The Gay Delusion

14: The Gambling Delusion

Ciao gorgeous gang! Slightly shorter chapter than usual up ahead, but I hope you enjoy it :)

14: The Gambling Delusion

On our final evening in Milan, Emilie, Griffin and I decided that we would head out to a club and get a taste of the nightlife in the city. When the idea was suggested as we had some drinks in the hotel bar, Ronan quickly told us that he would give it a miss, telling us to go on without him. He admitted that he wasn't really a fan of the club scene, and that he preferred the cosy, homely warmth of a pub to the often blinding strobe-lighting and the incessantly banging music.

Considering we didn't have to catch our flight until three o'clock the following afternoon, I knew we were planning on getting pretty wasted tonight.

'Did you know,' I had to yell over the bouncy electrodance music to Emilie, drawing her attention away from the writhing and dancing couples just a few feet away from us, 'that I never used to drink?'

I was sat at a table with her now, while Griffin was at the bar, getting our third round of drinks after Emilie and I had shooed him away like a pair of giggly bitches ordering their little lapdog around. The three of us were parched after hitting the dancefloor, spinning each other round giddily and our arms in the air as we attempted (and failed) to dance gracefully, still having a great time because of the alcohol pumping through our veins.

'I only started in my third year of uni - nearly failed my degree because of it, too!' I told her.

The alcohol had completely loosened my tongue, and I was still sipping away at my Manhattan, admittedly feeling closer to sick than comfortably drunk right now, but continuing to drink persistently nonetheless. I only ever got completely plastered a few times a year, like at my birthday or at my leaving do, whereas many people I knew (well, they were more people who came up on my Facebook feed, whenever I bothered to glance at that irrelevant thing) seemingly got hammered on a tri-weekly basis.

It wasn't only because I loathed hangovers, which hit me like a bitch; it was also that I didn't like the way it removed a lot of my control over the words which came out of my mouth. All the thoughts and feelings that I had in secret often had a bad way of coming tumbling right out without me wanting them to, like they seemingly were at this moment.

Goodness knew why I was talking about this now to Emilie, when I hadn't mentioned it to anyone. Maybe drunk Laina was just feeling tired of having all of these pent up words and stories locked up inside of her, and she was exhausted seeing everyone happy and in relationships or deeply in like even out here in Milan, and wishing that she had the capability of being that happy, too. Or maybe it was just completely the alcohol. Hopefully that was what it was.

Emilie's eyes widened over the rim of her drink, evident surprise causing her eyebrows to shoot up. 'You nearly failed your degree? Whaaaaaat? What happened? Most importantly, you never used to drink!? INSANE. That's insanity,' she yelled over the music too, clumsily putting an arm around my waist, her drink very nearly sloshing over the edges and almost spilling onto our bare legs.

I nodded my head enthusiastically, envisioning the sentences all beginning to form in my head and about to trickle down into my throat so I could finally say them out loud. 'Yup yup, it was only because of my really nice professor that I got special circumstances and a two week extension for my final project,' I said, tapping the toes of my heels together slightly absentmindedly.

'Special circumstances? Whaaaat?' Emilie repeated, the habit of dragging out her vowels a telltale sign that she was as wasted as I was.

I nodded again, distractedly bouncing my head and swaying to the beat of the music for a second before commencing my explanation of the (not-so) epic tale. 'Yeah, yeah, yeah, basically I had this boyfriend in my final year of univ-'