Thirty-One Letters

Eleven

People in grief need someone to walk with them without judging them—Gail Sheehy

Her head was pounding.  Her mouth was dry.  She felt as if she were about to vomit.

Hadley was, without a shadow of a doubt, hungover.

She groaned as she opened her eyes to the harsh brightness of sunlight streaming through her bedroom window.  She moved to sit up but the motion just made her feel more nauseous so she fell back down to her pillow.  It felt as if there were a hundred tiny construction workers beating away with jackhammers in her brain. 

Idiot, she thought.  I'm an idiot.

After her run-in with Ian, Hadley had spent the majority of the previous afternoon in a kind of drunken stupor.  She'd polished off the remnants of the bottle of vodka she'd been hiding in her sock drawer before sliding under the covers of her bed, curling up into herself, and blocking out the rest of the world. Her parents had checked on her a few times but after claiming she had a migraine, they'd let her sit in the quiet darkness of her bedroom alone. 

Now, as she lay in bed feeling like she was about to hurl, all Hadley could think was that she wished she was stronger.  

Tanner would have been disappointed with her and probably would have been giving her The Lecture.  It wasn't often that she was on the receiving end of one of Tanner's famous lectures but Hadley had gotten them enough times that she knew exactly how he would be standing and what his tone of voice would be.

"Seriously?" Tanner would have said as he stood over her, arms crossed and a scowl on his face.  "This is how you're spending your time?  You smell like a liquor store and you look like complete and utter crap.  I mean seriously, Hadley, you're better than this.  Get your shit together."

And then he would go on and on, talking about how he was disappointed in her and how he knew that she could do and be so much better than she was.  His expression would waver between anger and disappointment but the entire time his arms would always be folded across his chest. 

Eventually, he would force her out of bed and get her to have a shower and eat some food that would make her feel horrible and queasy before making her feel more like herself as the day wore on.  

But since Tanner wasn't there to kick her butt in gear, Hadley had to get up on her own.

The house was quiet as she stepped out of the shower a half-hour later.  It was a merciful thing for her head was still pounding.  She didn't feel quite as sick now and after going through her usual morning routine and brushing out her damp hair, she managed to nibble away at a plain piece of toast.  By the time she finished, the Advil had managed to take effect and her headache was on its way to being eradicated.

Hadley didn't know where her parents had run off to.  It was a Thursday morning so her dad was likely at the shop.  Her mom; however, was a mystery.  Hadley was sure that her mom didn't have any clients lined up for her catering business until the following week so it was unlikely that she was out buying ingredients this early to get things ready.

Still, she couldn't say that she was unhappy with the time alone.  It gave her time to recover from her night of drinking without the watchful eyes of her parents.  She knew that they would be disappointed in her but it couldn't possibly outweigh the disappointment she felt for herself.

She'd yelled at Ian.  It hadn't been something Hadley had felt bad about yesterday but...It stung a little now.  Not because she didn't mean them but because she knew that if the roles had been reversed, he never would have given up Casey the way that Hadley had given up Ian.