Chasing Ellie

21. Hangovers

Darren Hannigan

Sunday morning I wake with a headache, my mouth dry. Usually I'm smarter than this, balancing water and then alcohol as I flirt between the line of being buzzed and drunk. I don't like losing control but I do like that I'm not a ball of sweaty nerves with a little buzz. And that is almost necessary for me to get through a party.

Especially one with Ellie there.

As soon as she comes into my thoughts my lack of care to avoid the pounding headache and extensively parched feeling in my body disappears. The time I spent in the tree house in the late hours of the night was everything. Ellie talked mostly, I listened, every once in a while sprinkling in some lame information that anyone else probably would have laughed at me for. But Ellie seemed to find it interesting, occasionally chiming in on a topic with information that she held on it.

When we finally left the sanctuary of the tree house, frost covering the tips of the grass, sparkling in the warm light that trickled from my house, I felt like a man on top of the world. There was nothing astonishing about the way we parted, though if I had been brave enough maybe I would have asked her for her number, if I was someone entirely different maybe I would have kissed her.

Instead she thanked me and before I had a chance to form the words "you're welcome" she had slipped through my house to the front door where her friends were waiting. She seemed less than excited as she walked away from me.

The doorbell sounds through the house drawing my thoughts from last night and the countless scenarios my brain concocted where I could ride in and fix all of Ellie's problems. But I am no knight and Ellie is no damsel in distress.

Rolling out of bed, I slip into some sweats and shuffle my way through the house. Everything's still a mess from last night. Neither Peter or I wanted to spend the time cleaning up, well I didn't, he was too drunk to be much help.

Snores meet in the hallway outside his room and I pass by quietly not that Peter is a light sleeper. He can sleep like the dead, anywhere, at any time. He got that gift from our dad.

The door bell sounds again just as I reach it. Unlocking it, I pull it open to see James. He looks fresh and well rested, put together like we didn't spend all night and the early hours of the morning awake at a party.

"Hey!" He says cheerily.

I step back and let him in silently.

"Thought you might need help cleaning up." He whistles as he survives the living room. Red cups strewn about, someone's bong on the table that appeared at some point during the night. "Looks like I thought right."

"I'll grab some trash bags."

I'm not going to decline help cleaning my house considering Peter will be zero help. The kitchen is in a worse state, the floor sticky, cups everywhere, the sour stench of puke.

Meeting James back in the living room I pass off a trash bag. The two of us work, James rambling about the party, who did what and with who. Useless things and in the haze of my hangover I struggle to pay attention.

Until he mentions Peter's name.

"It was a little messed up." James says. "What's going on with Peter? Cora was devastated seeing him with Caitlin. That's not like him."

James isn't wrong. The real Peter, or at least, the Peter I'd like to think is the real one isn't a petty, conniving person but hooking up with Caitlin Voss in front of Cora weeks after they're split seems like something an asshole would do.

"I don't know." I answer James honestly because I don't have any idea what's going on with Peter.

"I guess it's good he'll be going back to college. Poor Cora would probably be wrecked if he lived here and she had to see him all the time with Caitlin." He comments.

I haven't told James that Peter dropped out. It came without warning to me too. One day he just showed up with his bags and that was it. We didn't talk about what happened, why he came home.

But I know Peter and I know that Peter doesn't like people to see him fail. So I've kept his secret for him. Playing along with whatever everyone thinks is the truth. In this case, Peter is still in college.

We work silently for a few minutes, James quicker than I am as I mill about distractedly. My thoughts shift from the party, to Peter, to Ellie, on a continuous loop until James says my name.

"I need to tell you something." His voice is low, quiet. And even though my brain is processing things much slower than normal this morning I think I know what the next line is going to be.

"I'm gay." James sounds fearful when he says it.

I keep tossing garbage into the black bag that's clutched in my hand. I already know but also it doesn't change anything.

"Aren't you going to say something?" He presses, he's gone still, no longer helping me clean the mess from the night before as he stares at me.

I shrug my shoulders, stopping my cleaning for a moment as I say "okay".

But my reaction seems to have James baffled. "Just okay?"

I nod. "I mean isn't it a little silly that you have to announce your sexuality to people? I don't walk around telling people I'm straight, you shouldn't have to either."

The whole thing just seems so bizarre to me. That we're still dealing with this. That people are still trying to stop love.

"You don't care?" He asks.

I don't get why people think they're entitled to an opinion about who someone loves. Whether that be same sex or not. I personally don't think my opinion on who James likes really means all that much as long as he's happy.

"I don't think it matters if I care." I follow it up with "but no I don't, do you care that I'm straight?"

James laughs, tension draining from him like someone unclogged a blocked faucet and all the backed up water comes rushing through at once.

"No I don't care that you're straight." He says and just like that we're back to normal. "But hey did you ever talk to Ellie?"

The mention of her name makes my mouth twitch with a smile and norepinephrine to spike through my body. Instantly I feel clammy. My throat tightens and I know if I were to speak my words would come out all jumbled.

But James sees the shift in my demeanor, dropping his trash bag by his feet as he bounds across the room.

"Darren! My man!" I let out an embarrassing giggle. "And look you lived to tell the tale."

"Shut up."

I'm bright red and instantly sweating.

                        ——————————

He's just so sweet.