Acting Out [Student/Teacher, GxG]

Long Before Her

Things were not alright in the morning. Whoever had made the brilliant decision to send us back to work on New Year's Day was officially my least favourite person on Earth. I knew we were behind schedule — everyone knew —but still, I'd barely been asleep for two hours when my alarm started blaring.

"What the fuck?" Brielle grumbled, squinting at me.

"Back to work," I yawned, stretching my arms and clamouring gracelessly out of bed.

"How are you not as hungover as I am right now?"

"Maybe it's because I was drinking champagne and you were drinking Hennessy straight from the bottle," I offered, though truthfully my head was killing me and I wasn't entirely sure if I was going to make it out of the house without throwing up.

"That could be it," She replied weakly, taking her pillow and covering her face with it, "I have to catch a flight at noon, so I won't see you when you get back, but have a good day at work and tell Claire I love her and I'll see her soon."

"Nina's coming with us," I reminded her, "Are you going to say goodbye to her?"

"Is there any way I could like, not do that?"

"Come on, Bri. She's your best friend."

"Yeah," She groaned, "My best friend who hates me."

"You and I both know that's not true. She's upset and confused, she doesn't need to get the cold shoulder from you now on top of that."

"I'll talk to Nina when you talk to Claire," She raised an eyebrow and I blushed.

"Valid point, but get up. She's leaving in half an hour."

When I left the room, Claire was standing in the hallway in a baggy t-shirt and nothing else and I looked away, not entirely sure why I felt the need to protect her modesty after sleeping with her just hours ago. It struck me then that I hadn't actually let Claire touch me, and I felt strange about the whole encounter. Sex had never been a big deal to me, but with Claire it was like all of my insecurities took over, and I was incapable of being normal about it. I wondered if I'd ever get over it, and whether she thought I was weird for the way I'd acted. All in all, I had a bad case of what I'd come to refer to as 'hangxiety'; the disgusting shame-spiral that always tended to follow a night of heavy drinking. Work was truly going to be a blast.

"You know, when I said I wanted to be alone, I wasn't telling you to go fuck Brielle."

I rolled my eyes, "Yeah, that's definitely what happened."

"It was a joke," She sighed, bringing her hand to her forehead and wincing, "I'm so hungover."

"I thought you weren't drunk?"

"I'm also not a teenager, so the hangovers tend to come whether or not I'm drunk, unfortunately," She lamented.

"I feel like death."

"Why aren't you looking at me?" Her question took me by surprise and I met her eyes meekly.

"You're not wearing pants." I pointed out, gesturing at her outfit — or lack thereof.

"I'm not even going to touch that," She groaned, "But I think it's safe to say this isn't the first time you've seen me without pants."

"Yeah, well, different circumstances."

"I really don't understand you sometimes."

"The feeling is mutual."

The conversation was tense between us in a way it hadn't been in at least a month, and I hated it. I hated seeing her so guarded and knowing I couldn't get through to her.