"When Dawn Comes"
By Kimra
Part IV
The acidic tang of vomit lying dormant at the back of her throat woke Serena. She vaulted out of bed the second her mind could register the flavour. There was an alarming screech from somewhere within her flying sheets and the soft thud which although she paid little attention to, had to signify Luna's presence. All apprehension towards their inevitable meeting was forgotten as she dove into the bathroom.
The flavour in her mouth drove her stomach into a repeat of it's earlier performance and she found herself for the second time that day clinging to the edge of the toilet bowl while she heaved her previous days meal out. She was mildly surprised there had been anything left after her first encounter with the toilet bowl that morning, but the thought didn't hold her for long.
"Serena, dear? Are you okay?" The near angelic voice of her mother carried up the stairs, smothered with concern.
Serena struggled for breath, to reply as calmly as she could.
"I'm fine mum." The flavour of vomit again made her recoil and she spat into the bowl with disgust.
"Are you sure dear?" The almost silent sound of a footfall on the stairs made Serena tremble a little. Her mind wasn't quite focused but warrior instincts told her she didn't want her mother to climb those stairs. With every bit of control she contained she breathed deeply and replied in her cheeriest voice.
"Yeah, Mum. Just…" She faltered. Just what? Just vomiting? Just brushing my teeth to get rid of the flavour? No, more cheerful. Jumping about because I'm bored. No sounds like I'm not even a little sick. She gnawed into her lower lip in deep concentration, her eyes falling onto the figure of a rumpled cat in the bathroom doorway.
"Just what dear?" Her mother's voice was filled with dubious uncertainty.
Serena managed a small wince at Luna's dark expression before she jumped back to the immediate problem. Oh! I've got it! "Just having a shower mum. I feel all sticky!" Just a dash of her usual tracklessness and a little cheer and she sounded like she was on the road to recovery, but not quite there yet.
"Okay dear. I'm making Chicken Broth, so when your done call out and I'll bring it up for you."
Okay so maybe there are advantages to losing your virginity and taking the day of school. Immediately she scolded herself, embarrassed of the thought and ashamed to have allowed anything so low to have passed through her mind, even if it had been because of food.
It wasn't until she had heard her mother retreat back into the kitchen that her tense shoulder relaxed and her eyes fell back onto the black cat, registering it's presence and acknowledging what it meant. Carefully she pushed sticky strands of hair behind her ear, giving her a clear view of the feline. Erk! I really do need a shower. She cringed and wiped her fingers onto her shirt, some how her hair had gotten in the way of her vomiting, hardly surprising considering how long it was.
"How much did you drink?" Came Luna's clear voice.
It wasn't the first thing she was expecting to leave the cats mouth. She might have accepted a string of curses in some dialect she didn't understand, or a few scratches, but the calm rationality behind the question grounded her. In ways completely unexplainable to anyone who didn't know Luna, calm when Serena had erred was not a common thing, and it often meant she had progressed past raging mad, which was not something Serena cared to witness. But then she wasn't given a choice.
"Drink?" Serena repeated the word like it was foreign a bit unsure of what the cat meant. She knew what it meant, if anyone else was saying it, but Luna talking about alcohol seemed out of place. Besides she's accusing me of being drunk! That little bit of realisation fuelled Serena into anger, but it dissolved before she got a chance to test it. She was still facing unknowable odds, she still had to convince the cat to keep her mouth shut, she still had to figure out what the hell had happened.
"Yes Serena." The cat's clipped voice continued, staring into Serena's face, expression set. "Just because I'm a cat, doesn't mean I don't know a hang over when I see one." For a second Luna looked a little more passive. "Though this seems a bit excessive even for a hangover." It was muttered.
Serena didn't hear any of the second half, her mind was caught on the first bit. A hang over? That's ridiculous! "I didn't drink anything!" Serena retorted, her voice raised and reverberating against the tiled walls. That I know of. For the hundredth time that day her heart stopped mid beat then jumped back into rhythm. "That I know of." She repeated in a mumble of admittance. Her mind flashed back to that drink some boy at the party had handed her. And you, Serena Klutzoid, drank it without a thought. She felt oddly betrayed, if she could remember who the boy was she would have felt overwhelming anger and beaten him to a pulp, but she settled for betrayal. There had only been class mates at Molly's party, it hadn't been a random stranger, it had been someone she knew, purposefully getting her drunk.
How did Darien come into it? He wasn't at the party, what would a collage student be doing at a fourteen years olds birthday party? Her head began to spin again.
She was still in a pile on the floor, one arm comfortingly wrapped around the toilet bowl, her hair matted and sweaty sticking to her face and arms, body pale and limbs trembling. Her short skirt ridding her hips, one high heel still tightly secure on her right foot, her shirt rumpled and blemished. Her eyes where dark with anger, planning revenge on a faceless, nameless enemy who had handed her a drink. Sure she would never get the chance to enact the vengeance, but it felt good to plan.
"That you know of?" Luna screeched, her hair prickling as her fast mind caught onto the implications that her charge had been tricked in some way.
"Serena honey?" Her mothers voice called up the stairs. Luna pressed to the floor in surprise.
"I tripped over Luna!" Serena shouted in response automatically. She pulled herself to her feet, flushing the toilet as she went, let her mother figure out how the sound fit into the scenario on her own, Serena didn't care that much. She picked the abashed cat up and stumbled on her one heeled shoe back to her room.
Inside she locked the door behind her, deposited Luna on the bed and opened her cupboard. Right then, she could think of nothing better then a shower. Forget who got her drunk, forget that she had slept with Darien, she just wanted to wash it all away.
"What happened?" Luna asked in false control. Serena glanced over her shoulder as she withdrew a pair of shorts and a top. She stared at them for a second in deep contemplation, ignoring the ball of angry fur that was glaring at her from her bed.
Am I marked? How obvious is it going to be? I can't wear this. I need something else. Her mind was a jumble, as it forgot the shower in a sudden realisation that she had to check how obvious it was. She didn't know, didn't know anything about situations like this. Crumpling onto a spot on the bed beside Luna she stared at her cupboard. Clothes for summer, short pants, tight tops, singlets, none of it seemed like it would be willing to cover any damages she might have obtained the previous night.
A little part, that traitorous part came back and tried to scold her for thinking Darien would hurt her. Sure his a jerk, but his… he wouldn't… he just…
Tiny tears began to form in the depths of her eyes. She couldn't hear Luna talking to her trying to coax her into talking. All she could do was stutter in her own mind, trying to defend him, ashamed for doing so, trying to tell herself it hadn't happened, desperately trying to dig up memories that had disappeared. But all of it felt so surreal, so wrong and out of place, like she was missing so much more from the whole equation.
And the problem, the thing that drew the tears down her checks until they where a silent flood that she tried to hide from Luna by burying her head in her hands, was she couldn't think of a single reason why he wouldn't. Why it was impossible, why it shouldn't have happened, why it couldn't have happened, except for the one. Darien hates me.
And the thought broke her.