Obliviate My Rebellion {Book 3}

15. Bottles and fire conversations

"Jesus, you can sleep forever, can't you?"

Startled by the sound of somebody's voice, I lifted my head groggily my hand gripped tightly on my wand in case I needed to attack. But when my eyes adjudted to being awake, I realised that it was just Gennie.

"Were you going to surprise attack me with your wand from under your pillow?" Gennie said skeptically. "It might look cool, but one day you'll squish it."

She sat on my bed, looking awfully perky for so early. I rubbed at my face tiredly, placing my wand on the bedside table. "Why are you so perky this early?"

"It's almost eleven, I've been trying to wake you up forever. It's weird, both you and Cole won't wake up. He's still asleep on the sofa now."

I sat bolt-upright, almost making Gennie fall up. I remembered seeing the empty bottle in Cole's hand, the pills on the side of the table... A cold feeling of fear went through me. He would have been upset about Sam contacting him, but he couldn't be so upset he would... do that, would he?

"When I came back last night, Cole had an empty bottle of something in his hands..." I choked out. "There were some pills on the table..."

Gennie paled dramatically, and grabbed my hand. Without saying a word, she led me down to the common room, which was empty apart from Cole.

I knelt next to him, feeling sick. Had he been in that position last night? Had he moved around in pain? There was no vomit around his mouth, which was a promising sign, but his stillness still injected fear into the two of us.

Remembering the first aid classes Jenna forced me to attend, I placed two fingers at his wrist to test his pulse. I let out a relieved cry when I could feel it under my fingers--and it wasn't weak either.

"He's fine." I laughed happily. "It's not a weak heartbeat, it's truly there. He's alive!"

"Well he's being a lazy bastard." Gennie said, sounding furious but throughly relieved. She went out of the room, and returned with a pitcher of water, and dumped it all over Cole's head.

The effect was immeadiate. Cole woke up straight away and half slid off the sofa, swearing under his breath. "What the hell is going on?"

Gennie and I helped the half delirous Cole onto the sofa and sat on either side of him. Gennie started to hit his right arm. Cole seemed to have woken up more, but seemed confused at why his girlfriend was so annoyed at him so early.

"Don't 'what the hell is going on' me, Cole Oliver Wilde! We saw tablets and drink, and when you wouldn't wake up--" she let out a small cry. "We thought you were dead!"

"Oh, Gen." Cole said softly, and pulled her into a hug, as she tried to hide her tears. "I'm not going anywhere, I promise. All that happened was that I had a bit too much after hearing from Sam, and then I took some sleeping tablets to get to sleep. I suppose the combined pill effect and hangover made me sleep... babe, I'm sorry I worried you. I don't like seeing you upset."

"Well neither of us like seeing you upset either." Gennie said, her voice muffled through Cole's checked shirt. "You don't need drink to cope with bad stuff, that's what us two, Alia, Arthur and everybody else is here for."

Cole wiped at his eyes, and I remembered him saying on the tower that Gennie probably hated him. I wondered if Cole every wondered if we all hated him, when I think everybody loved Cole the most.

Cole put his free arm around me, and the three of us just sat there for a while. "I'm so stupid." Cole muttered. "Here's me turning to drink everytime I get upset, when really I should just go to my girls... God, I'm going to end up being an alcoholic before I'm sixteen..."