Kruppo

Chapter 26
Waking up that next morning is something I won’t ever forget. The first words out of my mouth were relevant in every single connotation of the phrase used:
“Ah…shit, what the fuck?” everything hurt. I wanted to curl up in the fetal position and remain in that position for the rest of the week.
It was fairly quiet in the house. I suspected that, judging from the fact that there was hardly any sunlight coming through the nearest window that it was early still. Beside me the blonde was still asleep. Now that I was completely sober studying her, she was a cute kid. Her hair was curled, tucked around her neck and shoulders. She wasn’t a skinny thing like the other two had been; she actually looked like a stuffed animal of some kind, given the way she was laying. She was curled up very close to me. Something about the scene struck me as humorous, seeing this fairly cute girl lying next to a table crowded with beer cans and a completely empty bottle of rum. Or maybe the term ‘humorous’ wasn’t the one I was searching for. In either case, I felt a sudden surge of curiosity. Had we-? Checking myself, all my clothing was still on. All of hers were still on, except for her shirt.
This revelation hit me hard, and for a moment I was dumbstruck with fear. I knew I’d had no condoms on me, had I done something I was gonna regret? Or had we just played around instead? The fear was enough to galvanize me to my feet, at least so that I could find Mitch, whenever in the house he was.
I eventually found him, after minutes of scouting around, in the master bedroom upstairs, in the bathroom. He was on the floor, wearing a robe, but with nothing underneath it, and it wasn’t tied. The other two girls were on the bed, asleep.
I had to hit him hard across the face to wake him up, but Mitch came around fast enough, pissed that I’d woke him. He finally spoke to me in a half rasp “Dude, now that was a good night.” He smiled at me.
I nodded, not trusting my voice just yet. He stood up and tied the robe shut, glancing at the girls in the bed. “Well,” he said softly. “I guess I’m gonna have to make breakfast for us all.”
“Where’s the other guy?” I asked him as we left the room, proceeding down the carpeted steps. My body ached considerably with every movement I made. I just wanted someone to hit me and knock me out.
“He left last night. He had someone pick him up.” We stopped to glance at the table of Booze. “Wow,” Mitch now had his smile out and full, proud. “We sure did a number last night, huh?”
“I can’t remember anything.” I admitted.
“Well, I wouldn’t either, if I’d had as much as you had, and I was a lightweight,” Mitch chuckled. He noticed the blonde and shook his head. “She had a ton too, man. You two were all over each other last night. Fell asleep on the couch there for a while, and then…well, I have no idea how you two ended up on the ground later, but then again, I was tied up with those other two-”
“Did we-” I cut him off, unsure how to phrase my words correctly. “Did we just play around, or did you see anything more than that?”
“What?” Mitch didn’t get it, and I had to explain what I meant. He laughed shortly and shook his head. “Not really. I don’t think so. But then again,” he shrugged. “Like I said, I was upstairs for a while there. Who knows? You had fun, right?”
“I don’t remember anything!” I repeated.
He just ignored my statement, instead making his way to the kitchen. I helped him with breakfast, making enough for all five of us. The girls from the upstairs woke up first, and both woke their friend up. The blonde smiled at me as we all sat down around in the kitchen. She had her shirt back on, and she sat down quietly next to me. Even when everyone else was being chatty, morning-people, the blonde and I remained quiet. Me, because I was desperately trying to comb my brain for any memory or image I could scrape up from last night, and her, because I suspected that she was shy in nature. Some quiet girl whose friends decided that they were going to get her out of the house and hanging out with boys.
I glanced at her twice, and both times she smiled at me, not saying a word. It was an awkward situation that the other three hadn’t seemed to notice. After finishing my plate, I broke the ice. Otherwise, I would’ve gone mad with the silence. “You know, this is gonna sound weird,” I started off, looking right into her crystal blue eyes, “But I don’t think I caught your name last night.”
To be honest, I hadn’t caught any names that previous night. I was sure of this, at the very least. But nothing else clicked in my brain; no other knowledge came to me then. But at least the girl spoke then. “Brittany.” She smiled again, but this time, I couldn’t help but notice some discomfort in her body language as she turned from me then and sipped the orange juice in her glass.
Mitch looked over at me, smirking. I couldn’t wink or smile back. I bit my lip instead, and mouthed “We’ll talk later.” To him while the other two girls were talking, their attention on each other, not Mitch. Mitch read my words and nodded shortly.
“So are you from around here?” Brittany piped up, and I answered swiftly.
“Uh, yeah. About fifteen minutes away from here. How about you?”
“I’m about thirty minutes away.” She said.
“Cool. So uh…” I was running out of filler questions, so I threw one at random. “what school are you from?”
“NOVA,” was her reply. “Where are you from?”
“GMU,” I kept going, despite my reluctance to talk. I had too much to figure out about the previous night, and this sure wasn’t helping anything but my social skills. “Are you freshman? Sophomore?”
“Freshman,” She nodded at the first one. “Just graduated from Osbourn Park High School last year.”
I couldn’t help but laugh when I heard that name. “OP? Lame. I have many a friend who says that that school sucked.”
“It did.” She laughed too. “But I survived, so I won’t complain.”
“Fair enough.” This went on for a little bit, when one of the brunettes stood up then, and announced that they needed to get going. Mitch and I saw them to their car, and we all said our fond farewells. Brittany looked down at the ground before looking back up at me, smiling brightly. “Nice meeting you.” She said. She quickly reached up and gave a hug before hopping in the SUV her friend drove. They took off, leaving me with many unanswered questions, and a head filled with confusion.

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I'm so post-rock I shit sad birds