The Movies Make It Look Easy

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Shannon's P.O.V:

I sat at the table, forcing cereal down my neck when Nick stumbled from his room the next morning. I resolutely ignored him. I really wasn't in the mood, not that I ever was for fighting, but today especially I couldn't handle a row.  

I was severely hung-over. It really is true that you shouldn't mix drinks, it comes back to haunt you the next day.  

The room had started to spin when I groggily opened my eyes this morning and I had a thumping headache, not to mention the queasiness in my stomach. The price one has to pay for drinking, it never seems worth it the morning after the night before.  

Nick walked straight into the kitchen without looking at me. He almost seemed like he was still asleep.  

I continued to glower at my cereal, forcing myself to eat spoon after spoon of it. I didn't want to but I knew I'd feel better if I did. The anger running through me didn't help one bit. I needed to direct it at someone or something instead of keeping it bottled up inside me, to erupt like it had last night, but I didn't have the energy.

I heard footsteps stop in the kitchen doorway but I didn't look up. I couldn't.  

Although I wasn't looking at him, I was all too aware of him. I could hear his uneven breathing from where I was sitting.  

"Shannon" he rasped. His voice sounded like sandpaper.  

Hearing his voice made me realise that he probably hadn't seen me on his way to the kitchen, he had been still half-asleep like I'd thought. He sounded as bad as I felt, if not worse. Still, I refused to look up.  

An evil part of me was happy that he was in pain, whether emotional or physical, I didn't know or care.  

"Shannon...please..." he paused, "at least look at me?" His voice had cleared but it still had a rough edge to it.  

I still refused to look up from my bowl of cereal which I hated more and more as each second went by.  

"Fine, ignore me, I deserve it" he paused again, as if hoping I would relent and acknowledge him. "Look I'm really sorry about last night...I barely knew what I was saying. I was drunk and way too harsh. It was a mistake, I honestly didn't mean what I said" he pleaded.

My teeth clenched and my spoon clattered against the table as I finally looked up. I immediately wished I hadn't. I looked at him for a moment, shocked. He didn't look like himself.  

He was wearing old tatty clothes - tattier than usual anyway - and his eyes were bloodshot and puffy. He had creases across the side of his face from where he'd slept and his hair was lank, so unlike his usual sexily mussed style.  

He had a look of utter contrition on his face as he surveyed me. I flicked my hair over my shoulder as I stood up. I saw a muscle in his jaw tick as his gaze zeroed in on my neck. I hastily covered it with my hair again, knowing what he saw. When I'd gotten up, I'd checked myself in the mirror to see more than one hickey on my neck, all of them a dark purple colour, and I knew they'd take at least a week to fade.  

Even though he couldn't see my neck anymore, Nick's gaze was still locked onto where my hickeys were, his gaze narrowed. That just made me madder; it wasn't any of his business what I did when I went out. I steeled myself for what I was about to say, I couldn't let him get away with acting like an ass. I wouldn't be a pushover, it wasn't in my nature.  

"Okay fine, so you were drunk, I get it, everyone makes mistakes when they're drunk." I winced as Ben's face flashed in front of my eyes. "But that's not the point"