You Make it Real

Sarah woke up the next morning in what she could only assume was one of the many guestrooms, with an unfortunate splitting headache. She slowly opened her eyes, immediately regretting it the second the sunlight pouring into the room through a nearby window hit her like a ton of bricks. She groaned and rolled over but instead of rolling onto more mattress, she just about rolled over a person!

Her eyes popped open. There, Jonathan Toews lay, on his stomach, his head turned towards her, a quiet, almost purring snore escaping past his lips every once in a while. Eyes wide, her mind began to reel, attempting to piece together the previous night’s events. She silently thanked the Lord that they were both fully clothed and lying on top of the covers, confirming that she didn’t do anything stupid in her drunken stupor. As slowly as she could, she slid off the bed and tip-toed out of the room, quietly shutting the door behind her.

She walked down the empty hallway, down into the main living area where at least a dozen people were passed out in various uncomfortable-looking positions on the couch, the floor and even the coffee table. Beer cans and red plastic cups littered the place. Part of her wanted to start cleaning up, but glancing at the clock on the wall, she didn’t think that the room full of guaranteed-to-be-hungover twenty-somethings would appreciate being woken up at 6am.

She made her way into the kitchen and was surprised to find Nate sitting at the kitchen island. He looked like he had definitely had better days. He sat with hunch, his hands clutching his head. As awful as she felt, she knew he was probably feeling worse. Standing a few feet away, she quietly said his name, trying not to startle him. “Hey bud ... you alive over there?”

He turned his head in his hands and opened one eye and smiled, “heeeey...” his voice raspy and tired, “there’s coffee over there. Help yourself.”

“Ohhh. Don’t mind if I do...” She shuffled her way over to the counter, opening the overhead cabinets and pulling out a coffee mug.

As she filled her mug with the hot liquid, Nathan spoke up, “Where’d you disappear off to last night?”

Sarah was searching in the fridge for some milk or cream, but froze for a second at Nathan’s question. “Umm...I uh...I just ... I was around. “ she tried to come off as nonchalant as possible, hoping that he would take her stammering as her just being distracted by her search for milk.

With her back still to him as she stirred some sugar and milk in to her coffee, he spoke up again, “You know what else is weird?”

“What’s that?”

“Jonny boy disappeared last night too! One minute he’s hogging all the female attention this side of Falcon, the next it’s like he wasn’t even here! Weird right?”

“Yeah...super weird” glad that her back was still to him, her eyes widened and she mouthed Oh my god! She turned around, coffee mug cradled in both hands and leaned back on the counter behind her.

“Did you see him at all last night?” he asked, an odd expression on his face.

She shook her head as she brought the cup of hot coffee up to her lips.

“You sure?” this time, he had a smirk on his face and it was making her slightly uncomfortable.

“Positive.” She gave him a weird look before taking a sip of her coffee.

He smirked at her again, “Why are you wearing his hoody then?”

She nearly spit out of her coffee, feeling like her eyes had popped out of their sockets. She looked down and sure enough, she was wearing an oversized dark grey zip-up sweater with a Blackhawks logo on it that most certainly did not belong to her. “Wow. This definitely is not what it looks like.”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure it isn’t.” He gave her an exaggerated wink, and started laughing.
She pressed her lips together, closing her eyes briefly and groaned, “I SWEAR it’s not what it looks like. I SWEAR.”

“I don’t know babe, the evidence pretty much speaks for itself...”

She closed her eyes again as she felt her hangover rear its ugly head in the form of a sharp pain tearing through her skull. “Oh my god, shut the fuck up, Gauthier.” She knew that at this point he was just trying to bug her, but she wanted it to stop nonetheless. She didn’t need some stranger listening in on the conversation and telling everyone and their aunt something completely false.

She pulled out one of the stools from under the kitchen island and sat across from Nathan. She bent over and rested her forehead on the countertop, the cool tile helping to alleviate the pounding in her head. “Let me die” she groaned.

“I suppose that hangover of yours isn’t want it looks like either?” he said with a smirk.

She lifted her head slightly, her chin still on the counter, “You are one to talk, Gauthier. Need I remind you that you have a bikini bottom hanging from your neck?”

He made an ‘awww yeah’ face and pointed at himself with both thumbs, “I ain’t even gonna lie, this guy totally got it in last night.”

She made a disgusted face and turned her head again, this time resting her cheek flat against the cool tile, “blech. You’re disgusting. You should probably get tested soon.”

Nathan rolled his eyes, “I’m too smart for that shit. I always wrap it u— Jonnnny!” Jonathan walked into the kitchen looking like he had seen better days.

She watched him walk in, scratching his head, still looking half asleep. He gave Nathan a nod of acknowledgement and took a seat next to her at the kitchen island. “Morning”, he said quietly, with a half smile.

She wanted so badly to be able to answer properly and maybe strike up some kind of conversation with the guy she just [literally] slept with, but as she opened her mouth, a huge headache surged through her head, so her attempt at an answer ended up coming out as a mumbled/groaned ‘morning’.

Nathan chimed in, “That’s ‘morning’ in hungover-Sarah-talk”.

Sarah responded to Nathan by giving him the finger.

Jonathan chuckled and nodded. He turned his attention to Nathan, noticing the bikini bottom around his friend’s neck and motioned towards it, “Good night?”

Nathan smiled and hooked his finger in the bikini bottom, “You don’t even know man...”

Sarah sat there, listening to the conversation between the two men. She figured that they thought she had maybe fallen asleep but she could only stand so many gory details about the alleged freak-in-the-bed-asian-girl. Slowly, she sat up, causing Nathan to cut his story short.

“Thanks for the visual, Nate. As if I didn’t already feel like throwing up before ...”

The two burst out in a fit of laughter.

“UGHHH! You guys suck.”

Nate paused his laughter for a second, “I don’t know about me, but Lisa Lam sure did! HEY-OH!!!!” Nate put his hand up and Jonathan high-fived him, inciting more laughter from the two.

Once their laughter subsided, Jonathan turned to look at Sarah. Feeling eyes on her, she turned her head and raised her eyebrows questioningly.

He gave her a half smile, “Nice hoody”

Nathan took this as his cue to leave.

Her eyes widened, embarrassed, “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry! Here...” She started unzipping the sweater to give it back to him, but he interrupted her by putting his hand on her arm.

He chuckled, “No, no, no, don’t worry about it! You can keep it!”

She shook her head, “No! I can’t! These sweaters are so expensive! I can’t!”

He chuckled again, this time he raised his eyebrows at her as if to say Really?

She felt her cheeks begin to warm and she mentally slapped herself. Get it together, Sarah! She continued to unzip the sweater, “I really can’t...it’s yours...”

She felt her breath catch in her throat as she felt his hand on hers, stopping her from unzipping further, “Sarah, seriously. Keep it.”

She smiled politely, willing her cheeks to not get redder than they already were and trying ever so hard to keep cool, “Ok, ok, if you say so. Thanks...”

A few seconds passed, feeling awkward, she looked down at his hand that was still on hers, “Ummm...I should probably...ummm...”

“Oh! Uhh ... sorry...” Slowly, he pulled his hand away, and picked a non-existent piece of lint off his shirt.

She couldn’t help but feel extremely awkward with him after the previous night. It didn’t help that she didn’t remember much of it. Also didn’t help that she woke up next to the guy. Wanting to avoid the imminent awkward silence, she got up from the chair. “I...uhhh... I should go find Nicole...It was uhh...nice umm... meeting you...” she stammered. He made her feel flustered. She wanted to get out of the kitchen as fast as possible.

He opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. He figured she probably thought he was the biggest idiot on the planet. Shaking his head, he got up and poured himself a cup of coffee.

Once on the other side of the kitchen door, closing her eyes, Sarah covered her face with her hands, “You’re such an idiot. Oh my god... idiot...” she quietly muttered to herself. She took a couple deep breaths to calm herself down and bring her back to reality.

Opening her eyes, she nearly screamed when found Nate standing across from here, staring at her, a grin plastered on his face.

“Jesus Christ, Nathan! What the fuck!”

He continued to stand there, the same grin across his face.

Sarah gave him a weird look, “What’s with the shit-eating grin? If you just came from a quickie, please spare me the details. I think I’ve sat through enough sex stories this morning to last me a lifetime.”

Still, he said nothing, his smile getting bigger.

Frustrated, she shoved his shoulder, “Dude! Seriously! What’s your deal! You know what? Nevermind. I probably don’t want to know.” She was about to walk away from him to find Nicole, but he finally opened his mouth. He let out a boy-giggle, and in true Nathan fashion, he grinned and motioned towards the kitchen, “you two boned last night, didn’t you?”

She rolled her eyes at her friend’s immaturity, “Fuck off, Nate. Seriously.” She walked away from him, heading upstairs to find Nicole, for real this time.

Nathan yelled after her, “Does he like that you talk dirty?” he burst out laughing, barely able to get his comment out. She replied by giving him the finger as she walked up the stairs.

After opening almost every door (and regretting doing so for most of them ... ), she finally found her best friend. Nicole was cuddled up with some guy Sarah had never seen before. Sarah had a feeling that her friend would not be returning to the city with her, but she didn’t want to leave without saying so either because well, that would be a shitty thing to do. As quietly as she could, she tip-toed across the room to the side of the bed. She felt like she was walking through a minefield, attempting to ignore the articles of clothing and underwear carelessly strewn across the floor.

Sarah poked her friend’s shoulder. Nothing. She poked a couple more times. Still nothing. She tried again, this time poking her harder. That did the trick. Nicole jolted awake. “Holy shit Sare!” Nicole hissed, pulling the covers up to her neck.

“Sorrrrrrry! I’m gonna take off ... I’m guessing you’re ... staying?”

Nicole, still in a state of confusion from the rude awakening didn’t register what Sarah was saying and let out a mere “yeah, yeah, whatever...” before closing her eyes and cuddling into the side of the stranger next to her.

Sarah raised an eyebrow at her friend. She wasn’t going to bug her again, but she knew that she would be in for one heck of a bitching the next time she saw Nicole for leaving her to find a ride back into the city.

She made her way out of the room and back downstairs. Thankfully, there was no sign of Nathan or Jonathan anywhere. Breathing a sigh of relief, she picked up her bag and headed out the front door, looking forward to the long, quiet, solo drive back home.

She turned the key in the ignition of her car and sat there a while, listening to the engine humm. After a few moments, she shifted the car into gear and started down the long winding road that lead to the highway.

As the miles upon miles of fields passed her by, she couldn't help but let her mind wander, images of Jonathan flashing through her mind. She gave her head a shake, give it up, Sarah. Pining after some hockey player that gave her 2.5 seconds of his attention means nothing. Certainly nothing to him, that was for sure. Get back to reality Sarah.... Sarah needed to forget this weekend and get back to the real world. She sighed and turned the volume up on the stereo, hoping that it would drown out her thoughts.