Splintered Memory - By Natascha Holloway Page 0,38
to see him naked.
Matt
He had a raging hangover, and knew instantly that he only had himself to blame. He put his hands over his eyes to shield some of the light that was pouring into the room, but as he did he noticed that there was nothing about this room that looked familiar to him. He slowly sat up and looked down at the pink duvet that was covering the bottom half of his body.
Where the hell am I he thought?
Matt heard the sound of a shower being turned on, and the noise of morning radio. He leant over the edge of the bed and saw his clothes heaped in a pile on the floor, and he saw that his watch was lying just to the right of them. He picked it up and saw that it was 10.15am.
He leapt out of bed panicking about how late he was for work, and also fighting the urge to vomit. Sudden movement was obviously going to be a problem for him throughout the rest of the day he thought. Yet as he stood there taking some deeps breaths to try and keep the nauseous feelings at bay, he was slightly bewildered as to why he was completely naked. He never slept naked.
Not wanting to give it any further thought for fear of what he might remember if he did, he hastily threw on his clothes and headed out of the bedroom. It was clear that he was not here alone, and it was pretty obvious from the state that he’d woken up and found himself in that he’d not spent the night alone. Again, he didn’t want to think about it. He was late, and he needed to get to the hospital.
The front door was locked and needed a key to open it, but as he turned round to see if he could see where the key was he had a vivid flash back. He felt his stomach plunge, and he felt like his entire body had just plummeted twenty feet.
He looked around, and he suddenly recognised the flat. He’d helped decorate this flat, but as he stood stock still staring at the walls in front of him he heard a familiar voice from behind him.
“Morning,” Emily said. “I know you were pretty drunk last night, but you do know that we’ve both got the day off right?”
“Emily,” he breathed turning to look at her.
She was stood in the doorway of the bedroom with only a towel wrapped around her. Her long blonde hair was wet and hanging round her shoulders, and she was looking at him teasingly and he noticed that her blue eyes were shimmering.
“What the hell am I doing here?” He asked desperately.
“Thanks,” she said in a mock hurt kind of a voice.
He shook his head disbelievingly. “We didn’t… did we?” He asked nodding towards the bedroom. Yet he already knew the answer from the vivid flashback that he’d just had, but he was praying to god that she’d be able to correct him.
Emily’s face suddenly changed from a flirty teasing demeanour, and was instantly replaced with her own version of a look of disbelief.
“You don’t remember?” She asked sounding betrayed and hurt in equal measure.
“Oh my god,” Matt said.
“Oh my god,” Emily said walking into the living room and perching on the arm of the only comfy chair in the room.
“What were you thinking?” He demanded. “Couldn’t you see I was completely paralytic?”
“No,” she said defensively. “You seemed fine. You were a little drunk obviously, but not paralytic by any means.”
“Huh,” he said.
“Fuck you,” she retorted. But then to his horror she started to cry.
He didn’t move. He just stood there staring at her and hoping that she would stop crying.
She sniffled and said; “I was in the pub with James. A few of us had gone for a drink at the end of our shift. You came in later and joined us but you weren’t drunk, or at least you didn’t seem it.”
Matt had absolutely no memory of seeing either Emily or James in the pub, but how many pubs had he been in by that stage he wondered.
“I was getting ready to leave at about eleven, and you said you’d walk me home. I told you I was fine,” Emily said; “but you said Charlie would kill you if you didn’t.”
Matt felt like his body had just plummeted twenty feet again at the mention of Charlie’s name.