Chapter 8: The Sick Day

I woke a little after one.

The hangover had stepped down from a crime to a complaint. My head was still tender if I moved too fast, and my mouth wanted water, but I could sit up without negotiating with the room. The apartment was quiet. Amber had either gone out or was being uncharacteristically merciful.

I lay there and took inventory, because that is what I do when I am trying not to start the day in the middle of the mess I made of it. My ass was still sore in a dull, remembered way, not a sharp way. I realized I had not looked at the picture, which felt like breaking a rule and also like the first reasonable thing I had done all week.

I thought of Mike, and of the fact that I had not called him. Amber had called me out of work, and I had spent the morning confessing to her and the early afternoon full of toys, and the man I was supposed to love had a version of my evening that was coworker drinks and a stomach bug. I reached for the phone before I could talk myself out of texting.

He picked up on the second ring.

“Hey,” he said. “I was starting to wonder if the hospital had eaten you.”

“The hospital did not get the chance,” I said. “I drank too much last night. Called out sick. I am the cautionary poster in the break room, except the break room does not know it yet.”

He laughed—a real one, warm, the kind that used to rearrange my week.

“Glad I am not the only one who drinks too much from time to time,” he said. “I have done worse. You remember the party. I was out cold on somebody’s couch, and you had to deal with the rest of the night on your own. At least you made it home.”

God, of course I remembered the party; it’s why my life had been turned upside down the last couple of months. The guilt then arrived on schedule, specific and named. The heat arrived with it, which was worse. I pressed my thighs together under the duvet and hated that my body had kept a receipt for a night I was supposed to regret cleanly.