Teddy. Teddy. Teddy. Alice. Jules. Where was everyone?

She wanted to find them but the music was too good, the drinks kept coming, and just around the corner lay the promise of fun. Fun, fun, fun. It was hot and then it was cool, her sweat chilling on her skin, and then it was quiet and then it was dark.

*

She woke, as she often did, with her stomach retching, pulling her from sleep. She rolled on to her side, her arms up covering her face, while she tried to get her bearings and remember where she was. The pillow smelt sweet, the linen clean. She opened one eye and took in a bedside table with an empty floral teacup, a photo of a horse and a book of Mary Oliver poems, translated into French. Alice’s room. Gingerly, she flopped on to her back and propped herself on her elbows. She reached for the bottle of water beside her bed and pressed the tiniest sips of liquid to her mouth, careful after each to check she wasn’t going to be sick. She willed her stomach to settle as she shifted higher up in bed, her head eventually resting on the wall. She wondered where Alice had ended up and smiled – the hangover was always worth the debrief the next day as they blew half-moons on scalding hot coffee, laughing at what they’d got up to the night before.

She lay still for a while, shame creeping over her skin. What had happened with Teddy? She remembered approaching him, remembered slipping her sweaty hand into his own and trying to pull him towards her, she remembered his eyes, so clear and blue, falling towards him as she’d done the night they met, but this time his head jerked backwards and away from her. Had he rejected her? But he’d come to see her. Her heart rate quickened and climbed. What happened next? She frowned, clutching at shards of time and fragments of information she couldn’t piece together. There was another man – the barman? – with a rough kiss and a hand grabbing at her bum. And then what? Jules. Jules took her home. Jules took her home and put her to bed. Phew. Her pulse abated. She was sure that was all that had happened, yet she still felt uneasy. Should she talk to Teddy? Make sure he understood how she felt? But it would shift the dynamic between them, the friendship she’d come to rely on as an interlude from the monotony she’d fallen into at home. Sometimes an email from Teddy was the only high point of her day. And what would Alice and Jules think? Would it disrupt things between them too? Alice had never been Teddy’s biggest fan. But increasingly Nina sensed the feelings she was running from to be true: she loved Teddy. Was it time to swallow her pride and do something about it?

She shifted her legs to the side of the bed shakily. Alice must be in her flatmate’s bed, who was away for the weekend. That’s where Nina was supposed to have slept. She stood slowly, to gather the girls, or at the very least climb into the sofa bed with Jules to begin the debrief. Even though her head was thrashing, she was already on the brink of laughter. The barman! What was she thinking!