I promised myself I would get this chapter up before the end of the year, and I actually succeeded!
Sorry for the wait, and thanks for sticking with it for this long. Here's chapter 4. Happy holidays!
There wasn't a single part of Rikki's body that didn't hurt. Her arms, her legs, god...her head. It was thumping - pulsing - borderline unbearable.
She rose up slowly, rubbing at her watery eyes and trying to get her bearings. Everything was...blurry, colors were melting into one another and she couldn't quite discern anything in the room. It took a second - maybe slightly longer - before she was able to start making out different objects. Drawers and windows and...and...
Where was she?
This wasn't her room, that much Rikki was aware of.
Fantastic.
Rikki continued rubbing at her eyes, trying to will her brain into remembering what exactly happened at the gala. Did she...no, her clothes were still on (thank god), but that still wasn't helping to answer any of her other questions. She woke up in a bed that wasn't hers - in a room that wasn't hers – so what was hers, then?
She turned towards the nightstand to find a glass of water and two pills, along with a note.
For your head, it read in handwriting that was only slightly more legible than chicken-scratch.
Wait...
Rikki recognized that handwriting.
Zane.
Was the nausea back? It was definitely back. What the hell happened last night? There was the gala and the rich people she had to pretend to like and...and...bad soup and champagne?
She groaned, putting her head in her hands.
Everything hurt.
Too much alcohol, clearly. Far too much. But Zane? She hadn't seen him in years - she had no interest in seeing him again, not after all the stuff he had put her through in high school. She deserved better.
"I'm so lonely," she had told him. That she remembered.
They didn't do anything, right? She was dressed, not to mention the man in question was nowhere to be seen.
She sighed, finally swallowing the pills - Tylenol, how quaint - and made an attempt to get her mess of a body out of bed. Her legs felt like Jell-O, making the act of walking a difficult endeavor. There were some clothes laid out on the floor, something to sleep in, presumably. A t-shirt and some shorts adorned with little blue flowers.
Gag.
What was Zane doing with this stuff anyways? Rikki shuddered to think of the possibility that he may have left her with the clothes of one of his ex-girlfriends - or current girlfriend?
What was her name, again? Amy? Alex?
...did it matter?
She was mad, Rikki remembered, though the reason for why eluded her at the moment.
Lights. Bathroom. Champagne. Mermaid.
Mermaid.
Mermaid.
Ah, the nausea was back.
Rikki closed her eyes, trying to control her breathing. She refused to throw up on Zane's floor - hadn't she embarrassed herself enough? It took a minute for her stomach to regain some semblance of normalcy, and she proceeded to grab for the clothes on the carpet. They were smooth against her fingers - Zane only went for the best, after all - and slowly peeled her dress off her body. There was a shower attached to the room, small, but with all the necessary utilities.
"Good enough," her father would say.
Even years after moving out from her father's trailer, the feel of hot water hitting her skin was still a pleasant surprise. It felt...nice. Sobering, even. Hot water was practically a commodity throughout her childhood. There were more important things - food, electricity, having a home in general. Cleo and Emma never asked why Rikki came over to shower in their homes almost every night, something she was grateful for. Of course, having the power to heat things up was helpful, though more than once she ended up evaporating the contents of her shower instead of simply warming it.
She scrubbed the scent of alcohol and sweat off her body, running a sponge along the scales of her tail. The pain in her head slowly subsided to a dull thud at the base of her skull, perhaps a better outcome then she deserved given her behavior not several hours previous. Under normal circumstances she would feel bad for wasting someone else's water, but this was Zane. It was dollars to him, nothing more.
But still...
Rikki sighed, turning off the faucet and maneuvering herself out from the tub. She clenched her fist, taking some satisfaction in the steam that soon emanated from her tail. It took a while to perfect the steam-drying process, but she was now able to return to her two-legged self in less than a minute depending on the situation. In this case, it took exactly forty-three seconds.
I'm getting slow in my old age.
She folded her dress as best as she could and got changed. The shirt was a bit too large, hanging halfway down her thighs - enough to cover the shorts entirely - but...well, it wasn't anything Zane hadn't already seen before, right?
Rikki glanced at the clock - 7:13 am. Yikes. She wasn't usually an early riser, especially on the weekends, but there was no way that she would be able to go back to bed. She groped around the bathroom a bit and finally found something that could pass as a hairbrush, running through the knots in her hair. Most of her makeup was washed off in the bath, and she took care of the rest with the back of her hand.
She looked...not great, honestly. Puffy eyes, dark rings, shallow complexion...
I really need to get out more.
Rikki could practically see her young adult life slipping by, all her time spent either at home, in an office, or underwater. Who had time for a social life these days?
She would laugh if it wasn't so pathetic.
I will be famous. One day.
...but at what cost?
That she couldn't answer.
Finally deciding that her appearance was suitable enough, she cracked open the door and peered out into the hallway. Sunlight streamed through the blinds in the window at the far end of the hall, bathing the room in a warm glow. The wooden floor creaked when she tentatively stepped out. The furniture was sparse at best, some cabinets covered in trinkets that were probably worth more than a month's rent for her shabby little apartment.
There were also pictures - of him, mostly. She recognized Nate in a fair amount of them, as well as his girlfriend who's name she still couldn't remember. She saw his father in one frame, an old one showing an elementary aged Zane holding a fishing pole. She wondered what he was like as a child - insufferable, probably. There were a couple of group shots - ugh, Miriam - and...was that her? Them. Outside of their cafe, along with Cleo, Bella, and their respective boyfriends.
Her heart lurched.
She missed her friends. Terribly. It was far too early to be this emotional. Rikki squeezed her eyes shut, trying to control the erratic beat of her heart, and inched back into her room. She grabbed for her stuff - her dress, phone, and purse, nothing more - and left quickly.
She needed to leave. She needed to leave now. She couldn't....in and out, in and out, in and...
Her headache was back. This was too much. It would be best to avoid contact with him.
In and out. In and out. In and out.
Where was the chocolate ice cream when she needed it?
In and out.
She was fine. Just go downstairs and leave, nothing more complex than that. She'll send the clothes back later, but for now she needed to focus on getting out without drawing any attention to herself. Without him seeing her.
Was it getting hot in here?
Rikki traversed the staircase slowly, trying to mitigate the incessant squeaking from loose floorboards. She had to admit his place wasn't bad, messy perhaps, but it was clear he came from money. The downstairs kitchen had appliances she would never have dreamed of having as a child. Stainless steel, for one. Her trailer's fridge was more a glorified ice box that failed to actually produce any ice and broke down more times than it was worth.
A couple more steps forwards. Her heart felt like it was beating out of her chest. Is this what the characters in Mission Impossible felt like? Zane's house certainly wasn't small, and it took her longer than she would have liked to locate the front entrance. She did eventually find it, slowly unlocking and pulling down on the door handle and...
Beeping. Beeping. More beeping.
Of course he has a security system.
Rich people do have that type of stuff, right? If Rikki was of a sounder mind, she would have bolted outside and ran into the nearest store or tree line like an escaped prisoner. Under no circumstances could Zane see her like this. She couldn't face him, the thought was unfathomable.
"You going somewhere?"
Her heart dropped to her stomach. She whipped around almost instantaneously - hair getting in her eyes - and...he was there. Standing behind her, propping himself against one of the pillars with hair messy from sleep. One eyebrow was quirked, but Rikki couldn't tell if it was from amusement or skepticism.
Or both.
Shit.