Wake Up Call

Quote: "Who knows what true loneliness is – not the conventional word but the naked terror? To the lonely themselves it wears a mask. The most miserable outcast hugs some memory or some illusion."-Joseph Conrad

My eyes open and are met with a spinning ceiling I don’t immediately recognize. My stomach is turning, vision blurred as my night pieces together.

I’d driven to Montclair State University because they’d asked me to come and I’d had nothing else better to do. I was beginning to realize driving 37 minutes strictly for a good time had become my only option thanks to my own dead town. That and there was a good chance I’ll be transferring there in a year or so thus allowing me to call my partying "research".

I’d poured a shots of Southern Comfort for the four of us and before we clanked our glasses together I made sure we made an ironic toast to Kristina, who had bought the bottle for me a mere month ago. I’d drank half the bottle with her that night and assumed we’d eventually finish it together. That was before she left for school and informed me she "couldn’t be the way she used to be".

I eventually found acquaintences, guys who had heard bits and pieces of my story and promised to get me laid. We strolled the long twisting halls of the maze like dorm smiling at the girls in the hall, flirting and shouting. Thinking back I don’t know why this ever seemed like a good idea or ever does for that matter. So many times I’ve found myself in this situation, drunk and talking to a pretty girl who is never even close to as intoxicated as I am. Why I ever think that me, leaning against a wall, goofy smile on my face slurring the words "you’re pretty" will ever make a girl say "you know what, I should fuck him", is beyond me.

I ended up back at the dorm, without a girl but I’m not upset about that now. It would have felt good for a little while but waking up the next day I’d be in the situation I’m in now, a notch on the bed post won’t help me. The SoCo was gone by now, instead I was drinking sour apple bacarrdi, a drink I don’t even like. I started to become that guy, you know the one. The sad drunk who feels sorry for himself. Brittany, Kristina’s best friend helped me to the bathroom, telling me not to forget about her. That Kristina isn’t who I thought she was. The story she told next I had to promise to keep secret. I was never allowed to tell anyone that Kristina hooked up with another guy the Friday before she’d left for school. That she stood me up 2 nights later because she was waiting for him to call. That he’d since ended things with her, leaving her devestated. I gripped the sink as her words sunk in.

"What the fuck," I shouted, before stumbling towards the toilet.

I puked. Not the violent kind of puke that drinking as gotten me used to but the kind that almost made me feel better afterwards. Brittany took me out in the hall, rubbing my back while I fought my eyes from tearing. "I would never do that to her," I whispered.

"You’ll find a better girl," She promised. "One who would never even think about hurting you, who loves you, who won’t screw you over. You will, I swear."

I shook my head, unsure of what to make of anything she was saying. I collapsed onto the bedroom floor of Scott’s dorm not long after, passing out almost immediately. Which brings me to the morning, staring at the ceiling, thinking about a girl who was hurting over a guy who wasn’t me. Realizing I’d done nearly the same thing when I broke up with my girlfriend for Kristina, believing we were about to be part of something big. Something that mattered. Something that went both ways.

I’m sitting on my own bedroom floor now, typing away. Loneliness setting in, hoping that when tommorow comes Kristina won’t matter and I can go back to normal.