I woke up with the sun shining on my face through my bedroom curtains and looking towards my nightstand, I saw my clock, telling me that it was 1 o'clock in the afternoon. I decided to get up and I shut the curtains before going to the bathroom to take a shower. And a long hot shower was exactly what I needed right now.

    They say they shower is one of the best places for your thoughts to come racing out. And that wasn't a lie. Whenever I showered, my mind went wild with so many different ideas and thoughts, it was incredibly difficult to focus on just one. But today I did focus on one major thought that came to mind: Harrison.

I really liked her, and what I felt for her was so fierce and indescribable. I was positive that I loved her. There was no other way to label it. I didn't want to lose her, but after Jason told me what I did and how I acted, I was sure there wasn't a way to win back her trust.

"Yeah man, you yelled at her to get out and then you had a blackout," Jason had told me. "Well, one of your episodes."

I didn't like to talk about my episodes. It made me feel awful because I could never remember what happened during them. I woke up in a different location each time, and no matter how hard I tried to pull memories out from my unconscious mind, I never had any success. It was incredibly shitty to have to share your own body with someone else. Someone who I, unfortunately, knew nothing about.   

"You were gone for two weeks. She was angry, and she deserves to be. She kept pushing to learn more, but I didn't tell her anything."   

"There's nothing to tell her, anyway," I said. "Since when do you two talk?"

"We started after the whole party fiasco, you know... with me cheating on West and shit. We kept talking a lot more after you didn't show up to class that first time. The school called to make sure you were coming in and I had to rush over to be your substitute teacher. I saved your ass, but it was a fucking mess," Jason said, laughing for a moment before returning to his serious manner. "She's a nice girl, Otto. I hope you don't screw things up with her."   

Jason had never been the type to get involved in my relationships, and that's what was confusing. He has been giving me advice, and he was trying to help me instead of getting drunk at ten in the morning and laying in bed all day. Recently, he had actually been getting up and doing things. He'd even been going to classes, which was shocking considering I wasn't sure he'd ever really been to a college class.    I left my room and Jason was sitting on the couch reading a book.

"Are you seriously reading right now or have the aliens invaded?" I asked and went over to the chair across from him, sitting down.   

"Ha-ha, you're funny Otto," Jason said. He waited and set his book down and said, "It's some anatomy textbook, okay? I'm just trying to catch up on course content."

I raised my eyebrows. "Never thought you would be saying those words."

"Well, maybe I'm trying these days, Otto. Cause maybe something hit me and I actually wanted to try and better myself," he snapped. "Maybe you should do the same and go back to work for once in two fucking weeks."   

I ignored him. I knew that I had missed a lot of work, even surpassing the two-week mark. And maybe I should have gone today, but to be honest, I didn't miss teaching. I didn't even know why I got into it in the first place. I should've gone on with my art degree, but I'd thought it to be impractical.    But he was right.

"I'll go back tomorrow," I said to Jason. "Don't you worry about me."   

"Hard not to, Otto," Jason said before standing up. "And check your phone, man." He left the room.   

I slowly stood up and walked over to my desk where my phone had been sitting for the past few days on airplane mode. I sat down and turned airplane mode off, and after a couple of minutes, tons of messages and email notifications started popping up on the screen. I unlocked my phone and entered into the messages app. 20 from Jason, 13 from the Dean of the school, and 28 from Harrison.   

Harrison. I almost forgot.   

"I'm an ass," I whispered to myself, running a hand through my hair.

The timing of saying that was perfect because as I said it, Jason walked out of his room, holding some dishes.    "Yeah. You are," he agreed, carrying the dishes to the kitchen and practically throwing them into the sink. No matter how much he was trying to better himself, Jason still wouldn't learn how to do the dishes.   

I stood up and turned to Jason, who sat down at the counter with a tub of ice cream and started to eat straight out of it. "How much did you and Harrison talk?" I asked.   

"I dunno man, quite a bit while you were out," Jason replied. He took a big spoonful of ice cream and shoved it into his mouth.   

"Why?"   

Jason rolled his eyes and swallowed. "Look, she needed it. She likes you, Otto. A lot. Whether you think it or not, whether you even remotely care, she needed someone other than West to key her in on what the fuck is wrong with you."   

"Should I call her?"   

"Maybe. Or maybe she needs some space of her own right now. I don't know, it's me you're asking. What do you think you should do?"

All I could think about was that I was impatient at the thought of waiting to speak to Harrison. "I need to talk to her," I said.

"Do what you want dude, it's your life," Jason said with a mouthful of ice cream. "Just try not to be an ass. I know it'll be hard for you."   

"Yeah. Says you."   

"Hey, right now," Jason started to say, standing up and putting the ice cream back in the freezer, then facing me, "you're more of an ass than I could ever be."

•••

I laid in my bed watching gaming youtubers instead of doing what I probably should have been doing: my homework. Considering the night I just had though, I didn't really feel like doing anything besides laying down. I was so damn tired and all I could think to do was watch people play video games online.

From my laptop notifications, I could see that West had called me more than once today, and he had texted asking where I was. I never answered considering my phone was still gone, and I honestly didn't mind. I wanted to avoid talking to him because I knew that he would want to know what caused me to miss school. And I really didn't want to tell him. I didn't want to tell him that I went to a party with Big Mike and then did MDMA with him. And the fucking icing on top of the cake: we had sex.

    I remembered parts of last night and we definitely had sex, but hopefully Mike didn't remember. I wouldn't want to face him in English tomorrow if he actually remembered what happened between us.

    As the video I was watching ended, I realized that I still hadn't taken a shower and decided to get up and do something productive. If I wasn't going to do my psych homework, I could at least clean myself up.

    They say that the shower is one of the places where your thoughts just endlessly spill out. Where you become encompassed in thousands upon thousands of ideas, and that couldn't be closer to the truth. Even with One Direction blaring out of my speakers, I couldn't escape my own mind. Remembering exactly what happened last night, remembering everything with Otto, and remembering even more shitty stuff that took my mind to an utterly dark place.

    Once I got out of the shower, I quickly brushed out my wet hair and put on my bathrobe. I opened the door and once again, almost had a heart attack.

    "Jesus!" I screamed.

    "What?" West asked, looking at me with a faint smile. He was sitting on my bed and it looked like he had just been sitting there waiting for the bathroom door to open.

    "You do this every time," I said. I went over to my wardrobe and grabbed my pajamas.

    "Excuse you, but we have to talk. And if you didn't want me to break into your room, you shouldn't have given me a spare!" He exclaimed. He was always pulling that card on me.

    I set my pajamas down on my desk and sat in the chair. "And what exactly do we have to talk about?"

    "Where you were today," West said, crossing his arms. "You abandoned me in English."

    "I just needed some rest," I lied.

    "Yeah right. You weren't even here last night. And I know that because-"

    I interrupted. "Yeah, I gave you a spare, I know." I rolled my eyes. "Now, if you don't mind, I should get changed so I can go to bed."

    "Um, excuse me? No, there is no time for that, Harrison!"

    "West, it's Monday, let me sleep," I practically begged. I was honestly exhausted and this was the last thing I wanted to do.

    "Nope. What's the fun in attending a boarding school thousands of miles away from our families if you can't break the rules every once in a while?" He asked.

    "I am not partying tonight," I groaned.

    "And why not?" West asked.

    I  knew he wasn't going to drop it, so I gave in. "What party? Where?"

    "Well, some of the soccer guys are throwing it at this place downtown. Almost everyone's invited. But we have never been invited before! But this time, we were!" West said, excited. "I don't know why, but it's a once in a lifetime chance, Harry!"

    "Stop calling me that, and stop over exaggerating!" I yelled. "I am not in the mood for a party."

    "Why not?"

    "I just-"

    West crossed his arms, interrupting me, "I can read you like a magazine. What happened? Where were you last night?"

    I groaned and sat on the bed. "You can't tell anyone," I said.

    "Lips are sealed."

    I waited and then I told him everything. How I was covering the soccer game for yearbook and Big Mike invited me to a party. How we drank beer and did drugs, and then other stuff happened.

    "Jason came and got you and not me?!" He exclaimed, pouting like a 5-year-old.

    "You were in class! I didn't want to get you in trouble."

    He waited and murmured, "You know how much I hate math."

    I rolled my eyes at him and said, "Jason was available, so I called him. And then I just came back here and passed out."

    "That explains why we were invited to the party," West said. "Even after the night you and Mike had? I can hardly picture it: you and that steroid getting hot and heavy in a hot tub..."

"West, stop!"

"Sorry, sorry," he muttered, laughing a bit. "So you don't want to go with me?"

    I didn't really. But maybe it would be less awkward to see Mike tonight rather than tomorrow in English. First, I could hopefully get my phone back. And maybe I could make things clear: I did not want to be with Big Mike. Us sleeping together was a one-time thing. Something that only happened because of the drugs and alcohol I'd consumed.

"I'll go. Only for you, though. And to clear things up." I said.   

"Oh thank God! Now, let me pick out your outfit." West quickly got up and ran to my closet, going through my clothes. "Okay, here!" He clapped his hands together in excitement.   

I reluctantly went into my bathroom to change into the outfit West had picked for me while I thought about my plan: go to the party, find Big Mike, and then leave. I wasn't in the mood to party right now, especially after the previous night. I was in the mood to get my phone and come back and continue watching people play video games instead of doing my homework.

But was everything going to work out like I hoped? Probably not.    Because nothing ever went as planned.

•••