Dead Apples

15- Hungover Mornings

I wake up with my head on top of Amber's belly and Sage lying on my legs, both girls still asleep. My throat is bone dry and I've got a pounding headache so I wiggle my legs free and wait for them to get feeling again before I stand up and head into the house.

It's an irritatingly long walk out of the orchard and back to the house and because nobody else knows how to get out of the orchard, I'll probably have to go back in to show everybody else the way out. Right now though, I'm focused on relieving my dry mouth and headache.

In my kitchen, I get a bottle of water from the fridge and take a few Aspirin that we keep in our bathroom's medicine cabinet. I'm trying not to think about last night because the glimpses that I'm getting are pretty ugly and my only hope for survival is that nobody else remembers. That, or they remember it like swiss cheese like I do and they can't piece together what kind of idiot I was.

I put on my pair of sweats with the blood stain on the thigh and then I let Zero out the back door so that he can just roam around the apple orchard. My dad doesn't like him back there, peeing on all of the dead plants and bringing dead snakes into the house but I don't feel like giving him a real walk right now. It's worth the risk.

As I'm moving into the living room to see if my dad is passed out on the couch (he's not), I hear music coming from the front yard. There aren't many houses near us so it's odd that there's noise out there, which makes me curious. Peeking out the front window, I see Dex out front. He's sitting on the hood of the car that they'd all driven here and he's playing a guitar.

I didn't know that he plays guitar.

My curiosity wants to drag me out there to ask him about his guitar skills but the little pieces of last night that I remember make me too mortified to face him. Not just him but everybody that was there last night, except for maybe Sage because I've seen her at her worst so it's only fair that she witnesses me at my worst too.

I hit on Javier and I don't even know the guy. All I know is that he likes video games because I saw him playing video games in Tyson's basement that one time. I also confronted Dex about why he is cheating on Amber. That is a valid question, I think, but it's very confrontational and I'm not a confrontational person. Especially not towards Dex, who scares the hell out of me.

I talked about sex so much in front of so many people. Why didn't anybody shut me up? I know that they were drunk too but somebody should have shut me up.

I'm about to return to the orchard with some water and Aspirin for everybody when they wake up but when I hear Zero barking, I know that he's come around to the front of the house and saw Dex out there. He still really hates Dex because of the encounter at the park.

My mortification from last night is put on the back burner because I have to save Dex from my dog so I swing open the front door as Zero is coming around the corner of the house.

"Zee, stop!" I call to the dog. Immediately, he stops running and stops barking to sit down in the grass and look at me. Dex, who had been staring at the dog, turns to look at me and then back to the dog. "Get inside."

Zero gets up and trots to the porch and then into the house as he's trained to do and then I shut the door to keep him inside. I hope that Dex doesn't question how I got to the door so quickly.

"That was fast," He mentions, which kills that hope fairly quickly. I wish that I could just run back inside and never talk to him again but I'm already out here and I can't get away from this in a socially acceptable way.

"I..." I trail off without an excuse other than the fact that I was watching him out the window like a stalker. I then remember the bottle of water in my hand and I hold it up to him. "I brought you some water. I'm sorry about the dog."