Monday, 4:30 a.m.
Tabitha stirred and peeled her cheek off of a warm, smooth surface as she writhed into consciousness. Her head felt like a crumpled hunk of metal that had been hammered back into shape on an anvil. Her tongue was dry, and the right corner of her mouth was sticky with drool. She could feel her heartbeat throbbing painfully in the back of her skull.
"Oh, God," she croaked. Even those words ricocheted through her brain like rubber bullets. Something was rioting noisily next to her knee, shrill and tinny, and when Tabitha looked for the source of the noise, she saw a bright screen shining from in between two cream-colored couch cushions. When she dug her phone out, she frowned. For whatever reason, she had set an alarm for four o'clock that morning and, even more stunningly, had somehow managed to hit snooze several times without regaining consciousness.
The warm thing she had been stuck to for most of the night let out a snort, and Tabitha glanced down. Lily was snoring quietly with her head propped up on the sofa's armrest. Her pajama pants had been hiked up to her thigh and, near her knee, there was a red mark the exact size and shape of Tabitha's left cheek. The television was playing an old rerun of Family Guy on mute. The window outside was pitch-black. Why was she awake? And why did every part of her body feel like it had been shattered and glued back together?
Suddenly, the events of the night prior came rushing back to her with the force of a wrecking ball. James, in her apartment. James, walking her down the street. James, sucking a wad of noodles into his mouth. James, kissing her violently against her apartment door.
And then, of course, there was Lily, waiting with that enormous bottle of whiskey. She saw it perched on the living room table like a trophy, completely empty. With a low moan of agony, she buried her face in her hands. It was only through some miracle that she wasn't still drunk. She hoped Lily had been responsible for consuming most of it.
Her eyes, which were dry and almost certainly bloodshot to all hell, fixed themselves on her door. It was still dark. James could still be out on the prowl...and now, she wasn't quite sure how she was supposed to feel about that. Her sense of trepidation was being beaten down savagely by memories of his lips on hers and his hands gripping her waist...
Suddenly, she slammed her forehead into her palm.
Shit.
She promised Luke she would open for Ross today, if he never called back. And, judging by the lack of text message alerts on her phone's screen, he never did. The heel of her palm made contact with her head again, and again, and again.
"Mmmmmmmwut?" Lily sighed from the couch. She had wriggled around to squint at Tabitha, her lips pulled downward into a delirious frown.
"I have to go to work."
"...Fuck
that,"
Lily said in a half-coherent drone, right before turning back over and resuming her snoring. Tabitha gazed sadly down at her. All of the begging in the world wouldn't rouse Lily at this hour. She was going to have to walk.
She drowned her mug of coffee in milk and chugged it down, then took a hasty shower and tugged on her clothes. Minimal makeup. Brush. Ponytail. Boots. She almost wished she had more whiskey to pour into another cup of coffee---just to get her in gear, if that even worked. She wasn't sure it did, but today, she was certainly willing to try. She rubbed her eyelids, and crusty sleep stung around the area like shards of glass.
"There's towels in my closet for when you shower. Don't be late for work or anything," she told the lump on the couch. Then, with a long-suffering sigh, "I have to go."
"Godspeed," Lily slurred, raising a pale fist high in the air and dropping it limply back down again.
I'm never drinking again,
Tabitha told herself as she tottered down the hallway. The whole building was dead silent, packed full of tenants who were still bundled up in warm jammies and wrapped in nests of blankets, or, at the very least, still nursing their morning coffee. When she limped down the staircase, the door windows were still blacker than tar, and when she made her way outside, she was swallowed up by the stillness of it all. No sunlight, no bird songs, no familiar lines of traffic. It felt like she was the only thing in the universe that still existed, along with the handful of stars that glittered overhead. And it was
freezing.
As she folded her arms tightly across her chest, she heard a muffled cough from somewhere down the street. There was a hooded figure trudging down the sidewalk and towards the apartment building. Its shoulders were hunched and its spine was curved wearily, like it was only just barely capable of walking. And when it passed beneath a streetlight, Tabitha spotted the dull shine of a leather jacket.
Without thinking, she dove behind the metal block of mailboxes. James's droop seemed even more pronounced when she peered out at him again and, after a few more steps, he careened towards the building wall and stumbled onto his knees on the sidewalk. Another flurry of choking noises split the silence. James's silhouette lurched towards the row of skeletal hedges and promptly doubled over. Then, he began to retch.
Sympathetic nausea bloomed at the base of Tabitha's alcohol-filled stomach, and she quickly pressed her mittened palms against her mouth and took in several deep, pacifying breaths. Her eyes screwed shut as a wet noise erupted from somewhere near those hedges, followed by a forsaken moan. After several seconds, he coughed again, heaved again, and then spewed another wave of sick into the bushes. Silence.
Tabitha eased her eyes open again and stared out at the outline of James's body. He was still on his hands and knees, which wobbled with the effort of keeping him upright. After another cough, he teetered back up to his feet and rubbed the back of his palm hastily over his mouth. What on earth was happening? Did he go into work and leave with a stomach bug? Had he gone straight to a bar after their date? He certainly didn't
look
sober, judging from the way he was stumbling towards the doorway. She chewed wildly at her lower lip while he inserted his key and wrenched the building door open, then waited for several seconds after the door had shut before scuttling back onto the sidewalk. At least he hadn't seen her. Sick or not, she wasn't entirely sure if she was ready to interact with him again. Not yet.
Her footsteps slowed as she approached the hedges. She swallowed back another wave of nausea when she spotted the wet mess beneath the branches, gleaming from the glow of the streetlights. She hoped something hadn't been wrong with the pho. She couldn't afford to be ill today---not when they were already a man down.
Suddenly, she stopped dead in her tracks. It looked so...dark. Like ink. Sections of branches were painted black with it. Eyes wide, swallowed up by a feeling of impending doom, she slowly lifted her phone from her purse.
She only had to toggle the screen on for half a second to see the mass of red that had been splattered all over the bushes.
A strange, high-pitched whine escaped her lips, and she staggered down the sidewalk and across the street before collapsing and emptying the contents of her stomach loudly into the gutter. Once her retching fit had subsided, she leaned back against a brick wall and stared wordlessly out into the dark.
Maybe vampires couldn't eat after all.
---
Monday, 3:28 p.m.
Tabitha stared out the window at a few quivering husks of leaves, her fingers clenched over the wooden cafe table. Her shift had ended ten minutes ago, and she still hadn't found the strength to move. Moving meant walking. Walking meant going home.
