•S I X T E E N•

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Jamie's POV

Ugh.

My head throbs, a harsh pounding against the inside of my head, that echos on my eardrums. I drag myself across my tiny apartment, even though a part me wants to crawl. A loud rattling doesn't help my hangover. The door to my apartment shakes in place as someone bangs against it on the other side, the doorknob frantically twisting. Usually, my mind would race to the worse conclusion, a burglar. But my mind is to weighed down by my hangover to race at all.

"Shit." The door bursts open with a bang, and Riley stands in the doorway with the dingy doorknob in his hand. At least it isn't a home invasion.

"Sorry." Riley sighs, his dark eyes shutting.

"I'll call the super later. Plus, you have been telling me to fix it since you moved in." I wave off, to hungover to care.

"I can fix it." Riley promises as he kicks the door shut. "Here. This should help your hangover." Riley hands me a paper to go bag. A sweet smell like cakes wafts up to my nose, and intensifies as I pull the bag away to revel pancakes. "They always help me with my hangovers." He adds.

"Where did you get these?" I ask, glancing at my clean kitchen. Obviously no has cooked in it since yesterday.

"The first dinner I saw, so if they're bad, to bad." Riley shrugs.

"But you still got me pancakes." I grin. Glaring, Riley pulls a floppy pancake out of the aluminum container, and softly wacks me in the face with it.

"No pancakes for you." Riley takes away the short stack away from my hands.

"Want to share them?" I offer, not acknowledging his defensive confiscation. Riley's bad mood fades away as fast as it came, deciding against brooding over flapjacks and defense mechanisms, Riley hands me them back to me.

"Do you actually have syrup, you vegetable muncher?" Riley asks, climbing onto his usual spot on my counter.

"I'm a baker too, so I have several." Opening a cabinet to revel a full shelf of frosting, sugar bags, and numerous different brands and flavors of syrup. Pecan, blueberry, strawberry, I have them all.

"And here I thought you were just an ordinary shopper at whole foods." Riley whistles, impressed at my stash. "I think I'll try a different one for each pancake."

"Wild." I joke, wincing at the harshness of my headache from my chuckle. My fingers fumble as I cut through the belly of the stacks with a knife. I feel so crappy, I can barely function with sub par motor skills, I don't really want to do anything today.

"Someone wild taught me the fun way to eat pancakes a long time ago..." Riley's voice lowers as he reminisces something that makes his jaw lock, and his brown eyes daze.

"Who?" I curiously ask. I can't imagine someone in Riley's life. No mother, no best friend, no cousin, no one. He's told me nothing about himself, or anyone in his life. To me, he is a lonely, mysterious stranger, driving in an old blue car with an empty passenger seat.

"Eat your pancakes to help that hangover." He grumbles, avoiding answering. God forbid he actually told me anything about himself.

"How are you not hungover?"

"From just a few shots of whiskey? Nah, I'm not a high school junior. From all the nights I've partied my tolerance is a force to be reckoned with." Riley waves off.

"A few shots? You did about eleven shots."

"That's all? Felt like more." Gaping at Riley, who apparently has no effect from hard liqueur, I nearly drop the pancake dangling on my fork.

"Are you so hung over, you're down for the count, Jamie?" He asks, shoving an entire half into his mouth, and grossly swallowing it whole.

"I think I'm fine." With a scoff and a bored look, Riley reaches out in my cramped kitchen, and flicks the light switch on.

"Ughhh!" I groan, winching away from the lights. The lights are to bright! It hurts my eyes to much! Shielding my watering eyes away from the stinging pain I nearly walk right into the fridge.

"Yeah, you're KO." Riley laughs, thankfully switching the lights off.

"Sleep it off, Jamie, and I'll go pick up some Advil, candles, and donuts." Riley guides me towards my bed, and drawing the curtains shut.

"I understand the Advil, but why the candles and donuts?"

"Did you not see what happened when I turned on the lights just now? You're like a vampire. You need dim lighting. Plus, donuts are great. They help everything."

"I'm to hungover to care about junk food." I shrug off, gladly climbing under all the blankets.

"Getting you drunk is all it takes to get you to eat junk food? I should have done that from the very beginning." Riley scoffs.

"Whatever," I groan "just get me a Boston cream." I mumble, my eyes sliding shut as I sigh into my pillow.

"I'll be back soon." Riley calls with the shut of a door. But, Riley didn't come back.

He didn't come back in hour. He didn't come back that night, or the next day. He didn't come back the entire week.

He didn't come back, because he left me.

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