Intoxicated

To say that I had a bad day today would be a complete understatement. For starters, I was up all night finishing a ten-page paper only to have it completely shot down just after my professor read the thesis statement. I spent almost two hours debating with the very same professor, defending my painful effort and its credence, only to end up being shoo’ed and told to “send him an email because he has to go.” I then walked back to my dorm room, all drenched in sweat, and was greeted by a surprise.

I didn’t know how tired and oblivious I was that I missed any warning noises, but somehow I unsuspectingly let myself into the room and found my roommate’s bare ass resting oh-so comfortably on my boyfriend’s face. The thud of my door opening brought them on their feet, and the looks on their faces were hysterical if I didn’t remember who they were. Disgusted and outraged, I slammed the door shut without even saying a word.

At times like these, all I ever needed were Niall Horan and a bottle of vodka.

Niall’s dorm room was only five doors away, but I could’ve sworn it was one of the longest walk I had ever taken. Maybe that was exaggerated, but with a heavy sling bag hung over my shoulder and the countless number of people walking on this unbelievably narrow hallway made me feel that way. I almost felt like letting myself stumble and bawl my eyes out right there in the middle of the crowd.

My lungs were burning, my chest was uncontrollable, and I was trying my best not to shed a single tear for that slut and that bastard. My breathing got heavy, as I banged Niall’s door open and stole his immediate attention.

“Charlie.”

I threw my bag on his roommate’s bed, who was thankfully hardly ever there, and stood still right in front of him. I could already feel my face heating up and without realizing I had both of my hands clunched so tightly on my side.

“Shit. How bad is it from Stella to Smirnoff?”

“Smirnoff.”

“Fuck. What the hell happened?” he asked as he reached for a bottle on the back of his cabinet.

“Just give me the damn bottle.”

Something about being drunk felt extremely liberating. The first contact between the liquor and my lips had always been exciting, with the warmth in the back of my throat that pleasantly followed. The full chug that I took straight from the bottle sent tingles to my brain, exactly what I needed to wash away the disgusting sight I came across earlier.

“Your turn,” I shoved the bottle into Niall’s hands. This had accidentally been an unwritten rule between us; where if one gets drunk, the other should too. It was the only way of fishing out truths and stories out of each other, even though it was almost guaranteed that we wouldn’t remember about 70% of it in the morning.

But that was the point, to just simply let any ill feelings out and get them out of our systems. When both of us were drunk, we knew that there were no dignity, no shame. We could let loose and say things that we would be too proud and timid to do sober.

Him, being the Irish, was the one who triggered it the first time. It happened during freshman year, at a bar across the street, where Niall managed to make me ramble about the divorce of my parents on the very first night we met. Pissed of feeling manipulated, I felt that it was only fair if he spilled some beans to me too, so we went out and got sloshed again the next night, and thus the rule above was born.

“Tell me,” he paused to take a sip, “Tell me what happened.”

With our first chugs, my fiery fuming started. There we were, vodka being tossed back and forth, and him listening to me intently. My use of profanity soon went out of control, as my head felt lighter and my knees went weaker with each sip.

“How the fuck— did he even…?” Niall slurred between hiccups.

“I have no fucking idea,” my sentences were colored with pointless giggles, “I think he just fell over and his dick landed on—“

I threw myself against Niall’s bed while he followed by jumping onto it and had his legs caging my lower body, hovering above me. “Well you know what I think?” With him being directly on top of me, I could clearly see the devious smirk he always had when he was drunk, saying anything to cheer me up as if the alcohol wasn’t working, “I think he’s a fucking moron.”

That was the moment where I reached the point of struggling to keep my eyes from fluttering shut. My hair somehow found their way into my mouth, getting wetter and stickier each time I drank. “I think, you—“ again interrupted by a gulp, “and your insults,” I gestured an air quote, “are lame.”

He reached over for the bottle on my hand but his knees failed to keep their balance and before I knew it, his face was literally centimeters away from mine. “I think, you’re fucking stupid for hooking up with him in the first place.”

His sapphire blue eyes were drilling into mine, and I was almost sure that I could see my reflection in it, “No, this, your highlight, is stupid,” I garbled as I tugged on the front side of his hair.

“Fuck off, you’re in love with it,” he pulled away before tossing the bottle back to me.

I managed to push myself upwards and leaned against my elbows to bring myself closer to him, “I think, I’m in love with you.”

And that was the last thing I remembered.

--

The next morning, I was woken up by a rather loud thump from the door. It was Niall with nothing on but a piece of towel that was wrapped around his hips.

“Morning,” he greeted, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“’s okay. I just still don’t get your ability to wake up early after a heavy night.”
A fat grin was plastered on his face as he walked over to his wardrobe and fished for clothes.

“Irish twat.”

“Hey, don’t hate me for my excellent alcohol tolerance,” he teased while he shook another towel over his hair. “You okay?”

“I’m good, I think. No signs of headaches until now, so I’ll probably puke soon. What time is it?”

He took a moment to look at his phone, “Sixteen past ten.”

All of a sudden, I felt a glob building up underneath my throat and that was when I knew it was coming. I smacked the blanket off my legs and stormed out of Niall’s room to go to the common bathroom.

When I went back a moment later, Niall was waiting for me with a cup of instant coffee on his hand. He handed it over to me and I accepted it gladly. I immediately took a sip and sat back on his bed, “Thanks.”

He rolled over on his office chair to reach me and held my knees, “Feel better?”

“Yeah, the coffee helps.”

“No I mean, about what happened,” he corrected.

“Oh, absolutely. How much nonsense did I slur out last night? I can’t even remember half the things that happened already.”

“You can’t?” he echoed, seemed to be checking if he heard me right. By now, I started to worry about him bringing up the last line I remembered saying.

“I can’t,” I confirmed. Please be too drunk to notice. Please don’t bring it up. Please forget it.

“So you don’t remember anything you said?”

“No, not really,” I said, almost choking on the word.

Niall was then quiet at my answer, and a few moments passed by without him throwing another comment. I thought that, with the silence, he got over it, but boy was I wrong.

“Not even the part where you said that you’re in love with me?” he said in the lowest voice possible, almost like a whisper.

I tried to act clueless, but I knew I wasn't kidding anyone, “I did?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe that was the vodka talking,” I remarked, still trying to brush it off.

Another silence ensued, but I could tell that it wasn’t a good one.

“You know what, no. I refuse to believe that you don’t remember,” Niall’s tone suddenly became harsh and firm, totally caught me off guard.

“Why did you just raise your voice? I told you I don’t know what happened!”

I could see right there and then that he was angry, proper angry. I didn’t know how it escalated so quickly from giving me coffee to yelling at me, but it did. “Bullshit. That’s bullshit. I know damn well that you do!”

“You’re insisting that I remember what happened? Why the hell are you so furious?! Because I drunkenly said some stupid shit?!”

“It wasn’t just that, Charlie, that was the fourth time you said it to me! Don’t just pass the fuck out and act like nothing happened.”

I had to take a moment to take in what he just mentioned. Fourth time? He must be kidding. My brilliant mouth decided to make another idiotic decision and say something completely irrelevant, “You’re angry at me for passing out?!”

“Fuck, no, Charlie. I’m angry, because you seemed to be having so much fun throwing those words like they mean absolutely nothing.”

All the shouting was starting to make me feel uncomfortable, and as stupid as it sounded, I felt the need for another drink – a lighter one.“I never did those,” This time I seriously didn’t recall any of it happening, apart from the one time last night. I almost suspected that he was making that up, but why would he?

I pushed myself up from the bed, walked past him and towards his mini cooler.

“Yes, you did. You were just too wasted to recall them all,” he continued before taking a strong grip of my arm, “Jesus Christ! No! You are not going to drink right now. Stop being a boozer for a second and have a sober conversation with me!”

“Who the fuck are you calling a boozer? Look at yourself! I can drink whenever I want!”

“No, we’re going to talk about this sober. No more slurred sentences and wordless nonsense.”

“You have no right to tell me what to do,” I protested, taking a can of Stella anyway.

He snapped the can away from my hand and took his volume to another level, “Listen to me!”

“What the fuck, Niall?! Why are you so frustrated?! Does it really bother you that much?” By then, I knew that I was furious myself, not understanding why he decided to make such a fuss about it.

“I’m frustrated, Charlie, because what you said haunted me!” he said in between heavy breaths, “The first time you said it, I didn’t think I could rely on my own credibility; I wasn’t even sure whether you actually said it or not,” he paused as he consciously brought his tone down, “The second time, I was sure that you did, but I didn’t take it seriously; my drunken self heard a piece of your drunken thought, no big deal.”

A wave of thoughts came crashing through my mind, trying my best to sort through the bits of memories scattered around my brain from numerous boozy nights.

All of a sudden, it all came rushing into my head like longlost footages in movies. I got it.

One of the times were when we, being completely hammered, struggled to walk together from the bar all the way to our building. Another was when he gave me a piggy back ride along this seashore during spring break. The third, however, didn’t cross my mind at all.

“The third time,” Niall said as if he could read my mind, “was last week, after Sigma Tau’s frat party. We went back here early and lied down on my bed. You must’ve thought that I fell asleep right away because that one, you whispered it directly into my ear, all with your alcohol breath.”

“Charlie, I’m frustrated because I have been fighting with my own clouded mind, trying to pick out what is right and wrong, which moment actually happened and which was only a delusion,” his voice calmed down as he stepped up to approach me, “I’m frustrated by the fact that with you, I could never tell what is real and what isn’t.”

He tucked a strand of my hair to the back of my ear and used the other hand to cup my cheek before he continued, “And it scares the hell out of me because not long ago, I realized that I might actually be in love with you too.”

Niall had seen me be devastated, ecstatic, riddled, and thousands of other human emotions out there, but what he just said summoned all those feelings back to me at the same time. I was stiff as a statue, and I was sure my face already turned pale. I wanted to say something back but I could feel my throat closing and my lips locking.

They say drunk words are sober thoughts, but the idea of falling in love with Niall was just too much to comprehend at that moment. The grasp of his gentle hand apparently threw away my brain’s ability to function.

Niall was the best person I had ever known, and I undoubtedly cared about him, but never had I consciously thought of Niall that way. Maybe I was blinded, or maybe those were just silly smack talks, all I knew was that the perplexity had me completely tongue-tied in front of him.

This would be the exact point where I just wished to be saved by liquor.

But instead, I suddenly felt a warm peck on my rigid mouth, wide hands tightening the grip on my tomato-red cheeks, inviting me to return the gesture. My eyes reactively closed shut as the touch send shivers all over my body and I felt butterflies went crazy in my stomach. I sensed my shoulders relaxing and it was as if my brain got rebooted.

No more questions, no more acquisitions, no more thoughts; just the touch of his lips on mine.

It was a simple kiss, no tongue nor movement, but there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that it was much more intoxicating than any liquor I have ever drunk.