Abby Ryan has her whole life planned out, up until graduation that is. As a journalism student at the University of Southern Washington, she has one goal in mind for her last semester of senior year: secure a scholarship for graduate school. But whe...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
It's been five days.
Five days of randomly bursting into tears throughout the day. Five days of not being able to sleep until Jenny or Nia inevitably crawl into bed with me when they hear me crying in the middle of the night. Five days of not being able to hold down anything that I try to eat. But more than anything, it's been five days of wondering if I just made the biggest mistake of my life.
The first day was the worst, but I guess that's how it always goes. I skipped all of my classes, sat on the floor of my shower, and cried until I felt like I was drowning—like I physically couldn't rake enough air into my lungs. It wasn't until Nia knocked on the door and pulled me out of the ice-cold stream that I realized I was having a panic attack, and it wasn't until she wrapped me up in a towel and held me in a tight hug that I realized my body was shaking so hard my teeth were starting to chatter.
The second day was a little better. I had a shift at the diner, and honestly, it was a nice distraction. Or, it was, until Nancy turned all of the TVs in the restaurant to the away game broadcasting on USASN. I tried, I really, really tried not to watch it, not to pay attention to the reporters' commentary, but the second Tristan ran onto the court, I couldn't look away.
I stood in the middle of the diner, wide-eyed and unable to breathe as the camera panned across the court to show him warming up. It wasn't until the entire tray of plates slipped from my hands and shattered on the floor at my feet that I finally looked away from the TV.
I think Nancy could tell something was wrong because she sent me home early to get some rest. Only, I didn't sleep. I didn't even change out of my sweater and jeans before I crawled into bed and watched the entire game on my phone, not paying attention to anything else but the man in the crimson jersey and curls running across the court.
I stayed up until four in the morning staring at my phone, hoping that he might call, that he might break and need to hear my voice. Because I knew, at that moment, I knew if he called me and told me he wanted me, I wouldn't be able to say no.
I spent most of the third day drunk. Hammered, actually.
I climbed onto the kitchen counter and raided the alcohol cabinet above the refrigerator. I sat on the kitchen floor while I drank the coconut rum and ate the rest of the Hershey Kisses that Tristan bought me for our FaceTime movie date. It didn't take long before the combination wreaked havoc on my empty stomach, and I spent the rest of the afternoon, and most of the evening, sitting on my bathroom floor throwing up.
When Jenny got home from school, she found me asleep on the bathroom floor, clutching his hoodie, which wouldn't have been that embarrassing if it was just her that found me, but it wasn't. James also got to witness that shining moment of glory, too.
I was still too drunk at that moment to care, so much so that I couldn't stand on my own. James had to carry me into my room, where Jenny pulled my shirt over my head and helped me into one that didn't have vomit on it. I guess I'm not as skilled as I thought at drunk vomiting, but I did manage to keep his hoodie clean, so I guess even hammered in the middle of the day, I had my priorities straight.
