At dawns light I crawled from my hole to find my mates. In the light I realised I’d almost made it to Wanton pier, the very place we’d started the night. The rows of massive wooden posts that supported it looking like the trees of a forest to my ruined eyes; the sea like a massive picture of itself, a two dimensional cut out from a magazine moving back and forth on the sand.
I took what felt like the longest walk in history, back to the party, where I found my friends sat on the wall watching the sunrise. Kyle was sat there in the shades that had become his trademark on a night out. That was nothing new. Sitting next to him though, with Kyle’s arm around her, was a little blonde thing, Louise, who I recognised from Club Z. That was a surprise.
“Where’ve you been? We thought you’d gone home!” Kyle shouted at me as he saw me walking up the path.
“Got a bit heavy last night mate, I had to go and chill-out somewhere,” I replied, looking down at his bi-colour jeans. “I don’t remember you wearing those two shades of blue jeans last night.”
Louise laughed.
“They’re wet bruv,” Kyle said, “I went in the sea.”
“Why’d you go in the sea?”
“To rescue Al.”
“Why was Al in-”
“I wasn’t,” Al interrupted me. “I was sat right next to him on the sea wall. The twat even told me he was going to rescue me, ‘Al’s drowning Kyle gotta save him’ he said. Before going in up to his thighs.”
I sat down next to them, feeling as rough as they all looked but glad I wasn’t the only one to see things that night.
“Where did you chill out?” James asked me.
“Under a beach hut by Wanton pier.”
“You spent the night under a beach hut?” James asked.
“Not the whole night. I spent the start of it running away from people with flowers growing out of their heads.”
“You fucking nutter!” Kyle laughed.
I smiled at him, “Like you said lifeguard Kyle. Proper trippy pills.”