Migraine!

Suddenly, his head exploded in a splitting headache. His eyes started to water, and the din of the rap music made it feel like someone had a jackhammer on his skull. He had to get out of here before he started puking.

He headed toward the front door, realized that he’d gone the wrong way and changed course. It was difficult to make his way through the crowd. The pain in his head was making it hard to see and walk. After struggling to get to the door for several minutes, he finally saw it ahead of him. He stumbled once he was free of the throng, but got to the door without falling down or emptying his guts.

He opened the door, and the two thugs just nodded to him as he left. Walking down the front sidewalk, the fresh air helped a little, and the nausea weakened to a somewhat manageable level. He was a mile from home, and, since he left the party early, he can’t use his Jedi mind trick on Colin or any of the others. He doesn’t think he could anyway with this migraine headache pounding on his brain. He’ll have to walk. He set out in the direction of his house.

He got about four blocks before he realized that he had no idea where he was. The houses in this neighborhood were unfamiliar. He wandered around for about fifteen minutes before he found the main street back to his house. This headache was disorienting him quite a bit. Another fifteen minutes of walking got him back to his block, and he walked up to the house. He spent a couple minutes catching his breath, even though the walk shouldn’t have winded him. He also tried to get his pain under control. He managed to at least get presentable for his mother, so he walked in the house.

“Hi, Mom, I’m home!” he called out as he walked through the living room.

His mom was sitting on the couch, watching the evening news. “Hi, Dear. You’re home early.”

“Yeah, if I’m going to get the chores done and get to school by ten tomorrow, I need to get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Are you all right? You look a little pinched,” she asked with concern.

“I’ll be okay. I have a headache, but I’ll take some Ibuprofen before bed.”

“Okay, see you in the morning.”

He trudged up to the bathroom, peed and brushed his teeth, took a pill and water, and went to his room, flopping into bed. After tossing for half an hour, he finally got comfortable enough to fall asleep.