She Had A Name

Consciousness hits like a ton of bricks, or rather it felt like someone had just bashed me over the head with one. I force my eyes to open as the world blurs around me, disfigured shapes and colours blending together making it impossible to work out where I am.

I blink, and the family basement comes into focus. The TV had been left on overnight, the people inside the screen arguing over a can of Red Bull. Their whining voices echoing out the speakers and making me want to ram my already throbbing head against a wall. Why do they have to devote whole channels to reality TV shows that insist on playing re-runs all day?

Pulling myself up from the couch, I rub my eyes in the process, attempting to rid of the sleep that had formed over night as my hair falls messily into my eyes. The dress I had so happily worn last night was now creased and it remained on my body leaving me to feel dirty. So, so, dirty, as the events of the night before started replaying themselves in my mind.

I couldn’t remember much. Only that I had attended a party on the bidding of a friend the night before, and the large quantities of alcoholic beverages that I had consumed. Alcohol, the thought made my stomach lurch in its memory and I suddenly wanted to be sick.

In a split second I dart from the couch and up the stairs into the bathroom. The alcoholic poisons emptying from my body as I gag over the toilet bowel, my stomach feeling like it’s full of lead. I hated this feeling, I hated the feeling of that morning after a long night when you wake up and you don’t remember anything. The only reminder of the night before and the alcohol that had pumped so relentlessly through your veins, was the aching head and the stomach that felt like someone had punched it several times over. I don’t even remember how I got home?

As I walk out from the bathroom clutching my stomach, I see her sitting at the kitchen table eating a bowl of cereal and engrossed in a gossip magazine when it clicks. Leah, was how I got home.

“Morning,” I say almost in a painful groan and she looks up from the glossy pages of bullshit.

“Hey,” she mutters, glancing at my messed up appearance, than turning her head away to re-examine the words on the page as I seat myself across from her. “Hungry?”

The very thought of food was repulsive as my stomach lurched in defiance. “No.”

She shrugs, not looking away from her magazine. This was a typical response of hers. The shrugging often indicating that she didn’t really give a shit, and was probably pissed off at me because she had to come rescue my drunken self at god knows what hour of the morning.

Silence falls over us both and I lean forward on the table to rest my head on my arm, watching my identical twin mull over the answer of a multiple choice question. Her face draws a blank for a moment as she decides on an answer and I wonder why she wastes her time taking a quiz that will ultimately inform her on whether she feels sexy. Because you know, Cosmopolitan holds all the answers to life for a sixteen year old girl...

“What?” She notices me staring and turns to look at me, scrunching her face in confusion.

“Nothing.” I shrug, turning my head away and into the surface of the table, the tip of my nose pressed against the wood. Although we may be the reflection of one another, we really are two different people. She puts too much thought into things, like whether she should answer ‘When do you feel the most sexy?’ with; A) Getting glam before a date, or, B) After a guy tells you that you look hot. Where as I’d answer with; C) In the shower. Not because it was true, but just because it was the most amusing answer.

More silence follows, and I take the opportunity to try and catch up on lost sleep as I rest on the table when Leah speaks again; “So, we going to the beach today?”

“What?” I ask confused.

“Yesterday, before you went out...Jacob invited us to the beach today,” she reminds me and I groan into the wooden surface of kitchen table we ate from daily.

“Do I have too? I have the worst hangover...” The last thing I wanted to do was go to the beach when my stomach felt like it would spontaneously combust at any second.

“Well...” she begins, dragging the word out before stating matter-of-factly; “It’s not my fault you decided to get wasted...” Thanks for reminding me, my loving sister. Yes, I do I love her and all... but she likes to heighten my hangover pain by stating the obvious.

I groan again. I really didn’t want to go, but Leah obviously wanted to and Jacob would pester me if I didn’t. All I really wanted to do was crawl into my warm bed, so that I could sleep the day -and the hangover- away.

“Fine, okay. I’ll go.” I finally mutter after a long minute had dragged itself out, lifting my head from my arms and resting back on the chair.

Leah smiles, and I frown because I know I’m about to be sick again as I get up to rush back to the bathroom.

It was going to be a long day.