Silent, The Day After

Two Years Earlier, Gavin

I wasn't sure what had hit me when I woke to the sound of the gong in the morning. Let's go through the list. Hangover, big and ugly.  Sore throat, the shivers.  Rubbish party on an abandoned fairground last night...a disagreement with Terence Harlesden's son Scott...rain and wind and a wild sea. And after all that, the waitress with the honey-blonde hair crying in the hut in the Remembrance Garden, resting her head on my shoulder. We'd got a bit intimate, hadn't we?  Well, intimate for two people who'd never met.

The gong sounded again and a door banged in the House. Breakfast.  I buried my face under the blankets. The master classes would have to wait.  

Knocking on the door. 'Who is it?'

'It's me,' a voice called, brightly.  Sunlight peeped through the curtains, matching the voice, hurting my eyes. 'Come on,' Philippa said. 'Breakfast. We've got auditions.'

'Where did you go last night?'

'Sorry about that.'

'Sorry about what?  You left me there with a group of Year-Nines and Year-Tens in the cold and rain.'

'I'm sorry. I thought I saw the girl again. I went to talk to her.'

'The waitress by the railings?'

'It wasn't her.  When I came back, one of the kids said you'd made your way back to the House.'

'Fine,' I said, sulkily.

'Meet you down in the breakfast room in fifteen minutes?'

'Suppose so.'

***
I made it down to the breakfast room without falling over on the way.  

'I saved you a seat,' Philippa said.

'Thanks,' I muttered.  My head swam. A cooked breakfast.  No way.  I settled for a coffee without milk, plenty of sugar.

It helped a bit.

***
Lucy

She couldn't concentrate on anything during the breakfast shift. Gavin, the piano lad, came in about half an hour after everyone else, hungover and bleary-eyed. They didn't speak, but she noticed how he kept gazing at the Goth girl and she knew that he fancied her. Slightly disappointing, but she must stop thinking about this mysterious boy.  

She had a boyfriend, anyway.  Ashleigh, her best friend's brother. Maxine's brother.