theirs • ahs hotel

Chapter Six: Thou Shalt Not Steal

Kinda long but stay tuned for a twist! Hope you like it!

  I coughed when I woke up. I struggled to breathe. I felt like my lungs were filled with liquid and I felt the urge to throw up. My head was pounding and I felt like I was cracked in two. My eyes stung as soon as I opened them up and I shut them quickly. My shades were drawn, letting in any and all light from the outside.
  I had read of hangovers. I had learned of their symptoms and their side affects and ways to cleanse it in the morning, but I supposed I would need to learn first handed just how a hangover felt.
  The ultimate lesson.
  And booze where my teacher.
  Groaning, I managed to sit up fully, covering my face with my hands and tried to take in deep breaths.
  Yep. With this feeling of nausea running through me, I could write one of those reviews for hangovers I had seen on Yahoo. I could really use some tomato juice right now. Some ginger. I had even read bananas dulled the pain if only a little.
  The thought of food though sent my stomach churning and I curled father forward, clenching my jaw.
  What had happened to me last night? I could barley remember past the striking pains gnawing at my mind.
  All I could think of was when I had sat down at the bar and the cool feeling of the counter against my forehead to guide me to sleep. 
  But how had I gotten into my room?
  With a flare of panic, I realized I hadn't paid for this night.
  Someone, Iris, Liz, where going to come for me and ask for the money I didn't have.
  I hissed through my teeth when I shifted and a burst of pain erupted in the back of my head and down my head.
  "Hangovers are a bitch, aren't they?"
  I jumped at the sound of a voice and snapped my head up.
  In the corner of my room, sitting in the chair by the window, sat the woman I had seen in the hallway.
  She raised a cigarette and took a long drag, turning from the window to look at me, narrowing those tear stained eyes at me. She pointed her cigarette towards me, pinned between her fore and middle finger. 
  "All that remedy shit?" She said then waved her hand, shaking her head. "Doesn't work. They only tell you that so you buy more pain meds than you do Xanax."
  I was still highly affected by my hangover, and the fourth or fifth  day off my medication, so I knew I could be hallucinating. No. I knew I was hallucinating. This woman wasn't real. 
  I turned my head back down, rubbing the sides of my forehead. "Your not real. I'm hallucinating."
  The woman laughed, standing up and took another drag, smoke billowing from her mouth. 
  "Is that what you think this place is?" She asked. Something in her hand rattled as she shuffled past my bed and I glanced up. "You think this place and the things you've seen or well, going to see, are just hallucinations?"
  She laughed harshly once again before pulling out a small, orange bottle. My head snapped instantly, rising on my knees on the mattress. 
  The woman shook it. "If I was a hallucination, could I do this?"
  She set the bottle onto my table then unscrewed it, letting some of the pills fall down and onto the floor. 
  "Acetaminophen, or best know as Apap." She said. "A couple of these will clear that headache right up. And hey," She let the cigarette droop on her bottom lip, which was covered in a dark lipstick. "Maybe if you pop a couple more, that'll get rid of your withdraw."
  A quick look at the woman's arm told me enough about what she knew about drugs. 
  I looked up to meet her gaze. "I'm not a junkie." 
  The woman paused, half way reaching up to pull the cigarette away from her mouth. She clenched her jaw and took a step towards me. Her eyes filled with tears and one slipped down her cheek, adding to the smudges of her eyeliner. She pinned me with her stare as she pulled her cigarette away from her mouth.
  "No junkie calls them self a junkie." She told me, tilting her head. She gave a strained laugh. "Junkies...they don't talk about their addiction. So, you wouldn't know if you were one."
  A smile curled up her mouth, crinkling the corners of her eyes. Eyes that were filled with so much pain that they didn't even know when they cried. 
  I had to admit, I was scared. Even if she wasn't really. Even though I knew those pills would disappear the moment I closed my eyes and counted backwards from ten.
  "Get. Out." I said and pointed to the door with my finger, not breaking my gaze from her's. 
  She didn't move for a long moment, both of us having a silent sort of staring contest before she suddenly pulled back, her face changing amused and interested to disgusted and sour. 
  "Fine." She said, finally moving back before turning and tapping the bottle once as she almost seemed to glide towards the door. She closed it behind her with a slam and I let loose a breath I hadn't known I had bee holding.
  That headache seemed to snap back as I did and I gave another groan, clutching my bed sheets and curled forward into a half ball. 
  Even as I sat there, almost writhing in pain, I didn't get up to get that bottle. I wouldn't touch it. I knew what Apap was and knew it helped with pains and aches, but first, I didn't know if it even was Apap and second, a large dose of Apap would wind me up in hospital and I didn't know the dosages if it indeed was Apap. 
  So I was destined to lay there in pain. Not only lay there, but to move around and get up and find someway to feed myself.