The Art of Being Emily - Katie MacAlister Page 0,54
sick and no one wanted to take me home. I was worse than miserable, I was pathetic.
There was a sound like someone sighing heavily, then Fang said, “Go get Trev's car, you know which one it is. Bring it round back. I'll take her down the back stairs so no one will see her. Maybe she's so pissed she won't remember any of this.”
“Thanks, mate. I owe you for this.”
“More than you know. What do you think her parents are going to have to say?”
Why were they going on about me being pissed? Somewhere in the dim, foggy depths of my mind I remembered that “pissed” meant “drunk.”
“I'm not drunk. I'm sick,” I said again, suddenly really tired. I couldn't keep my eyes open I was so tired. Things got a bit woozy again then, but I do remember Fang picking me up and carrying me, because it made my stomach lurch around. Then there was wonderfully cold air, and I could sleep some more, and then Mom and Brother were talking, and Fang was saying something, but I couldn't quite understand him because he sounded like he was talking into a tin can.
I threw up again, sometime in the middle of the night, but at least I made it to the bathroom for that. When I woke up this morning, I thought I had died and was in hell. My mouth tasted like...well, I can't even think of anything bad enough to describe it. My head hurt. My eyeballs hurt. My hair hurt. I felt like I was made out of something really, really fragile, and I had stress fractures all over and was about to shatter.
Gah. I need more aspirin. The ones I took aren't working. Be back in a couple of minutes.
I feel SO AWFUL. I can't even begin to tell you how awful I feel, except to say that the air around me is too thick. I can't breathe it in. It won't fit into my lungs.
Let's see, where was I...oh, yeah, this morning. By the time I staggered to the bathroom, I realized what had happened. Devon and Fang were right: I had been drunk. I couldn't even imagine what they must be thinking about me, it made my brain hurt too much, but I do know this—I will never be able to face either of them again. Ever. I just can't do it. I would scream, except then my head would splat open and it's not fair to Mom to make her clean up the brain- splat mess.
My eyelashes are way too heavy.
So I managed to brush my teeth (I swore they screamed when I touched them) and my tongue and the rest of my mouth to get that lovely après-barf taste out of it, and then I staggered downstairs to face up to the Lecture of a Lifetime. I figured I'd get it over with as quickly as possible, since my whole body was kind of numb around the edges, and it would be better to have the lecture when I didn't actually have the ability to hear it.
“Ah, Emily,” Brother said, looking over the Sunday Post to cock the Unibrow at me. “There you are. You look ghastly. Doesn't she look ghastly, Chris?”
Mom was pouring herself a cup of coffee. The molecules of coffee in the air pounded my body. I almost fell over. “Yes, yes, she does. She looks as if she feels like she's been turned inside out. I can't imagine it's a good feeling.”
“Gah,” I said, and sort of slumped into a chair.
“I remember feeling as if a herd of elephants had danced on me once,” Brother said. “It was the time I went to South America and got malaria, but even after lying in bed with a fever for two weeks, I believe I looked much better than Emily does. Have you noticed the fact that the flesh around her eyes is red and swollen to the point you can hardly see her eyes?”
I tried to gingerly feel around one eye to see how much Brother was exaggerating, but instead of an eye my fingers found two big sausage rolls of flesh with a few eyelashes poking through them, so I decided it was better that I not explore any further.
“I did notice that. And the green pallor of her skin—would you say it had the same consistency and color tone that a week-old