Fallen

The truth about hangovers {1912}

After Thomas had left Eve spent twenty minutes with her head down the toilet bowl, throwing up the contents of last night's wedding reception. This is exactly why you never drink your sorrow away, it always found its way back up tenfold.

She threw her head back on the toilet seat, and just breathed for a moment or two. Once her stomach settled she picked herself up gently, flushed the toilet and turned on the bath. The water ran for several minutes before, Eve turned off the tap, stripped down to nothing and lowered herself into the water.

She felt different, not in a major way, just like something in her had slightly shifted gear. The way society spoke she'd lost something to Thomas last night, but the feeling she felt was not loss. All the books she'd read and all the poems she'd written, the vocabulary still surpassed her. There was no word to describe how she felt, and so she let it go.

The feeling was just another step in her journey. She grabbed a bar of soap and ran it across her wash cloth placed the soap back, dunked the cloth into the tub. Only when she saw the bubbles of soap studs on the cloth did she run it along her skin. Humming, forever chasing rainbows she began to wash every ounce of last night from her skin.

Taking extra effort when cleaning the nape of her neck. She could still feel today's kisses on her skin, they'd left a mark she couldn't scrub clean. Tommy had tried to kiss; after the bridesmaid and best man comment. Announcing that she didn't want to be a bridesmaid again, was essentially saying they would never happen again. Eve supposed that in pressing his lips to the crook of her neck Thomas was testing if it was true.

It was.

Instead of leaning into his movement, as they both wanted, she'd instead leant down to pick his shirt off the floor and handed it to him with a shove. He'd got the message and silently got dressed to leave. She didn't want to risk changing their relationships any further than it already had been. Not that they'd ever had much of a relationship before yesterday, they'd always just been aquitances.

Things that happened sober cant be as easily erased as drunken mistakes. Harry had told her that once as he pulled the boys pints.

Right now she was meant to be at the Garrison now, Tommy reminded her before he'd left. Just before he'd planted an awkward goodbye kiss on her forehead. If Tommy didn't know how to act after last night, how was she meant to know? The thought of her sat round the pub surrounded by the Shelby's was not what she wanted right now.

Twice Thomas Shelby had kissed her today. One an awkward uncertain parting the gesture, the other not so innocent. Despite the intention of each kisses  they'd both left an invisible mark on her skin. Branded with a heat she could feel even now with him so far gone. It was shame.

And she was meant to sit at a table in the Garrison with them all; Polly, Ada, Arthur and talk about how great that wedding had been. She pulled the plug from the tub. Just because she was meant to do something didn't mean she was going to.

****

She'd drank though Friday: it was a wedding reception she wasn't an alcoholic promise. Slept through Saturday, and now that brought us to Sunday. The holy day. There was no possibility of sleeping through Sunday service the way she'd done yesterday's drinks. That was unless she wanted crucifying. Eve was lucky enough to be raised by the most faithful family in Birmingham, she knew better than to miss church.

She spent 20 minutes perfecting a bun, before shimmying into a blue tailored wool dress a flat collar. Her eyes glanced over the lipstick on her dresser, but she didn't pick it up. Eve's mother didn't believe in wearing makeup to church. She didn't believe in makeup at all really.