His Secret Desire

5

“Wake up, sleepy head!” Jessany yelled, her voice seeping into my dreams like an intruder.

I jolted upward, a sudden weight of pain hitting my head like a brick. The world slowed down around me as I shut my eyes to sort of wear off the pain.

This was all too familiar. These sort of annoying headaches.

The hangovers were coming back.

How much I hated having those.

“Renee!” Jessany yelled from the stairs now. I could hear her getting closer, much to my demise. Tears leaked from my eyes, as if my brain was going to explode any second.

Make it stop.

“Wake—oh, you're awake!” She announced, loudly.

I frowned my face at her, and with that she quickly apologised.

“Sorry,” she whispered, coming to sit beside me.

She placed a hand atop my head and rubbed it in a circular motion while gently placing my face against her chest. Normally, I hated being treated like a child, but sometimes I knew it was absolutely necessary or else I was going to explode, especially today.

I couldn't appreciate Jess enough.

We sat in silence for a while, me listening to her faint heartbeat and she caressing my head like a baby.

Then suddenly she breathed in sharply,

“You were drunk when you came back”

I barely nodded. I remembered a bit of what happened yesterday—that I broke my promise and got drunk, and met a strikingly handsome French man and kissed him—even after I had tried to forget it.

Jessany sighed deeply, as if she was trying to repress her disappointment, but knowing me, she knew something must have gone terribly wrong.

She tilted my head up to look at her drowsy caramel eyes, “What else happened?”

I didn't answer.

“Did you quit?”

I understood why she asked that question; it was 10 am on a Tuesday morning and I was still in bed, with no desire to get up.

I shook my head.

I wished I did.

I wanted to, but that was a plan for later in the future, not the day that my boyfriend dumped me.

Jessany was taken aback. She instantly got the memo. “Oh, I'm so sorry babe.” She hugged me tightly.

“I think I drank too much.” I moaned as she held on to me.

“You should've called me… or at least texted. I would've come with you.” Jessany sounded agitated.

Yes, she would've, “but I didn't want to bother you…”

“It would've bothered me if you didn’t make it home alive. Do you even remember what happened last time…?”

I nodded, like a child being scolded. I remembered what happened the last time I got drunk. I crashed into a family van with a mother and her kids present. The mother went into the ICU while the kids went into the ER.

The guilt I felt from that day haunted me ever since.

If the ambulance had been 5 minutes late, I could've been charged with triple homicide. I vowed to never drink again no matter the situation and even if I did I had to have Jessany with me. But Jess was too paranoid. She said it was better not to drink at all, and so I listened to her, up until last night.

“I'm sorry.” was all I could say.

She shook her head, “I'm just happy you're safe. Besides…” she sat upright, her right hand placed on my leg, “Who was that man?”

I furrowed my brows, “What man?”, and then almost immediately the fancy French man from last night came to my mind.

That man?

How did I get in his car?

“Did you hook up with him?”

“I…” I kissed him, I suddenly remembered. Drunk Renee wasn't holding anything back “...hope not”

“Well you should thank him; He saved your life.”

I rubbed my eyes, “I guess”

“Plus he's super hot.” Jess added.

“Was he though?” Not like that mattered anyway. I was never going to see him again, and even if I did, he probably wouldn't recognise me, which was a good thing.

“Mm hm. Not to mention the fact that he dropped you off looking an absolute mess.”

“Why does that matter?” I looked up at her, “it's not like I have anything to do today,” I said leaning backward, pulling the blanket over my body.

“Come on, you're going to have to get up sometime.”

“I'm good.” I sighed. I wasn't good. I wanted to disappear forever but I didn’t have the energy to tell her that. Besides, much of the message had already been conveyed through my drinking last night.

“This is why I asked you to stay home yesterday.”

‘Yeah, like work was something I could skip like school’ I responded in my head.

I didn't expect her to understand anyway; her parents were both born into wealthy families and so she was born with twice as many silver spoons. She never had to work a day in her life, and even when she did, her jobs were mostly contract based, or short gigs like babysitting or dog walking.

The one time she tried to get an actual job, she walked out to go shopping in the middle of the work day and just never went back.

Her sister, the doctor, was very different though, but that was because she didn't like getting handouts. No one ever understood that.

I waved my hand in dismissal to her as I tucked myself back to bed.

She said something but I didn't hear her because I'd already drifted back to sleep.

***

When I woke up, barely twenty minutes had passed, but thankfully my head felt much lighter and I could actually move without feeling like an anvil was tied to my brain.

I shuffled to the side of the bed and slowly picked up my phone. There was a notification: 5 missed calls.

I didn't bother to check who it was, but I knew it was definitely not Max because I had blocked… Why was I still thinking about Max?

I tossed my phone to the side and rose to my feet.

While stabilising my feet on the ground, I realised that the only thing making me incredibly dizzy was the fact that I was famished. I've had nothing to eat since yesterday morning.

Carefully, I started to make my way downstairs, but only getting there, my steps slowed down, as I started to notice the decorations hanging around the living room and the kitchen from where I was standing. Balloons, ribbons, even teddy bears.

Then a large ‘happy birthday’ banner was hanging above the arch of the doorway.

Whose birthday was it?

Out of nowhere, Jessany, her boyfriend and some other girl sprung up and shouted, “Happy birthday!” in unison.