Coming to after passing out always felt strange to her. There were important questions that came to mind before she could even open her eyes.
Do you remember the end of night?
How did you get here?
Are you alone?
Who is here with you?
If none of those questions could be answered before her eyes open, there was a process to this coming to.
Quietly listen for clues as to the where and who.
Shake her head slightly to then hear if anyone speaks.
Feel around on the bed for clues.
It was a process she had learned over years of black outs and coming to.
Her late-night behavior she would later come to realize served her on an animalistic level, the need for companionship that disguised itself as intimacy.
The need to hold on to someone, anyone, so she wouldn’t lose herself. She had gotten better at hiding her neediness by dressing it up as promiscuity. The only real problem was the drinking. It caused her to black out, and the black outs had no rhyme or reason. Three drinks or fifteen drinks, hard liquor or sake, full or empty stomach almost always ended with the same results.