Rower Lad sat alone in his room.
He had awoken abruptly with a mouth that was simultaneously as dry as sandpaper and as sticky as his noxious armpits. His hand was adhering to the side of his face, glued in place with what seemed to be garlic mayo.
Clutching his stomach, which was churning like an erg machine gone haywire, he blundered heavily to his feet. The vision in the mirror might have been a half-Blue, but it was only about 20% human. The other 80% was a desperate blend of jello shots, lycra and regret.
This, he thought, was surely it. As Houmous Girl fled the pub, he had thought of pursuing her. But though the spirit was willing, the flesh was weak, and the spirits he had drowned his sorrows in were stronger than both put together. Sorrow rose in his chest like vomit. Abruptly, he realised the sensation he was experiencing was in fact vomit rising like sorrow, and rushed across his room to the sink. How had it come to this?
Houmous Girl sat alone in her room.
The cup of tea that Worryingly Intense Girl had mutely pressed into her hand had grown cold, but Houmous Girl’s heart still burned with an inflammatory rage that no amount of camomile tea could extinguish.
How dare Rower Lad turn up with those arsehole mates of his? Rugby Lad’s big red stupid shiny Jaeger-glazed face seemed to swim in front of her.
And yet Rower Lad himself had seemed so sad and confused. And only the other day, during a nuanced intellectual debate about whose turn it was to take the fucking bins out, Obnoxiously Opinionated Guy had pointed out that Nietzsche viewed resentment as a manifestation of inner weakness rather than of self-respect. Admittedly, he had been talking about the specifically Nietzchean despair inspired by a leaky binliner full of Styrofoam kebab trays in the hallway: but there were certain inescapable parallels between that malodorous sack of meaty scraps and Rower Lad himself. And he had looked so very forlorn…
Rower Lad sat alone in his room.
There was a knock at the door.
