Prescient

Chapter 11

I barely made it out of the pub before I threw up in the bushes.

I don't usually throw up until morning.

It was the beer.

Camden hadn't given me much of anything useful, but he had given me a lot to think about. Mostly to ponder whether he had anything to do with it or not.

Usually, my gut told me these things and if that failed, then my dreams would.

My gut was undecided, so I'd have to wait to hear from my dreams.

Normally I'd go to the bus stop and get home that way, however, I had scraped up my last coins for the dreadful beer so it was treading the footpath for me.

All the way home the conversation I had with Camden played over in my head. Was he telling the truth about not knowing anything or was he involved in Kaylah's disappearance? Maybe his older cousin had talked him into doing something stupid. It could be that his sadness at Kaylah's disappearance was because he regretted doing something to her – or letting something happen to her at the hands of his cousin.

His words ran through my mind with a painful sting.

"Kaylah's gone. She's not coming back alive. Things just don't work that way."

He seemed so sure of it.

Before I knew it, my auto-pilot system had guided my feet back home and I began fishing for my keys in my pocket. All I could taste was the foul beer flavoured vomit still lingering on my tongue. All I could think of was how badly I wanted to wash that taste away with vodka or scotch.

And I would.

I made a beeline for the panty the minute I walked in the door. There was almost more booze than food in there.

I extracted a half-finished bottle of vodka and grabbed a box of water crackers too. Plain and boring, just how I like most everything in my life to be.

So I ate my crackers and drank my vodka and that evening, just as almost every other night, I passed out drunk in my lounge-room.

For once, I don't think I dreamed of anything.

If I did, I didn't remember. Either way, I was thankful for not having to endure another night of broken sleep plagued by the missing teenage girl I had no business knowing.

When morning greeted me with its harsh and painfully cheery sunlight, I rolled off my couch, purposely hitting the floor with a thud. It kind of woke me up a bit. The jolt I needed to get myself up and moving towards the shower. It took a moment, but I got there.

As per my usual Saturday tradition, I spent the rest of the day watching crap TV shows and drinking myself stupid.

By the time I felt the need to get myself a frozen dinner out of the freezer, to 'prepare' myself a meal, I was nicely wasted; barely able to move the few meters from the lounge-room to the kitchen. Yet I made it there.

Eventually.

I fell once after tripping over my cat and that hurt.

When my gourmet lasagne was just hot enough that it was at least no longer frozen in the middle, I located a fork amongst the chaos on my sink, rinsed it off, and made my way out of the kitchen.

But just as I was heading to the lounge-room, I heard a phone ring.

It wasn't my ringtone. Mine was that boring generic one all phones came set to (you know; da-na-na-na, da-na-na-na, da-na-na-na-naaa). The ring tone I listened to now was some new pop song I'd never heard in my life, yet I found I knew all the words. Somehow I was singing along.