Oxygen (Catfish And The Bottlemen/1975)

Van

I woke up the next morning on the settee, the kettle boiling in the kitchen and the patio door open, a cool breeze washing over my cheeks, waking me up. I rubbed my eyes as I rolled over and tried to push myself up, wandering towards the smell of cigarette smoke drifting in from outside.

Fliss was lying back on the patio with a joint between her lips, sunglasses on so as you couldn't tell the extent of her hangover. Perhaps she didn't have one at all.

Beside her her friend that I didn't recognise was struggling to light up, watching the clouds through her sunglasses.

"Morning girls," I yawned sitting down, "you want a light lass?" I nodded to the other girl.

"Cheers darlin," she managed though her voice was faint, a little scratchy like she'd not been up long. She closed her eyes breathing in and when she opened them she smiled at me a little out of it, before suddenly double taking like we'd never met before, though I was sure I'd been introduced. "Were you here last night?"

Fliss burst into a fit of giggles where she lay beside her, almost choking on her cigarette.

"Yeah," I grinned, "its katie right," I smirked, her cheeks flushing as she shied away a little.

"Yeah, sorry I must have been really..."

"Fucked," smirked Fliss struggling not to laugh again, "you were really really really, fucked" she giggled offering her smoke to me, waving it under my nose with a cheeky smile to draw me in.

"Pullin a weekender are yous," I chuckled, taking a drag or two before passing it back, she pushed her hair from her face and flashed me another smile shaking her head.

"This is just for the hangover," said Katie softly, she reminded me of Bob the way she tiptoed around everything.

"What hangover..." smirked Fliss blowing out smoke with her exhale. It tasted sweet on the tip of my tongue as I breathed in a little. I bit back a laugh when Alice joined us giving Fliss a dirty look and a sarcastic smile.
"Just hasn't hit you yet, just you wait..." she smirked.

The more I thought about the night in question the more I remembered and the more I began to realise, I wanted to forget.

From what I could remember I'd barely left her alone, I probably hadn't noticed it through my drunken haze but her apathy towards me that morning gave me the impression that she had.

"felicity wishes my darlin where are you?" Called Saff from somewhere inside before skipping outside with a mug of coffee cradled to her chest presumedly for Fliss who looked at her with wide eyes and a grateful smile.

"Felicity Wishes?" I turned to her with a smirk, she only shot me a sarcastic smile, leaving her friends to explain the apparently unfavourable nickname.

"They're children's books," smiled Saffron, "that woman from Harry Potter wrote then... Emma Thompson you know?"

"Shes a fairy," smiled Katie returning with Benji and Bob following closely behind her.

"Don't even think about calling me that," warned Fliss pushing her hair from her face holding me speechless for a moment as I watched the afternoon sun wash over her freckled features and catch in her dark brown eyes.

"Noted," I smirked not wanted to piss her off, saving the name up for a later date when I knew I could really wind her up with it.

"What happened to the lads last night?" She turned to Alice expecting her to know, however that was apparently unwise as Alice only frowned and shook her head.

"Don't talk to me about the lads," she scowled doing inverted commas on the word lads as if to deepen the wound even more.

I saw fliss mumble something into her mug disguising the word "wanker," as she took a sip of her coffee and turned to the others.

"Did I miss something?" Asked Katie, sitting down with Benji and offering him a cigarette. My eyes flickered between him and Bob, my smirk mirroring Bob's when I recognised the look of "love" in Benjis smile.

"Hes just a wanker isnt he..." shrugged Fliss catching me by surprise, though she shouldn't have, blunt remarks like that made up 80% of Fliss's vocabulary. "Jazz is just as bad for brining him... every single fucking time I tell him not to...."

"Who?" Asked Katie who seemed just as confused as me and the lids, all listening but not following.

"Elliot, who the fuck else would they be talking about..." smirked Saff. I tried to picture him in my head, tried to remember whether we'd been introduced but nothing came to mind. "The one with the embarrassing taste in hats..." she said presumably for our benefit.

Just as she said it Bondy came stumbling outside rubbing his eyes, I cracked a smirk as he looked around with a frown.

"Oh yeah that wanker, he seemed like a proper..." he started with a smirk trailing off when the girls laughter drowned him out... "who are we talking about?" He asked blankly, "the one that tried to convince me his little bag of flower was cocaine?" He frowned, Alice bit back a laugh at that and nodded.

"Did he mistake you for a girl? Was he trying to hit on you?" Asked Fliss blankly, "elliot doesn't really bother with guys..."

"Maybe he just really liked your hat bond," I teased.

"Did you snort it?" Asked Larry with a laugh as Bondy rolled his eyes and sat down stretching his skinny jean clad legs out in front of him.

"No I did not snort it larry you twat,"

"I did once, for a dare..." grinned Saffron with a childish sense of glee, "I was sneezing flower for days..."

"Wow," I grinned holding back a laugh, swiftly realising that these girls were on the whole exactly the kind of girls I'd have been dying to hang out with in highschool, exactly the kind of girls with a dangerous tendency to draw me in.