Begin Again | on hold

three

The second Sunny wakes up, she knows something is wrong. She's warm despite the breeze blowing across her cheeks, but she knows she didn't leave the window open because it's the middle of February and the wind that blows off the ocean might as well be made of icicles. And her pillow smells wrong. Gone is the lavender spray her mother swears by, replaced by ... is that sandalwood and tobacco?

What the fuck?

She rolls over, scared to open her eyes in case there's a stranger lying next to her, someone Fenfen has brought back from the club. But the bed is empty, her arm hitting a cool sheet, and when she dares to peek through her eyelashes, her heart flips and her stomach twists.

This is not Sunny's bedroom.

Gone are her magnolia walls covered in the art from her favourite albums. Gone is her CD rack. Gone are her drawers, overstuffed with her extensive collection of t-shirts and jumpers, jeans and shorts. Gone is her mess and her clutter, the chaos she lives in because she so rarely has the burst of energy needed to get on top of it all.

What the fuck?!

As she blinks, trying to take it all in, the only thing Sunny can think is that she did go out with Fenfen after all. Maybe she went to the club and drank too much on an empty stomach, but did she go home with someone? Sure, she was feeling the single life hard yesterday, but never in her life has she met someone on a night out; she hasn't even gone on a night out since her second year of university, when she finally came to terms with the fact that it's so not her scene. She has never even kissed anyone before, for crying out loud, let alone hooked up with a stranger and woken up in a bed she doesn't recognise.

Both hands planted over her eyes, Sunny racks her brains but all she can come up with is what she knows happened yesterday: she got home from work, chatted to Fenfen, and went to sleep. And now she's in someone else's bedroom, wearing ... yup, these are not her pyjamas. Something has gone horribly wrong. Oh, god. This is bad. Her stomach is roiling and gurgling and she feels vaguely sick. Maybe she's ill. Maybe this is some fucked-up hallucination.

It takes her a while to gather the momentum to get out of bed when all she wants to do is close her eyes and be transported back to her flat, praying this is a vividly lucid dream, but her bladder has other ideas. Sunny sinks her bare toes into the thick carpet that definitely doesn't belong in her cheap flat, tugs on a pair of pyjama bottoms under the oversized t-shirt she's wearing, and she opens the bedroom door to see, across the living area, a kitchen. And in the kitchen, the back of a woman.

A tall woman, with toned muscles that Sunny can see through her three-quarter sleeve shirt that's tucked into tight shorts that sit high around her waist. Her thick curls are an aggressive, in-your-face shade of pink, like an explosive bunch of fuchsias blooming straight from her scalp, resting against the smooth curve of her neck. Sunny is transfixed. She cannot move. She has no clue who this woman is or where she is and she's terrified, and she also needs to pee so badly but she's scared to move in case the woman turns around and they have to make conversation and she has to admit she must have had a blackout night and—

The woman drains her coffee and turns around. She has a wide smile that widens further when she spots Sunny, and she waves the empty mug at her.

"Morning, Sunshine! I've gotta run but the kettle's just boiled. You're not working today, right? So I'll see you later?" Her words are a bombardment that Sunny struggles to process, staring dumbly at this affectionate stranger, who doesn't seem the least bit perturbed. "I think you need the coffee, bambi."

She chuckles and crosses the space between them, and Sunny's heart tightens as the woman nears, as she reaches out and cups her cheek and kisses her, such a quick and tender kiss, and then she's gone, and Sunny can't even flip out because she needs to pee so badly but where the fuck is the fucking bathroom?