Bigger Boys & Stolen Sweethearts - Alex Turner

21. She's Thunderstorms

My morning began forty minutes after I woke up. Still grovelling in my bed, groaning about my killer hangover and rolling myself up in my bedsheets and burying my head under my pillows. What triggered me to get my arse out of bed was a loud shout that made me cower into my mattress until I processed what was being said.

"Aleeeexxxx!" Nick shouted from downstairs. "Jamie's tossed up on the fucking bed!"

I groaned into my pillow and crawled out of my bed like some cave creature. My head feeling swelled and oversized on my shoulders, aching as my chest seemed to concave on me. Just don't fuckin throw up.

I trudged downstairs, holding the rail whilst rubbing my eye so I knew where the fuck I was and slowly made my way to the guest room I'd tossed the two fuckers in.

"Alex!" Nick shouted as I pushed open the door.

"Yeah I fuckin' heard you Jesus Christ," I groaned, pressing a hand to my head at the volume of Nick's voice.

"I'm sorry mate," Jamie said as I sauntered over to where he'd slept. I let out a loud groan as I saw the vomit all over the fucking pillow and sheets.

"Fucking hell Jamie," I mumbled. "You're fucking cleaning this shit up," I said and picked up the pillow. Dropping it almost instantly after and retreating back. "That smells so fucking bad," I lurched, feeling my chest threaten to clog. The last thing I needed was two sets of vomit to clean up.

Both Nick and Jamie helped me strip the bed of its sheets and toss all the soiled shit in the washing machine, avoiding any contact with the vomit areas at all costs. Once that fiasco died down, we all just sat around on me lounge room settees, peeting the shit out of bottles of water in hopes to rehydrate ourselves. None of us had an appetite. I felt like shit.

"Ay, any of you know where Arabella went?" I asked upon realising she hadn't come back with us like we'd planned.

"She went home ages before us," Nick said. Jamie was lying on the settee hugging a pillow and shifting in and out of sleep as Nick and I took to my parent's arm chairs.

"Did she?" I asked, "fuck me I can't even remember. Did she have a ride home?"

Nick shrugged, "she left pretty abruptly."

"Yeah you pissed her well off," Jamie mumbled.

"What'd'ya mean?" I asked, properly confused.

"You were the horniest I've ever fuckin seen ya and she weren't having it one bit," Nick said.

"Wait what?" I sat up straight, panic flushing in and sending my hangover out temporarily.

"You were full trying to get with her on the settee in the middle of the house and she told ya to fuck off and left," Nick elaborated. Here is when I found out about everything I did that night. From dancing on tables, to the whole thing with Sherri, to vomiting on her grass, and to all the shitty things I did to Arabella.

I were on the verge of crying by the end of it.

"Al are you all reyt?" Jamie asked, lifting his head off the settee to look at me.

I had a golf ball of a lump in my throat and my eyes stung like acid. I was looking up to keep the tears from falling but I could feel them welling like the ocean. I hated myself. I still do. It didn't feel real. It took me a minute to recognise that the story Nick was telling me was about what I had done. And not some random plonker. It was me. Acting like the exact type of guy that made me nauseous.

"Al?" Jamie said again.

I inhaled a deep breath and swore under my breath. "Fuck," is all I had to say. My hand moved to my face at the speed of light as I felt the first tear, of what I knew would be many, slid down the side of my nose, wiping it away as fast as I could before Nick or Jamie saw.