Emily got up without really knowing what she was doing and started looking around the apartment while Olivia went to the bathroom. She really didn’t feel like this was her place. There was this thing where you could rent apartments for a limited amount of time, while someone was on vacation or doing an internship abroad or something like that. The only thing you had to do is keep the place nice and clean, get their mail and not change anything. So that’s what Emily had done. She took a look at the pictures on the wall., which she hadn’t really noticed before. There was a dark haired woman playing with a dog, a black Labrador with kind eyes. She looked nice. Another picture showed her with a couple of girlfriends probably at a bar, all smiling into the camera looking carefree and happy. And there was yet another picture that caught Emily’s eye. It was that same girl, a couple of years earlier probably with a man her age, the looked like they were made for each other. The picture had been torn apart and taped back together. “Why would anyone hang up a picture like that?” She asked herself. It was an obvious reminder, that, at some point, this relationship must have gone from perfect to bad. There must have been a lot of new moments to take pictures of in the meantime, many happier memories to put on that wall. But still she chose that picture. “Weird,” she thought as she heard the old fashioned key turn in the bathroom door.“Hey why aren’t you dressed yet?” Olivia asked. “Sorry, I got caught up with.. uhmm nothing I guess. I ll get dressed."
Olivia tried to see what it was that Emily was looking at, but all she could see were some old pictures of the girl that must have rented Emily the apartment.
When Jonathan arrived at their apartment his fingers were so cold that he had difficulties getting the key into the door. He kicked off his sneakers and took off his jacket and threw it over the sideboard. Then he remembered how much that pissed Emily off so he quickly grabbed it and hung it up properly. “This is ridiculous, she isn’t even here”. Suddenly he realized how tired this whole morning had made him. He couldn’t have slept more than a couple of hours the night before and a look at the clock on the wall confirmed that it was really just 1 pm. “I gotta get some sleep, and I ll work this out later”.
Emily still didn’t feel like a normal person when she left the apartment with Olivia. But she knew she had to get out of the house and hunger kicked in as well. The thought of food still didn’t quite agree with her stomach but she knew she would feel better. It’s not like this was the first hangover in her life. She remembered the first Jonathan-caused hangover she had after he had asked her to move in together. They had been spending the afternoon at her place. Just chilling in their PJ’s, reading and talking when he decided it was time to go home. She didn’t want to le him go, so she had climed on top of him and pinned his arms down with her knees. Midlaugh he got serious. “Why the hell do I go home every other day when really all I want is to fall asleep and wake up every day with you?” She was a little confused but kind of liked what she was hearing “why don’t we move in togther?” There they were. The words she had been hoping to hear. The only thing missing from their relationship for it to be perfect. And the one thing that everyone had been nagging her about. “Why are you still not living together? Don’t you want to? Or doesn’t he want to?” He had finally said it. She was so excited, she didn’t even try hiding it. So he had stayed that night and almost all of the other nights after that until they had found their place. And that first night when they decided to live together they also decided it would be a good idea to empty pretty much every bottle of alcohol that she had in her apartment to celebrate. That included half a botte of red wine, some coffee liquor, a little rum someone had left during a party and a couple of beers they found in her fridge. The next morning she had felt horrible. She couldn’t even get out of bed. Jonathan told her later, that he had never seen her this miserable but still found her adorable, despite the fact she couldn’t even hold the piece of toast he force fed her. “The things you see when you re in love…”
In retrospect it didn’t really make sense to her. Up until that moment she had spend every minute before every date getting ready for him. She had showered thouroughly, shaved every part of her body and even when they were just chilling at home she made sure she looked somewhat presentable. She would always laugh at these girls getting up before their boyfriends just to put on some make up so he would't see them all sleepy, but secretly she wished she had the dicipline to do it too. Quite frankly sometimes she did. But perfection came at a price, she wasn’t always ready to pay.