See you at the crossroads

Five weeks.

It had been five weeks of witty text banter.

I stepped out of work and into the sunlight. I grabbed my phone out of my purse.

I just finished my huge work thing. I'm coming out tonight to celebrate. Get ready.

Should I be scared?

Moderately.

I did not know what a self-fulfilling prophesy that would turn out to be.

***

I walked into my apartment and dropped my keys in the basket in the foyer. The apartment looked different since I was done with the huge work thing. There weren't books and papers and binders and highlighters spread everywhere.

I also had nothing to do with my spare time. I used to be reading and studying. Now, nothing.

Since I had nothing to do, I slept. I napped until kickball was over and the players would be entering the bar. What I should have done was cooked and ate dinner, but I had a late lunch and my stomach was anxious still from the work thing as well as the prospect of seeing Abraham for the first time since we kissed and I stalked him online.

Abraham was by the bar with his team. I sat on the patio with my old teammates. We compared Tennessee Warrior Dash bruises. I lifted up my leg and showed them my knee with two kneecaps from falling during the trail run. There were scabs on both my knees running down to my ankle. My arm looked like someone attacked me.

At one point Abraham appeared on the patio to say hello to other kickballers. I was standing against the wall when he shuffled past me. He held up his drink to toast me. I responded by giving him a friendly punch in the arm. Only it was a harder punch than I intended.

"Ow!" he said.

Nice job, Sarah.

He moved on to his friends and I sat down at a table. The Leader appeared with a tray of shots, as is the custom for every kickball night. I set down my vodka tonic and picked up a shot with my friends. Because they're free, they're usually not very good and are described by non-food items. "It tastes... purple," I would typically grimace.

These shots were a dusty orange color. I don't know what were in them, but they were particularly bad. Several people guessed jager was the culprit. The Leader left the tray sitting in front of me. A tray of free shots. A tray of free shots on a night where I was feeling anxious.

Every five or so minutes, I would grab one.

And, if I went to the bar and ordered another vodka tonic, I would walk past Abraham.

Vodka tonic #2 or #3 in hand and I turned around. Abraham's team was next to me. Specifically, the beautiful boy was next to me.

I nudged his arm. "Hey, I thought about you in the shower the other day."

He did a double take and burst out laughing. He looked at the rest of the group. "She says she thought about me in the shower! I've never had a girl say that to me before!"

"No! No! I went to Warrior Dash and I cut the hell out of my legs. I remember you telling me when you hurt yourself sliding into base that all you needed was soap and warm water. So I was in the shower digging gravel out of my wounds repeating 'Soap and warm water! Soap and warm water!'"

I lifted the hem of my dress and displayed my knees to him. He, in turn, lifted his leg. "You know, I still have a scar from that slide."

I took my hand and rubbed it up his shin. This is bad. Abraham was standing right there. I straightened up and went and stood by him.

“Are we going to play flip cup tonight? We didn’t play last week when you weren’t here,” he told me.

I had heard something similar from Lawyered. I didn’t attend the first week of kickball because I was busy with work. He said no one went out afterward and there was no flip cup.

“Sure. I’ll go set it up.”

The Leader and I set up the table outside on the patio. I still carried my vodka tonic with me. Flip cup had become so popular with so many people lining the tables to play that the measly swallow of beer I got every game wasn’t enough. But surely enough, Abraham appeared by my side as he did the previous kickball season. We had a good time playing. We always do.

The free shots and the three vodka tonics and flip cup and no dinner had caught up with me. I was drunk. I was a level of drunk that I wasn’t quite prepared for. I may not be able to control my emotions when I drink, but I’ve always been able to control my composure. I’ve never blacked out and I’ve never bit it in a bathroom stall because I was simply too drunk.

Both of those things were about to change.

I took a seat in the iron outdoor chairs. I was sitting with The Leader and Abraham. The three of us were talking about drinks. I named a new shot I had at the bar, the Leader talked about something that tasted like bubblegum and Abraham named his drink. Because the three of us had never heard of the other people’s drinks, we decided to order them all for everybody. The last thing I remember is downing the first of three shots and laughing as Abraham tried to flip the heavy shot glass on the table.

[BLACKOUT]

Ooh, look! We’re leaving the bar! Okay! I guess it’s time to go!

We’re holding hands! I wonder why we’re holding hands. I really love holding hands.

I’m holding his hand not because I like him, but because if I literally lift my foot off the ground, I’m going to fall down. Must shuffle.

[BLACKOUT]

I’m sitting on his bed! This is going to be fun! Where is Abraham? The bathroom door is shut. Okay, he’s peeing.

I kicked off my cowboy boots and swung my legs like a child. All of a sudden, my stomach dropped. The rumble of regret was building. Oh no.

I ran up to his bathroom door and knocked on it.

“Come in!” he called.

But there wasn’t enough time.

I’m pretty sure Abraham swung the bathroom door open the exact second I threw up. I just remember lunging towards his bathtub while he screamed, “I said ‘Come in!’ I said ‘Come in!’”

There are different levels of throwing up. There’s the one where you just feel it’s in your best interest, so you hold your own hair and force your finger down your throat and femininely leave your bad decisions behind. And then there’s the DEFCON 1 version where you’re doing your best Exorcist rotating-head impression while begging the other person to not look at you.

I was in the latter camp.

I closed the bathroom door to be alone in my humiliation. He opened it and found me dying on his floor.

“How are you?”

“Just leave me,” I murmured face-down from his bathmat.

“You’ve been in here a little while. I’m going to go to bed.”

“Yes, please do.”

He handed me a bottle of water. I drank from it and immediately threw it up. Okay, so no water.

I fell asleep. When I had woken up I had moved from the bathmat over to a pile of Abraham’s dirty laundry that was discarded on the bathroom floor. The pile of clothes was soft compared to the cold tile floor. I could really use a shower.

I stood up up and turned on his shower. Despite losing my stomach lining down the drain, I was still very drunk. I got into his shower, propped myself against the back wall and aimed his shower head at me. DIDN’T OCCUR TO ME TO TAKE OFF MY DRESS. I think my thought process was keep my clothes on to wash them as well. Apparently I also drug his bathmat into the shower with me to clean that too.

I emerged from the shower. I didn’t look for a towel or dry myself off or take off my clothes yet. I stumbled straight into his bedroom. Abraham raised his head off the pillow where he’d been sleeping.

“You need a shirt?” he offered.

He got up and pulled out a t-shirt from his dresser. I left my wet dress on the bathroom floor and put it on. I climbed into his bed and he spooned me.

“You’re really cold,” he observed. To be fair, Abraham was also drunk. It didn’t occur to him to get a towel to dry me off or perhaps the reason I was cold was because I was sopping wet.

I snuggled up into him, pressing my butt into the curl of his body. “Everything in your bathroom is wet and awesome,” I gently warned him. I did my best to clean up the scene, but I have no idea how I really left it.

Despite me spending the last hours of my life barfing in his home, Abraham was affectionate and, more importantly, not pissed off at me. I was now awake and he was now awake. We engaged in pillow talk. Places we’ve been to at the same time without knowing the other person was there. Our impressions of each other at the kickball game we played together. Our geographical histories.

“I Facebook stalked you,” I admitted. Sweet Jesus, I hate that Drunk Me can’t keep my mouth shut.

“Oh yeah? What did you learn?”

“I learned you have a t-shirt collection,” I copped out.

“I do. And you’re in it right now.”

“I am?” I breathed. Drunk Me is also easily impressed. “Did you Facebook stalk me?”

“I did, but yours is on lock-down.” He sounded disappointed.

“It is.” He had stalked me too. “You should kiss me,” I whispered.

“I am not touching you until you scrub out that mouth of yours,” he replied.

I had completely forgotten how this night had ended. I never would have suggested that we kiss had I remembered I had been puking not too long ago. But the talking and the cuddling was so nice that I forgot about it.

We got up. He gave me a spare toothbrush and we stood at his sink at 6 a.m., brushing our teeth. I looked at our reflection in the mirror and giggled. How funny we looked, brushing our teeth together. Then I handed him back his toothbrush. I half-expected him to drop it directly in the trash, but he placed it in his cup.

We climbed back into bed. Commence making out. Commence passing out.

The next morning, I woke up staring at Abraham’s back. His shoulders seemed so broad laying in bed. Much broader than I remembered. He shut off his alarm and rolled over. I laid my head on his shoulder as he texted his boss that he was going to be late for work. My alarm went off 10 minutes later. I turned it off and we fell back asleep.

We woke up again at 10:30. He texted his boss that he was going to be even later. I tweeted my curious whereabouts and then called out late to work myself.

All of a sudden, what I remembered of the night started coming back to me. I panicked. “Omigod, I didn’t close my tab last night. And I left my purse outside on the patio. BY THE WAY, I DIDN’T DRIVE HERE, DID I?”

“I closed your tab for you. You were too drunk to do it. He handed you your slip to sign and you just kept handing him your card to pay, even though you already paid. So I signed for you. Your purse is right here by the bed. Your phone was in it, remember? And I drove you. I put you in my car and I debated waiting it out for a bit, because I knew you were going to be sick.”

None of this sounded familiar to me.

“How much was my bill? It should have been about nine dollars.”

“It was 36 dollars.”

“WHAT?”

“You ordered shots for everybody.”

That part came back to me. I remembered the word “bubblegum” and Abraham flipping the big shot glass.

“When we got back to my place, we somehow ended up on the floor in front of the bathroom. You crawled into my lap. We kissed there until I had to go to the bathroom.”

Nope, none of this is familiar, but it does sound like something I would do.

“Wait. We kissed before I threw up?”

“Yeah.”

“Was it any good?”

He laughed.

I was horrified. This has never happened. I’ve never blacked out.

Abraham made a move to get up. I wrapped my leg over him, pulled myself on top of him and laid my head on his chest, still tired. “No. You tell that boss of yours that you can’t get up because you have a girl on top of you. He’ll understand.”

Abraham ran his hand up and down my thigh as I laid on him. We drifted in and out of sleep.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m could really go for a waffle. My stomach is empty.”

“I’m hungover.”

I heard voices in the other room. “Who is home at 10:30 in the morning?” I moaned.

Abraham got up and checked. “My roommates. Apparently no one went to work today.”

I buried my head under his blankets. “But I don’t want to do the walk of shame in front of them.”

He chuckled. “Do you want me to tell them to hide while you leave?”

“Yes.”

He got into the shower and then returned to bed next to me. He leaned his legs on me.

He whispered, “I’m not going to lie. I saw what you did to my shower and I dry heaved a few times. By the way, can you wash bathmats?”

I groaned again. So much shame so early in the morning.

I kept my face away from him, but I put my hand on the thigh that was leaning into me and caressed it.

I didn’t intend it, but I knew where my hand was. He knew where my hand was. Things up to this point had been strictly PG rated. And now because of where my hand naturally fell, we were at the crux of the nature of our relationship. We both held our breaths.

I thought about what my friend Mike had said all those months ago when I was doing this dance with Clemson: You were in bed with him, but was he hard? No? Then he’s gay.

I could tell by the stretch of the fabric that Abraham was not gay.

I thought about the previous night and my behavior compared to Abraham’s behavior. I was a psychotic mess. Abraham never complained. He took me home and took care of me. He picked up the pile of dirty laundry that I slept in and put it in the wash along with one yucky bathmat. He put my wet dress in a bag. He was in bed beside me, not angry, but affectionate.

I felt so guilty that I had I’m-sorry sex.