High Noon [H.S]

a not-so walk of shame

I couldn't move; everything hurt way too much. Where was I? Why couldn't I remember anything? Was I dead?

My heart drops as I thought of the worst possible scenario.

Oh God, I was dead, wasn't I? Knowing my luck, there was probably an obituary on the front page of the local newspaper this morning with some horrid headline and an equally horrid picture of me reading: Local college girl found dead on the side of the road. Or was I found in a sewer? Or in a field in the middle-of-nowhere? There really were endless possibilities (and endless horrible photo options I had accumulated over the years).

My body moves around the space I'm in, in search of something that could indicate that I wasn't some poor, lifeless body floating around in the afterlife, but all I could feel was cold, hard ground. Great, I was dead. I was fucking dead and I didn't even know the last words that had come out of my mouth. I hadn't even called my parents to tell them that I loved them. I didn't even get to celebrate my-

"Shit," I cry out, my eyes shooting open in time to see my head collide with a golden toilet. A golden toilet? Did heaven have gold toilets? I got to pee into a golden toilet? What was next, hot, sculpted man-angels waiting to feed me grapes?

I force my gaze away, ready to get used to my new residency up in the hereafter and ready to be reunited with my pet fish Leonard I had accidentally flushed down the toilet in seventh grade (it was still a touchy subject), but all I was welcomed with was a sickly white room– that was bright enough to have burned through my corneas– and a throbbing headache.

I wince at the pain as my hand instantly shoots up to hold my head in place, but that only causes a tsunami of nausea to follow shortly after. A shower and counter space and dark blue towels fill my vision before I look down at my body and notice a small dried stain of puke clinging to my shirt. Last night's shirt. And last night's jeans. Why was I still in last night's clothes? And who's bathroom was I in? And why was there a rip in my new favourite jeans?

The faint image of the superhero Band-Aid was all I needed before last nights events came hurling at me like a ton of bricks.

The party. The call. The endless amounts of drinking. Harry taking me home. Harry taking me into his flat. Harry taking me into his bedroom– oh, dear god. Pushing myself off of the bathroom floor, I hold onto the counter, trying my best to do something as simple as merely standing up on my own, but that too was a struggle.

When I look at myself in the mirror, hair matted to my forehead, mascara smudged under my eyes and red lipstick barely clinging to the cracks in my lips, I realize that this wasn't death I was feeling, but only the likes of an incredibly insatiable hangover and knowing now that I had stayed the night at Harry's, the more death started to seem like it would have been the better option.

After trying my absolute best at making myself look somewhat presentable, I slowly peak out the door into the adjoining bedroom, praying that it was empty. I sigh in relief when I don't spot a sleeping Harry on the other side of the bed, just a crumpled up mess of sheets on the left side. I didn't know at what point I had gotten up in the middle of the night and decided that the bathroom was a comfier place to sleep, but I didn't dwell on it, especially as my eyes came into contact with a full glass of water and two aspirin sitting on the bedside table.