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My stomach contracts. Without warning, without any ability to stop it, I vomit all over Ilsa’s rug
“Are you fucking kidding me?” she says.
I fall forward into the puke, slamming my head on the floor.
* * *
When I wake up,I’m in Ilsa’s bed. Sunshine pours in through the window, cruel and garish. Someone honks their horn on the street below and it stabs into my ear like a deliberate assault.
I sit up, then immediately regret it. My head feels swollen and wobbly on my shoulders, aching with every beat of my heart. I trace the worst throbbing to the lump on my forehead. Just grazing it with my fingertips sends another bolt of pain through my head, worse than the car horn.
It takes me a minute to actually get out of the bed. Black mist sweeps over my vision and I have to cling to the footboard of the bed, hunched over, until it passes.
When I stumble out to the living room I must look like walking shit ‘cause Ilsa’s head snaps up and she barks, “If you puke on my floor again I will fucking kill you.”
I’d tell her,I’m not gonna puke,but I really don’t trust myself to open my mouth. Instead, I hobble over to the kitchen table and sit down across from Ilsa, pulling the hem of her oversized t-shirt down over my knees. She dressed me in her Pussy Riot shirt, so I know she can’t be completely pissed at me.
“Could you please yell at meafterI have some aspirin,” I croak.
Ilsa takes a slow bite of her toast, frowning at me while she chews.
She pushes away from the table and disappears into the kitchen, rummaging in the cupboards deliberately loud. She takes an ice tray out of the freezer and bangs it against the counter like she’s setting off depth charges.
“I’m sorrrrrryyyyy …”I moan, hands over my eyes.
Ilsa gives the ice one last decisive bang, then quiets down, bringing me a glass of tomato juice and a bottle of seltzer, with four aspirin on a plate.
“Thank you,” I say, humbly, scooping up the pills and swallowing them down with a fizzy rush of seltzer.
I take about five seconds to breathe, imagining the seltzer diffusing into my dehydrated veins. Then I push the tomato juice an inch toward Ilsa, saying hopefully, “Little hair of the dog?”
“You are so …”
“Irresistible?”
“Intolerable.”
“I’ve heard that.”
Ilsa splashes a shot of vodka into my tomato juice, probably because she knows I’ll die otherwise.
She watches while I gulp it down, yanking the bottle away when I reach for more.
“You’re worse than I thought.”
“I’m fine. I’m gonna be completely fine.”
“You’re a fuckin’ mess.”
I cast a quick glance across the table at the vodka bottle, wondering if I have any chance in a fight against Ilsa at this moment. Maybe if I really surprise her and get her in a headlock and choke her out …
“You’re on the rebound. I’m not gonna be your backboard,” Ilsa says.
My eyes snap from the bottle to her face, heat flushing across my collarbones.
“I’mnevergoing back to Adrik,” I tell her. “I’ll cut his heart out of his chest before I give him mine again.”
Ilsa gives an irritated snort.
