light came in through the blinds and she turned her head away to avoid the sunshine. She buried her face in the pillow, seriously regretting her former evening. She attempted to recall exactly what had happened, but the last thing she remembered was throwing up in the toilet of the men’s restroom at Bob’s Bistro . She gritted her teeth, I can never go back there again so long as Edgar is there, she thought embarrassingly. She was fairly certain she had not slept with him, but she had come far too close for her to ever want to run into him again. Now she would have to find a new bar. She hated that it was the only one that was an acceptable walking distance from her home. She shrugged, knowing that after a night like last night it was unlikely she would go drinking again for some time anyways.
A realization suddenly hit her: she was in her bed in her apartment. She took a few deep breaths, hoping the painful throbbing in her head would subside, but it did not seem like that was going to happen anytime soon. How did she get in her locked apartment? Had Edgar brought her there? Surly not, she thought, knowing good and well that Edgar’s only interest in her was the fact that he wanted to sleep with a Spanish chick. At the most he probably would have called a cab to drag her home, but even then she would have wound up sleeping on the front stoop of her apartment. Oh no, she wondered, I hope I didn’t break the door in. She shook the thought away. There was little change she could have made it up two flights of stairs in the condition she had been in the night before let alone break down a door. Did the cab driver help her up? Even if he had, that still did not explain how she had gotten into the locked apartment.
Slowly, carefully, she sat up and looked around her bedroom. Everything was how she had left it. It was not much, but it was home. The room was messy, as always, with most of her clothes in heaps on the floor rather than tucked away in her tiny closet. She rubbed her temples again. “Stupid. Idiota ,” she grumbled, imagining how Edgar’s nasty lips had been all over her face, neck, and chest. He had stuck his tongue down her throat one too many times. She gagged slightly at the memory of it.
Her bedroom door abruptly opened; her uncle stood before her holding two pots, which he then began to violently bang together as he darted over to her angrily. “Ah! You bastard!” she roared and covered her ears, her splitting headache growing worse with the clanging sound of the pots. “Stop!” she shrieked.
Tito violently threw the two pots to the ground. “You stupid, stupid girl!” he screamed, his voice just as painful as the pots had been.
Mercedes put her hands to her head, attempting to massage the painful throbbing away. “Pots and pans, really?”
He stared down at her, his eyes full of an unbridled fury. “You could have drank yourself to death last night!” Tito shouted.
“Would you please lower your voice?” she pleaded, her eyes shut and her face scrunched up. “I’m sorry.”
“¿ Apenado ?” he crossed his arms, “Oh, if your father was here-”
“He’s not,” Mercedes hissed. “What happened last night, Tito?”
“You called me,” he said, forcing himself to calm his voice down; he had made his point with the clanging of the kitchenware. Tito rarely did anything half-heartedly, particularly when trying to prove a point to Mercedes. He growled, “You told me to come get you. When I got to that nasty old bar the bartender was dragging you out of the men’s restroom, he was half dressed! I kicked his ass!”
Mercedes rolled her eyes, “You kicked his
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