When I'm With You

Pulling myself from the floor, I notice how weak I really feel as I move to the bathroom.

The second I’m upright, blackness tugs at the corners of my vision.

Well, that’s new. I can’t remember a migraine ever doing that.

I stumble with my first step, and I fight with the exhaustion that washes from the top of my head all the way to my toes.

“Jesus, what is wrong with me,” I mumble to the empty room. I look for Bam, but I don’t see him anywhere. “Bam-A-Ram,” I weakly call out but still nothing. He’s probably pissed at me for not giving him the rest of my lunch yesterday.

Ignoring the fact that I’m becoming overwhelmingly more exhausted with each moment I’m up and moving around, I turn the shower on. It takes me forever to get my jeans off, pulling my underwear with them and kicking them to the side. My arms get caught in my shirt as I pull it over my head, and for a second, I wonder if my arms had turned to Jell-O at some point while I slept.

The second I step into the steaming hot shower, I take a deep breath and try to remember how the hell I got home. The last thing I can recall is getting sick, then Nikki’s soothing touch helping to ease the pain enough for me to fall asleep.

Then nothing.

I don’t spend much time washing, just putting in the good old college try of hitting the hot spots with the bar of soap. It falls from my hand in a loud clatter the second I finish. I had the fleeting thought to ignore my hair, but the memory of puking in it last night is all the motivation I need to push through my exhaustion and reach for the shampoo.

I cry out in pain when my fingers push against a huge goose egg on the side of my head. The shampoo from my hands running down my face and into my eyes as I rinse it off just makes me cry out again.

“Shit, shit!”

I raise up, opening the shower door and jump out to grab a towel. When I’m standing in front of the mirror, I turn my head and move my thick hair out of the way. When I part my hair, I see the painful bump I had felt in the shower as well as a small cut in my scalp. That explains the headache, I guess.

I rush out of the bathroom and start searching for my phone. It takes me a few failed attempts, but I finally find it tossed behind the couch, just inside the front door. I fumble with the stupid thing before pressing the right prompts and holding it to the uninjured side of my face.

“Someone had better be dead,” Nikki grumbles in greeting.

“How did I get home last night?” I breathlessly ask.

“Ember?”

“Nikki!” I yell, closing my eyes when a pain shoots through my head. “How. Did. I. Get. Home.”

“Uh, you’re freaking me out, Em.”

“I’m freaking myself out!” I scream. This time, my head doesn’t just give a burst of pain. Now, I feel a joining wave of nausea.

“Levi dropped you off. Well, we dropped you off. After you got sick and passed out, I kind of went a little nuts and threatened to cut off his balls if he didn’t take you right home. I figured he was over it when we got to your house. Seth was pissed about how Levi was acting, but he got your door unlocked and Levi carried you in.”

“I don’t remember any of this,” I tell her. “Did you come in too? Or just Levi and Seth?”

“Seth made me stay in the car. I think he was worried about Levi going off the handle because I got a little lippy and wanted to keep me away from him. He just unlocked the door and came back to wait for Levi. You scared the shit out of me, though. I know you need your migraine meds and your bed when they get that bad. I just had to make him listen.”

“Did you take Bam with you?” I ask, still trying to figure out how I’m missing a huge chunk of last night.