proceeded to lie through my teeth. I had forgotten how good I was at it. She didn’t suspect a thing. By the time I hung up the phone things were as smooth as the half empty bottle of red wine still sitting on Samantha’s bed side table.

“So, who was that Lloyd? And don’t say something trite like your weed dealer because if you do, I will hit you.”

I sighed. One problem down, one more to go. Only this one wouldn’t be as easy. I couldn’t lie to Samantha. She would see right through me. And even if she couldn’t, I didn’t want to.

I turned to look at her. This wasn’t exactly the way I had wanted to tell her but what to do, right?

“Listen, I’ve got to tell you something. Something I probably should have told you last night but for some reason I just…couldn’t.”

“What is it Lloyd?” Samantha didn’t sound amused.

Moment of truth.

“I’m getting married Samantha…And the person on the phone? That was my fiancé.”

I waited for the explosion. For all hell to break loose. But nothing came. Instead, Samantha simply got up, carefully wrapped the rumpled sheet around her and walked out of the room.

And in my opinion, that was infinitely worse.



Coming next: “The Party & the After Party”



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3gVqfgVF3I