24. a slave to make-believing
40590 / 50000
This is probably the shortest chapter so far (although I haven't actually checked). I only came up with the idea for this chapter and the last one a couple of days ago, but I'm quite pleased I decided to go in this direction. Only six more chapters left to go after this!
24. a slave to make-believing
Emily.
674 words
Emily wakes up to a massive hangover. It hits her straight away, as soon as her eyes flutter open and her vision's assaulted by morning sunlight filtering through curtains--curtains she doesn't recognise. She rolls over in the bed that's much bigger than hers, and when she looks at the opposite wall she sees a painting made out of sex words. She doesn't have to have been in this particular bedroom before to know who it must belong to.
Fuck.
Even with a great effort she can't quite manage to sit up; instead she settles for leaning on her elbows while she looks around the room. There's no one in there except herself, no sign of Effy, and now would probably be an excellent time to grab her stuff if only she didn't feel like someone with a sledgehammer and an epic grudge against her was trying to crack open her skull. She flops down again and presses the heels of her hands over her eyes, fervently wishing she was anywhere but here.
The door opens and Effy enters the room, holding two mugs. She smiles at Emily when she sees that she's awake and hands her one of the mugs, sipping from the other one herself and sitting cross-legged on the end of the bed. Emily makes more of an effort to sit up this time, and even manages it without spilling the tea. When the duvet falls away she realises she's not wearing the clothes she had on last night, but instead is wearing a long t-shirt that must be Effy's.
She wishes she had a better recollection of what happened. Too much fucking vodka; she vaguely remembers leaving the club, but everything after that is black.
"How are you feeling?" Effy asks.
"Shit," Emily says. "But embarrassed, mostly. This was such a fucking mistake." She needs to learn how to deal with all her Naomi-shaped problems without getting wasted and sleeping with someone she shouldn't.
Effy gives her a half-smile and says, "You know we didn't have sex, right?"
Emily stares at her. "We didn't?"
"You were practically unconscious when I got you back here. I may be fucked up, but I draw the line at rape." She shrugs and says, "Besides, I'm trying this new thing where I don't sleep with people if there's a good chance that one or both of us would regret it in the morning."
"But we definitely kissed in the club, right?"
Effy nods. "It took me a while to come to my senses, but when you practically fell on top of me I realised it was time to go."
"Oh," Emily says; she's not entirely sure what to say to Effy, because she's too busy being enormously relieved. She's still embarrassed, but she's already feeling better. "So how are you finding it so far, keeping it in your pants?"
"Frustrating," Effy deadpans, and Emily cracks a smile.
"Well, you know," Emily says, "thanks for making sure I didn't make a complete tit out of myself last night."
"Oh, I'm pretty sure you did," Effy says, "but it's no worse than anything I've ever done. Doesn't even touch it, in fact."
Emily refrains from making a joke about hitting someone with a rock, but she's kind of amazed that she even considers doing so. She spent so long hating Effy for it--longer than even Katie did, apparently--that she almost can't believe she's managed to let go. But Effy deserves to be forgiven.
"You like Katie a lot, don't you?" Emily asks, not even caring that it's a bit of a non sequitur, and she sees Effy stiffen slightly at the mention of Katie's name.
All Effy does is shrug in response. "It doesn't matter, because she's with JJ."
"Well, yeah, she is, but--"
"I'm not going to split any more people up," Effy says with finality. "You know, I used to use my powers for good, not evil."
Emily furrows her brow. "So what changed?"
Effy's silent for a moment, then says, "Honestly, I don't know."