richpez for mae

26

Joey started to wake up the afternoon after the party, feeling groggy and slightly sick from the mass amounts of alcohol he consumed the night before. He barely even remembered arriving at the party let alone leaving it, so he wasn't surprised that he could feel the tightness of his jeans around his legs still from not changing when he arrived home.

The past month for him had been a nightmare. Everything just felt as if it was going wrong and that he was losing control, so the party was his excuse to take life as it came. He drank from the early afternoon with the swimming boys before getting to the party, getting drunk enough so that he could feel happy for the night and not think about the fact that he was at the same party as Lauren and there was a high chance he was going to see her at least once throughout the night. He was even drunk enough to have a good conversation with Darren, only remembering little bits of it from being sat on a sofa together. Most of his night was a write off, but he could remember feeling so happy.

He inhaled, curling up into a ball in his bed and shutting his eyes tighter to block the light shining brightly into his bedroom. But his eyes flew wide open when he smelled something familiar, a little too familiar for his liking. He sat bolt upright and looked on either side of him, relaxing slightly as he saw nobody else laying with him in his bed. But he could smell it again as he moved. He looked on his floor and around his room, checking for any signs of life other than his own. But he was definitely alone.

He inhaled and he could smell it again. Panicking slightly, he brought his shirt up to his nose and inhaled, and sure enough there were two things he could identify. The strong smell of alcohol, but the even stronger smell of her. He involuntarily gasped as he tried his hardest to remember what had happened the night before. But to no avail. He knew he had been with Lauren at least once, recognising the smell of sweet vanilla against his clothes straight away. But what they had done together he didn't know. Did she remember? Did anyone remember? Did anyone see?

He suddenly felt emotional, the thought of her in his mind so abruptly catching him extremely off guard. He wanted to know what happened between them so bad, even just a split second into their conversation would have been enough. But his mind was completely blank. He hoped he hadn't said or done anything he would have regretted, but the smell of her on his clothes suggested it was too late to hope he hadn't; instead, needing to ask the question how far did they go?

He exhaled heavily, placing his head in his hands, trying to think.

Suddenly, his phone began to ring next to him, and he snapped out of his thoughts, leaning his arm out and reaching for the offending object. Looking at his phone, he saw Brian was calling him, so he picked up and brought the phone to his ear.

"Morning." Joey grumbled.

"Think you mean afternoon pal its nearly 2pm." Brian laughed down the phone. "I'm just calling to see if you were okay after last night."

Joey froze with the phone to his ear. He couldn't recall anything, and knowing other people knew what had happened but not him was making him feel sick to his stomach, his heart rate starting to pick up.

"Wait, what happened last night?" He asked quickly.

"How much do you remember?"

"Literally nothing except a flash of a memory of talking to Darren on a couch somewhere."

"Oh lord how much did you have to drink?" Brian laughed.

"Too much. But what happened?"

"So I knew you were super drunk as soon as we arrived, but you disappeared for a while close to midnight. Nobody saw you until after midnight; I only found you because I went out for air and you were just sat in a field crying." Brian recalled. "So I brought you back to your room because you were in no shape to stay at that party. I got back, made sure you got back into your room okay and now here we are."