Gone

Rollercoaster.

            The alarm clock on the nightstand buzzed loudly. The noise filled my ears, a noise I’ve came to loathe. My hand shot out from underneath the warm cocoon of my blanket and landed heavily on the annoying piece of machinery. The noise stopped and I sighed contently, but not a second later my mom knocked on the door.

            The slightly opened it, the light from the hallway flooding in. “Rain, honey, time to get up.”

            I groaned.

            “What time did you get in last night? And did you hurt yourself? The bathroom’s a mess,” she said.

            At the mention of last night, my stomach churned uncomfortably. The familiar feeling made me throw my blanket off of me to run to the bathroom. Lifting the toilet seat in time, stomach acid and the last thing I ate burned through my throat as I threw up. Mom rushed into the bathroom, rubbing my back comfortingly. The sour smell wafted up from the toilet, making my stomach twist again.

            My cheeks grew red and my eyes shut tighter when I heard Koasta footsteps enter the bathroom.

            “I guess you’re not going to school today,” Mom said from behind me, holding my hair away from my mess. “Did you want me to stay home with you?”

            I groaned again and shook my head, slacking against the white porcelain. My arm covered my face away from Koasta’s sight. I had to be so attractive to him now, I thought sarcastically.

            After begging Mom to leave me alone and for me to wallow in my self-humiliation, she closed the bathroom door behind her. Koasta leaned himself against the sink.

            “Please, go away,” I moaned to him.

            “You asked me to stay with you so that’s what I’m gonna do,” he answered swiftly.

            If it was any other time, I would’ve thought it was the sweetest thing, but now, when I was puking my guts, I just wanted him gone. Turning my flushed face away from him, I mumbled, “Koasta, please. This is embarrassing.”

            “You wanna know something embarrassing?” he asked, sitting against the counter below the sink, pulling his knees to his chest. Either he didn’t smell my sick or he chose it ignore it. “This one time, I was talking to the hot girl—”

            “How is this supposed to help me?” I muttered into the toilet, my voice slightly echoing back.

            “You didn’t let me finish,” he stated. “But, as I was saying. I was talking to this hot girl in, like, eighth grade I think. And I was acting smooth, you know. Complimenting her hair and clothes, the things that wins a girl’s heart. Then my stomach started acting up and at first I thought it was, like, gas or something. But I had just eaten at this dodgy fast-food place and then, before I could even run and hide, I threw up on her new shoes. Oh God, it was so chunky and smelled like a decaying animal. So long story short, I got food poisoning, slapped in the face, and kneed in the balls.”

            I slightly chuckled, only because Koasta deserved being slapped and kneed for his playboy ways.

            “See, I knew you would like something like that,” Koasta said, a smile evident in his voice.

            “Something like what?”

            “A story about me getting hurt,” he read my mind. “I did deserve it though.”