Only half-aware of his presence, I nodded before I passed out.
*****
I squinted as the sun shined through the curtains covering my dorm window, and then groaned as I moved my head. The effects of the party and my overindulging had left me with a splitting headache and a mouth that was as dry as desert sand. I groaned again as I rolled over and found that the other side of the bed was empty. My memories of the night before were fuzzy, but I did remember that Brian and I had had some hot sex on the couch before everything had gone south. What happened last night? Where is he? I wondered.
As I lifted myself off of the pillow and tried to sit up, the sharp pain in my head took my breath away, and I lay back down as I tried to breathe the pain out of my head. Bits and pieces of the party came trickling back into my memory, but I couldn’t quite grasp the whole picture. Did I make a fool of myself? I knew I’d gotten really drunk, thus the splitting headache and queasy stomach that were now at war with one another, but what else had happened? And where was Brian?
I took a deep breath, pushed myself up into a sitting position, and immediately rested my elbows on my knees as I held my throbbing head. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe, I chanted to myself as I tried to get the pain under control. After a few minutes, I felt steady enough to look up and scan the room. Brian was sound asleep on the couch with his arm tucked under his head as a pillow and his hand on his gun. Even in his sleep he looked serious and ready to wake up and fight, and as I watched him, he shifted and made soft noises that sounded almost like barking. He didn’t seem to be someone who rested easily.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and felt the soles of my feet soak up the coolness of the tile floor. It helped soothe the ache and the rolling waves of nausea, so I tested my legs and stood up. Major mistake, I thought as my legs gave out and I tumbled to the ground. I cried out as my head hit the floor, and in an instant, Brian was by my side hauling me back up into the bed.
“What the hell were you doing?” he demanded in an angry but still sleepy voice.
“I needed to go to the bathroom,” I replied, irritated that he was mad at me for wanting to get up and move around.
“Well, you should have woken me up so I could get you there safely,” he lectured.
“I have never once in my life woken anyone up in order to ensure my safe travel to or from a bathroom,” I shot back. “I didn’t know that this was a new rule on the list of the millions you have already devised for me.”
“I didn’t devise any rules for you, sunshine,” his voice rose as he continued. “I’m not here for my health, you know. I’m here to ensure that your psycho ex-boyfriend doesn’t do anything that will harm even one precious hair on your little head.”
“Well, I’m not a child!” I yelled. “I can take care of myself! I don’t need you watching my every move or monitoring my bathroom visits!”
“I would argue differently, sunshine,” he said drily. “Especially after last night’s activities.”
“So I drank a little too much and got sick,” I said with a petulant frown. “Lots of college students do that and they don’t get reprimanded by their bodyguards the next morning! It’s part of college life!”
“You really don’t remember what happened, do you?” he shook his head in disbelief. “You don’t remember how it all went down.”
“What went down?” I shouted. “I remember that I was having fun with my friends drinking punch and dancing, and you were standing in the corner like a stick in the mud watching everything and creeping everyone out! That’s what I remember!”
“So, you don’t remember Cheese and his groping hands?” he asked.
“No. What?” I demanded. “What in the hell are you talking about? All I remember is how damn boring you were while every other person at the party was relaxing, having a drink, and enjoying themselves. You acted like someone’s grandfather. No, I take that back. You acted like someone’s boring old judgmental brother!”
“Bravo!” he laughed as he clapped his hands together slowly. “Bravo! What a wonderful performance by Ms. Klein. You really are brilliant, you know?”
“What in the hell are you even talking about?” I was utterly confused now.
“I’m talking about the fact that you’ve conveniently forgotten that you got so drunk that you wound up in the lap of the most lecherous frat boy on campus. The guy that is so bad, even his frat brothers don’t like him and are meeting today to decide whether to sanction him or expel him from the fraternity for good,” he explained. “I’m talking about the fact that you didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting away from him because you were too drunk to even stand on your own two feet. I’m talking about the fact that you spent an hour vomiting in the bathroom after I brought you back here last night, and I’m talking about the fact that you are so self-absorbed that you don’t even stop to think about the fact that I wasn’t at the party to hav
e fun, I was there to protect your precious little ass!”
By this point, Brian was pacing the room as he barked at me. Anxious and angry, he looked down at the floor as he paced; one hand on his head and the other on his gun.
“Don’t you think I would have loved to have a drink last night? To kick back and have fun with you after what we did before the party? Did you ever think of that?” he continued, then he stopped pacing and looked at me as he quietly asked, “Did you ever think of that, Ava?”
“No, I didn’t think of any of that,” I admitted as I felt the flush of shame rising in my cheeks. “I just thought you were uptight and boring and you didn’t want me to have any fun. I mean, you didn’t even have one beer!”
“I can’t have one beer!” he roared.
“Of course you can!” I yelled back in exasperation. “Good lord, it’s just one beer, not a whole brewery!”
“I can’t have even one beer because I’m an alcoholic!” he blurted. “There, are you happy now?”
We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity as I considered what to say. I owed him an apology, for sure, but he owed me one for keeping such a huge secret. I was certain of that, but I didn’t know how to say it so that he wouldn’t start yelling again.
“I’m sorry, Brian,” I offered. “I had no idea.”