chapter one

When I wake up, I feel unpleasant lamination in my head. I lay in bed, breathing hardly. I’ve got a dry tongue and feel bad overall. I look around my bedroom.  Weak light of the morning is leaking through the curtains. I force myself to get up. On my way to bathroom, I stumble on my cat, Meredith. She snorts and goes away. I shuffle on the floor, with every inch of my body hurting. Olivia, the white cat, sits on the toilet. I dismiss her and look into the mirror. That person is definitely not me. She has pale face, black rings under her eyes, and bird’s nest on her head. I wash myself and brush my hair, then dress up in random clothes and go to the kitchen. I turn  the radio on and call my cats. Everyone has to eat breakfast. I take my cats’ bowls and fill them with food for cats. Olivia comes and starts to eat, but where’s Meredith? Maybe she’s busy doing her usual stuff. The guy in the radio talks about the snowstorm outside. ‘Cars will not be able to drive for at least two days from now. The winter of the century finishes everything. Schools will be closed until the end of the week. Electricity may not function well in the evening, another storm is expected. Please don’t leave your home if this is not necessary; if you have to, take the tube.’ I turn the radio off after hearing the doorbell. I open the door and see Ella smiling like an idiot.

‘Hey.’ She says. I let her in. ‘How do you feel?’

‘Fine.’ I say. ‘Just hangover. I’ll be alive.’

‘Drank too much yesterday, huh?’

‘Maybe. Think two shots of vodka more and I’d be dead. Thanks for stopping me.’

‘It’s okay. Karlie is drunk as hell. She doesn’t even know what’s going on around her.’ Says Ella seriously. ‘And that’s the main reason I visited you. We have to go to her and make her more sober than she is.’

We stay in my kitchen. I offer Ella coffee, but she refuses. We just sit and talk.

‘So tell me what happened after I drank that champagne. I don’t remember that very well.’ I beg Ella.

She snorts. ‘I think Karlie and you kissed each other. I’m not sure, Lena was recording something.’

‘No…, that can’t be true. I would never kiss a girl.’ I say with a doubt.

‘So let’s call Lena on the way to Karlie’s house. Maybe she can send us that video, if she saved it.’ Says Ella.

Soon we go out. Good that the tube station is near my apartment, otherwise we’d never leave. Snow is falling hardly, wind blows and freezes us to our bones. Everywhere is snow. Everywhere. 6 feet hills of snow lie on pavements. There’s no traffic in whole New York since a week. Everyone’s so fed up.

We reach Karlie’s house. She lives not far from me, but snow covered everything so the only way to get here was the tube.

We find Karlie laying on the sofa. She’s sleeping, still has her sparkly dress on. Ella comes up to Karlie and slaps her cheek. She wakes up and falls on the floor. I sigh and help Ella pick Karlie up. We situate her on the sofa and let her continue sleeping.

‘Wow. You were right. She’s drunk as log.’ I say.

‘Oh well. Poor Karls. Let’s find her laptop.’

Ella called Lena when we were on the way to Karlie’s house. Lena admitted than she has saved the video from the party. She has sent it to Ella through mail and now we’re able to see it.

‘Where does Karlie keeps her laptop…’ I look for the computer. After I found it, Ella logs into her mailbox and finds the video. She clicks on it. Firstly, we see only black picture, but then I think Lena turned camera on and it shows Karlie and me. We drink champagne and dance on the table. Then something strange happens. I start kissing Karlie.

I cover my mouth with my hand. I can’t believe my eyes. I kissed Karlie. Ella is frozen as me. I was drunk, I don’t love my best friend! Maybe a little. But still…

I run out of the kitchen and stop in the living room.

‘What? Just realised how good was last night?’ Karlie asks.

‘I seriously can’t believe.’ I say. Karlie laughs.

Ella drops into the room and says ‘what did push you to kiss each other?’

‘Alcohol’ I say.

‘No! Tay, you excite me!’ Karlie screams.

I’m speechless. Seriously. I’ve never expected that. What would my family think if they found out that I’m friends with a lesbian? Or I’m a lesbian? Or… I don’t try to think about that. Ella looks pleased. ‘Well, why don’t you kiss each other now?’ she asks.

I sit next to Karlie on the sofa. She hugs me and looks at me with her sweet eyes. She looks at me questioningly.

‘No, Karls, not with Ella watching. Come to me tonight and I’ll think about it. I’m not sure if you excite me the way that I excite you’.

‘Well, okay’ she says. ‘Ella, will you pick me up?’

‘Yeah, of course.’ Says Ella indifferently.

I feel relief. I’ll have time to digest it all. Ella and I walk out and go tho the tube station. We sit on the bench, 20 minutes left to our departure. We sit in the silence when suddenly Ella asks ‘Did you enjoy that kiss?’ I laugh and think a while. ‘I don’t know, I was drunk!’

‘But generally.’ she urges.

‘Well…I think…yes, I enjoyed that kiss.’ I say finally.

‘Yay!’ Ella gasps. ‘So will you be in relationship now?’

‘Ella, I don’t know, seriously, everything is new for me so I really don’t know.’

Our train arrives and we have to get in. There are not so many people, I bet they’re at their homes. It’s pretty cold and snowy outside. After few minutes, the train stops on my station and I get out.

Then I stop pretending happy. I feel like zombie, I’ve got a headache, I’m dizzy. I’ve never felt more exhausted. I take the stairs to go out of the station. It’s even more windy than an hour ago. Snowflakes are bigger than usually, it’s colder than in the morning. I cross a few streets and I’m at home. All I want to do right now is go to sleep. I want to take the lift but it’s always broken. I sigh. They should do something with it. I open the door and throw my clothes on the floor. I go to bathroom and have a shower. I notice that I’ve lost a lot of weight recently, even though I don’t go to the gym that much. I fall on bed only in my underwear, I’m too tired to dress anything else. The last thing I remember before falling asleep is Olivia’s tail dangling from the bedside table.