Something Ends, Another Begins

Ali's P.O.V.

Beep. Beep. Beep

I practically jumped up from my bed at the sound of my alarm, interrupting my precious sleep. Suddenly, a millisecond after I shot up from my bed, I felt like someone hit my head with an extremely heavy hammer. "Ow," I groaned loudly, both of my hands reaching up to hold onto my head, my alarm clock still being a bitch.

One of my hands quickly left my head to punch the "off" button on my alarm clock. With my alarm going off, I knew that it was six thirty in the morning. I gently laid back down, careful not to make my excruciating headache worse. I turned to the side and found a couple of things next to my alarm clock. I picked my head back up a little to find that my cell phone and keys were on top of a piece of paper with writing on it. That's when I remembered the party the previous night.

The last thing that I remember from that party was talking to Rick and how I was asking him for bottles of beer. I tried my hardest to remember what happened next, but the rest of the night was such a blur. It was no doubt that I got drunk considering I have a pounding headache and I can't remember the rest of the night. How did I let myself get drunk? And how did I get home? Rick couldn't have taken me home since he doesn't know where I live.

I turned on my phone, the brightness of the screen making me feel like I was staring directly at the freaking sun, which didn't help my headache. I saw that there were text messages from Jenny and Christie basically telling me to call them when I wake up. Did either one of them take me home?

I picked up the small piece of paper beneath my keys and recognized Cameron's handwriting. He wrote: Ali - Call me when you wake up. I'll explain everything. Jen and Chris also want you to call them. - Cam So, it was Cameron that brought me home last night. I found this a little strange since he seemed to be awfully busy with some other girl while I was with Rick.

I put my cell phone and the piece of paper back where I found them and went back to sleep, thinking that it was too early to be calling anybody yet. I couldn't even concentrate on anything very well because of my head. I fell back asleep for another two and a half hours, at least I tried to. When I woke back up after dozing off, I saw that it was a little after nine o' clock. By that time, the sun was was shining brightly through my window, which really made me feel like I was staring directly at it.

I squinted my eyes all the way to my bathroom and shut the door. Thankfully, my bathroom lights are a little dim, which made it better to fully open my eyes. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw that my makeup was smeared all over my face and I looked scary pale. I splashed water in my face to clean off the makeup and hopefully feel a little refreshed, but that didn't work. My breath also smelled awful, like a mix between heavy amounts of alcohol and vomit. Oh my God, did I vomit in front of Cameron? He must have been beyond grossed out.

I brushed my teeth to get rid of the horrible stench, which helped a little. After brushing my teeth, I decided to take a shower. I felt all sticky and dirty and gross that I figured taking a shower would also help in the hangover recovery process. After the long hot shower, I had eggs and two Advil pills for breakfast.

It was around ten o' clock when I decided to start calling Jenny and Christie. I called Christie first who was still sleeping when I called but she answered anyway, telling me that she and Alex stayed up until four in the morning cleaning up the house and making sure everybody left. I asked her if she saw Cameron take me home last night and she told me that he was frantically looking for me before he found me in her bedroom with Rick.

"I'm pretty sure that if I wouldn't have come in the room when I did, Cam would have probably ripped Rick's head off with his bare hands. He looked really angry," Christie explained. "Anyway, I came into the room and found you wasted and lying down on my bed and Cameron pressing Rick up against the wall, on the verge of beating him to a pulp."

"Wow," was all I could say. How did I not remember any of this?

"Yeah, you're lucky Cam found you when he did. Who knows what that creep Rick was thinking of doing to you. I'm so sorry, Ali. I shouldn't have forced you to come to the party in the first place."

"Chris, it's okay. You don't have to be sorry. It was my stupid mistake for drinking too much for the first time."

Jenny practically told me the same thing. "I can't believe that asshole just sat there and let you drink that much!" Jenny exclaimed. "Do you want me to kick his ass?"

I laughed, which made my head start throbbing again. "No, Jen, it's okay. It's not completely his fault. I should have known better."

"Yeah, you're not totally wrong there. I'm just glad that you're away from that dickhead and nothing happened to you, despite the usual hangover symptoms. I mean, who knows what Rick was thinking when he took you to the bedroom and locked the door. You're so lucky Cam was there to be all protective and save you."

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. "Yeah, I guess I am pretty lucky."

"When I came to your house last night with your car, Cam seemed to be very concerned about you. I never took Cam to be the guy to actually take care of a drunken girl instead of trying something on her."

I thought of what Jenny said for a moment. The Cameron that Jenny and Christie were describing to me was certainly not the Cameron I recognized. I told Jenny that I needed to talk to Cameron and she told me to feel better and we hung up.

I was about to dial Cameron's number when I realized that I wanted to talk to him in person. I needed to thank him and hear his point of view of what happened last night. I quickly put on a sweatshirt with matching sweatpants, grabbed my keys, and headed outside. Even with my sunglasses on, the sunlight was a lot worse when I actually went outside. I looked at the ground as I made my way to my car.

As I approached the front door of Cameron's house, I heard voices inside the house. After I rang the doorbell, the voices grew silent. "Ali," Cameron said after he opened the door, looking surprised to see me, "what are you doing here?" I noticed that Cameron was also wearing sweats and also had major bed head, which honestly did not look bad on him. He looked like he just woke up.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did you just wake up? Did I come at a bad time?"

Cameron smiled and shook his head. "No, Liz and I were just having breakfast."

"Oh, okay. I came to thank you for last night. Jen and Chris told me what happened and I don't know what would've happened to me if it weren't for you."

Cameron looked down shyly, still smiling. "It's no problem. You didn't have to drive all the way over here to tell me that, though. You could've just called. Besides, I think you should be at home resting right now. You really don't look well."

Great, he could tell. I shrugged and replied, "Well, I've been better. It was worse earlier. But, I'm okay now."

Cameron looked over his shoulder and back at me. "Come on inside, I'll get you something to eat."

"No, it's okay," I said, shaking my head. "You don't have to."

Cameron rolled his eyes playfully before gently grabbing onto my wrist and tugging me inside the house. I gave in and walked inside the house as Cameron closed the door behind us. "Liz," he called out as he led me to the kitchen, "we have a special guest."

When we arrived in the kitchen, I saw Liz sitting at the kitchen counter sipping a cup of what I guessed was coffee with a plate of eggs and toast. Liz looked up from the newspaper she was reading and her face lit up when she saw me. "Ali!" she exclaimed as she stood up and walked over to me to give me a hug. "It's so good to see you."

"Hey, Liz," I replied. "It's good to see you, too." I noticed Cameron immediately head to his seat at the table and start to devour his food, as if he hadn't eaten in days.

"What brings you here so early?" Liz asked curiously.

Cameron and I exchanged glances. "Well, I was pretty bored at home. My mom's out of town so I'm alone. I just figured I would hang out here for a bit. Is it too early?"

"Oh, of course not. You know you're welcome here anytime. While you're here, have some breakfast with us. I'll be happy to make you something." Even though I attempted to politely decline her offer since I had already eaten breakfast, Liz ended up making toast for me with some orange juice. Before I knew it, the three of us were eating together at the table.

When we were all finished, Liz got up and gathered all of our plates to wash. While Liz was at the sink and out of earshot, Cameron leaned toward me and asked, "How's the hangover coming along?"

I sighed and whispered, "I don't think I've ever physically felt this terrible in my life."

Cameron gave me a sympathetic smile. "I know. Trust me, I've been there. Do you want me to get you anything?" he asked.

I shook my head. "I don't think anything would help me right now. I already took some Advil."

Before Cameron could respond, Liz walked over to us and said, "Well, I'll leave you guys alone. I'm going to go to my room and enjoy a little TV before work."

"Thank you so much for breakfast, Liz," I said, smiling.

"No problem, sweetheart. Anytime," Liz replied before heading upstairs to her room.

When she left I turned back to Cameron. "So, what really happened last night. Chris and Jen told me the gist of the whole situation but you were with me the most last night."

Cameron sighed and appeared to be thinking for a moment before talking. "I'm pretty sure it was around eleven-thirty when I found you with Rick. I didn't know where you were at first so I basically looked everywhere. When I realized that you were in Christie's bedroom, I saw that he was with you. You have no idea how glad I am to have found you when I did. When I realized that both you and Rick were drunk, I kind of knew what he was going to do to you. Trust me, when a guy takes a drunken girl to a bedroom and locks the door, there's no doubt what his intentions are. Anyway, I got you out of the party and drove you home. I stayed there until you fell asleep. You seemed pretty out of it."

"Did I happen to vomit in front of you?" I cautiously asked.

Cameron started to laugh and nod his head. "Oh, yeah. To be honest, it wasn't the most pleasant thing to witness."

I groaned and covered my face, embarrassed. "Oh my God, did I do anything else humiliating?"

Cameron cleared his throat and looked away from me. "Well, uh, you did ask me to take off your pants."

I gasped and my eyes widened. "I did?! Oh my God, I am so sorry," I groaned again.

Cameron laughed. "It's okay. Just so you know, I didn't try anything with you last night. I hope you know that I wouldn't take advantage of you like that."

I smiled and nodded my head. "I know you wouldn't," I replied. "I trust you."

After a brief awkward silence, Cameron's face grew serious as he asked me, "Why did you do it, Ali? Why did you drink so much? And why would you start talking to Rick again after what he tried to do to you?"

I sighed and looked down, fidgeting. "Because," I answered, "you were having fun with that random girl, Christie and Jenny were having fun with their boyfriends, I wanted to have fun, too."

"Ali, drinking is not fun at all."

"Yeah, I know that now. But I just thought it would take my mind off things. Besides, Rick was the only one at that party who wanted to talk to me. He wanted me to give him a second chance and he looked genuine so I figured I would. And, yes, I know it was stupid to do that so I don't need a huge lecture from you."

"I'm not going to give you a lecture," Cameron replied. "I just want to know why you started talking to him instead of me if you were that miserable."

"How could I have gone up to you if that girl was all over you and you were just focused on her."

"Believe me, Ali," Cameron said, his voice getting a little low, "I wanted to get far away from that chick as possible. At first, when she dragged me away from you, I didn't think it would be so bad to talk to her and I thought you would start talking to someone else anyway. But, after about five minutes, I realized that no way in hell was she the one that I wanted to be with at that party."

"Then why didn't you just leave?" I asked.

"I saw some guys looking at you and figured that they would start talking to you. I didn't know who else to hang out with so I just stayed with the crazy drunk chick."

"Well, surprise, no guys came up to talk to me instead of Rick and look what happened."

Cameron sighed. "Ali, can we please just not argue about this? What's done is done. I don't care about that girl at the party. All I care about now is you and how I won't let you get taken advantage of again. And how I won't let you drink that much ever again." When I didn't respond, Cameron stood up to grab a cup of water.

A few seconds later, I found myself standing up and walking over to Cameron before wrapping my arms around him and hugging him. He seemed a little surprised at first, like I caught him off guard, but eventually he relaxed and hugged me back, one of his hands holding the back of my head. "Thank you, Cameron," I said to him one more time. "You're the best."

"Yes, I know," he said jokingly.