You wake up suddenly and look up at me. When you say my name your voice is low and sleep-roughened, uneven. "How are you feeling?" you ask.

I am feeling like you are going to be the end of me. I wish I could get you out of my system the way I got the alcohol out a few hours before, however painfully. I am feeling shaky and small in the clothes you lent me, and I'm feeling both too young and too old to deal with this, sick at my stomach and sick over you.

"I'm feeling better," I say. "Although I've felt better."

What a twist. Since September I've dreamed of leaving your place in the morning, walking home light and high on your kiss and your smile. I did not anticipate that when the sunlight hit my reluctant eyes on Beacon Street, I would be cripplingly hung over, unsteady and leaving you sleeping untouched on the floor.