Page 24 of The Moment You Know

Chapter 9

As Paige slowly awoke, the thunder in her head made her immediately want to go back under again, especially when a wave of nausea rolled over her.

This was quite possibly the worst hangover she’d ever had and as soon as she felt human again, she was going to kill Jules for whatever had happened the night before. She’d obviously let Paige get totally hammered, because she hardly remembered anything—she didn’t even remember drinking. The last thing she could remember with any real clarity was being at work, but according to the clock on the wall that was hours ago. Like, seven hours ago.

Everything between then and now was pretty hazy, almost like scattered, psychedelic dreams that dissipated upon waking, leaving her confused and not knowing what was real and what wasn’t.

Like … Morgan Freeman.

Even though he’d seemed very real, she was pretty sure he hadn’t been, which was a shame since it would’ve been cool to meet him. She was a huge fan and could’ve totally posted that shit on Instagram.

She also thought it highly unlikely that she had met Mr. Burns—being a cartoon character and all—but she could’ve sworn she’d had a few conversations with him. What those conversations had been about, she couldn’t recall, but they seemed real. Sort of.

Then, there was David.

But even though he seemed to play an almost constant part in the hazy previous seven hours, he didn’t seem any more real than Morgan Freeman or Mr. Burns. Mainly because, even though his presence could possibly be explained, it just didn’t make any sense that he would be there especially with long hair and a beard. Like a hot pirate. And if he wasn’t really there, then why was she imagining him, altered, like that?

Everything had to be fake. That’s all there was to it, she decided. And since it was, then that meant she’d gotten really fucked up. Why, she didn’t know, but the pounding in her head and the very real effort involved in not puking told her she had probably been doing shots. A lot of them.

Jules. Was. Dead.

As she thought of a few ways in which Jules would die, Paige did her breathing exercises, finding that they actually helped her head. Not much, but enough to where she started to feel like she could conceivably, maybe, possibly, be able to stagger to her kitchen and take a handful of Motrin.

However, that pipe dream vanished when she realized a few disturbing things:

She wasn’t in her bedroom.

She wasn’t even in her apartment.

She actually didn’t know where she was.

She also didn’t know how she’d gotten to wherever she was.

There was a large hand holding one of her boobs.

The hand holding her boob was attached to a warm body currently spooning her.

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