Page 1 of Always Yours

1

Ellen

Fourteen Years Ago

I’m literally doing the one thing I told myself I would never do… the walk of shame. I mean it’s five o’clock in the morning, so I guess the likelihood of me being seen by anyone in this sleepy college town is what I have going for me, but it’s still clichéd as fuck.

I’m a disheveled mess, my shoes in my hands and my hair piled high on top of my head as I stealthily move across the parking lot toward where I left my car last night.

That too was another poor decision in a long line of shitty choices I’ve made over the last few hours.

While I wasn’t exactly crazy shitfaced, I was drunk and I probably never should have been driving, but the apartment was only minutes from the bar and I wasn’t super keen on leaving my car there overnight.

If my parents found out I was at a bar underage and I left my car there to be towed away, broken into or pilfered through, I’d be back in California before I could say undergraduate. So ultimately the decision was made to drivethe speed of an old lady on her way to church on Sunday than risk my parents finding out.

The guy I ended up hooking up with passed out about a quarter of the way into our make out session, which was somewhere around three a.m., and then I subsequently fell asleep. Only to wake up at five disoriented, hungover and wondering where the hell I was.

Not wanting to wake him for several reasons, the main one being he was not nearly as attractive as he was four hours ago, I grabbed my things, and I am now tip-toeing through the parking lot in the dim light of the sun as it peeks over the horizon.

“Fuck,” I mumble as I step on a piece of gravel only steps from my car. “Why the fuck would I have ever thought this was a good idea?” I again mutter, questioning myself and my stupidity.

My head is throbbing and all I want to do is get home. I’m currently making a mental list of things I will never again do in my life. The number one being driving drunk, number two being hooking up with a guy while drunk, and number three, doing the walk of shame while hungover.

When I finally do reach my car, I take a quick look around, scanning the parking lot and surrounding balconies for people, making sure no one has seen my stupid ass.

By now I’m freezing because no self respecting college girl would think to wear a coat to a bar despite it being winter in Michigan. That would hide the halter top and low-slung jeans that I’m inappropriately wearing in the dead of fucking winter.

Add that shit to my endless list of poor choices and again I mutter shamelessly to myself.

Just as I’m about to find solace in my slightly warmer car, it’s all blown to shit. I hit the unlock button on my key fob, grab the door handle and just as I fling open the door, a skunk crawls out from under my car.

“What the fuck!” I yell out, again not my finest decision, because I of course startle the little fucker and he sprays me.

Holy hell, in that instant my eyes start burning, and that hangover that was like a railroad spike in my forehead is now making me puke violently on the asphalt.

All of this clouds my ability to notice that the skunk has now taken up residence in my car, and when I finally stop puking and see his Pepé Le Pew ass in the backseat of my little coupe, I cry out. “Fuck, no! No, no no!” I scream, now sobbing and wondering how the fuck I got myself into this mess.

“Hey!” I hear a voice call out as I listen to the sound of feet crunching along the gravel in the parking lot and making their way toward me.

“Fuck me,” I mumble, that feeling of nausea hitting me like a giant wave when I suck in a breath. The smell of the skunk fully embedded in my nose makes me retch once again just as a tall brown-haired stranger makes his way over to me.

“You okay?” he yells to me, his distance just far enough that the smell of the skunk mixed with my Long Island Iced Tea vomit hasn’t hit him yet.

This is not how my walk of shame was supposed to go down and I really want to tell this guy to fuck off, but when I look into my car, I can see that stinky fucker pacing back and forth on the floorboard.

The guy walks closer and I can tell he’s not sober, but he’s my only chance at making it out of this without too much more embarrassment.

I swipe at my raccoon eyes, now made worse by my fantastic gastro Olympics and the continuous flood of tears coming from my overactive tear ducts.

“No,” I whimper, as the guy approaches my car.

But when he’s within a couple of feet, he recoils and vomits spectacularly on the ground only a few inches from his own feet.

“Holy fucking shit,” he says, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. “What is that fucking smell?”

“It’s a skunk,” I tell him, motioning at my car, and not wanting to admit that it’s probably more likely the smell of my own puke too. “It’s in my car,” I moan, the tears once again starting up.

My parents are going to fucking kill me.

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