Rodrick Rules! - A Fanfiction

Chapter Seventeen: The Morning After

Sunday.

I wake up with one of the worst hangovers I have ever had. Anya spent the night so she's also here, still sleeping on the floor of my bedroom. She's cocooned in one of my extra comforters.

I groan and she stirs awake. She greets me with a feeble "hi."

"Good morning. You could've slept on the bed, you know" I say, my face still lying on the pillow. I feel groggy as hell.
"Yeah I could've, but you kept telling me you were gonna throw up last night and I didn't wanna take any chances." She explains.

Gross.

"But thanks for letting me stay. Are you sure your dad's okay with it?" She asks.
"Yeah, he's gone on a short business trip or something so it's all good."

I look at my bedside clock. 3:00 PM.

"Oh jeez we slept in late" I say.
"Well, we were out until like 2 in the morning" Anya tells me.
"I can tell" I get a sudden pang in my head. "Oh I feel like shit."
"Yeah, no kidding. You were *this* close to alcohol poisoning" she pinches her fingers shut.
"Your fingers are touching"
"Yeah you probably have alcohol poisoning."

I get up to get water and Anya joins me in the kitchen. That's when she explains all the dumb stuff I did at the party. I don't remember most of the night.

"Oh man" is all I can say after she finishes recounting the night. She just nods in understanding. I sigh and hold my head in my hands, rubbing my temples. I wonder if I should call Rodrick and apologize. Part of me thinks I was being a shitty friend but another part knows I only did it because I was upset.

"It probably wasn't a great idea to act out at him" Anya says "but, I'm still being supportive because I probably would've done the same thing."

"I was just drunk. I didn't actually care that much about the whole girl thing" I lie.

"I feel like that's not true" she sees through my act.
"That's because it's.. not.." I admit. "I did care. And I don't like that I still care."

"And that's okay! He did kind of lead you on.. I really thought he had feelings for you, with how much you told me. Plus he was aaalways asking me where you were if he couldn't find you at school." She tells me.

That's certainly news to me.
"Wait, he did? Why?"
"I'm not actually sure. Last week he said it was because he wanted to tell you something important, I just assumed he ended up telling you."

I think back. I don't think he told me anything important at school recently. Nothing I can remember... Ugh! Who freaking cares! I can't afford to overthink anything anymore, we all know where that's gotten me.

I just wish the whole thing between us turned out differently. We've already gotten to be such close friends, that should've been enough for me. I hope he even still wants to be friends after last night.

"Hm. I should call him" I say
"I don't know about that. Does he really deserve to hear from you?" Anya asks.
"After last night? Uh, yeah, I'd say yes he does" I make my point.
"Okay I get that. Just don't go past apologizing for being drunk, he still needs a little punishment for rejecting you" she tells me, but I really don't know if that's the right thing to do. I bring up something.

"Well, that's the thing. He didn't even reject me. Because.. I never explicitly confessed..."
"Wait, what?!" She's shocked "I was under the impression he knew how you felt and THEN asked for girl advice! That's what I thought happened. I guess you wimped out again..."
"Woah hey now, I may have wimped out but I'm still kind of in the right."
"Well, just because he has a thing for some other girls doesn't mean you're not included" Anya points out.
"Ehh, I think you're riding on this one too much still"
"I'm just saying."

Could she be right? It's entirely possible. But I just don't think that's the case. If Rodrick had a crush on a group of girls, me included, you'd think he would've done something about it by now. He tried shooting his shot with every other girl, but why not me?

Yeah, why not me?

"If he really was into all of us, don't you think he would've tried flirting with me before all those other girls?" I ask. For a while, Anya and I just stare at each other. And now I'm wondering if I said something wrong.

Because Anya straight up looks like she's about to have an aneurysm.

"HELLO! Band practice? Driving you to school? Breaking you out of detention?? Giving you his jacket??? Keeping you warm when you got cold???? Are you dumb?
I'm sorry, I didn't mean that last part...
But are you dumb???" She finishes her rant.

Ooookay.

"Well- I... I just- I thought he was being friendly!"

"Val, come ON! We've been over this a billion times"

"The way you put it all makes this whole thing sound like... like a fanfiction or something" I say. That's a thing, right? I read one about some characters from a book, once. Weird stuff.

"What's a fanfiction?"
"Never mind."

We're silent.

"I'm gonna call him"

"Yes, yes you are."

•••

I know Anya thinks I finally got it, but I'll be honest with you, I still feel like Rodrick never had any romantic feelings for me.

Like, at first I thought the physical touching and everything was flirting, but he kept doing that kind of stuff with me even after asking for the girl advice. So I guess he's seen me only as a friend this whole time.

But if I said any of that Anya would physically implode. Either way, I still owe him that phone call. If anything, what Anya explained just made me realize how great of a friend Rodrick is. And he didn't deserve my ass behavior in his OWN home at his OWN party that he invited me to. So yes, he deserves an apology.