To Hell With Your New Shit

I stormed across the front lawn, vaguely aware of the sky’s own storm brewing overhead. I knew I had no way to get home; Garrett was still inside, working his way towards becoming completely plastered, so getting him to drive me home was out of the question. I didn’t dare go back inside even to ask for his, or anyone else’s, keys, so I simply pulled off my uncomfortable shoes and began stomping down the sidewalk.

I was barely a block away from the party when the first rain drop hit, and had moved barely a step more when more water began pouring from the clouds above.

“Fuck!” I screamed into the humid air, glancing around for any signs of shelter. I had no clue where I was, except for noting that it had taken quite some time for Garrett and me to make it to the party by car. Figuring that I could make it to downtown Tempe in a reasonable amount of time, I took off jogging down the street.

As I rounded a corner onto the next street, a car flew by me, blinding me with its headlights and nearly splashing water onto me.

I stared hard through the rain, trying to figure out where I had ended up. The sky had long since turned an inky black, and the storm blocked any minimal light the moon could have possibly offered me. I meandered another few blocks before noticing a bus stop, perched beneath the glow of a street lamp. My heart swelled with relief and I forced my aching legs to carry me a bit further and splash through puddles before I was able to stand underneath the shelter.

I sat on the cold, metal bench and ran my hands over my face and through my soaked hair, shivering as I began to hiccup. I pulled my phone out, suddenly wondering why I had been stupid enough to roam the streets before attempting to call anyone to pick me up.

My fingers furiously dialed the number to my parents’ house. The phone line rang, and rang, and rang before the answering machine picked up and I remembered that my parents were out for the evening at a play. With minimal hope left in me, I dialed each of their cell phones, both calls going straight to voicemail. With a frustrated sigh, I began scrolling through my contacts as the wind outside the bus stop began howling even louder and stronger than before. I shivered and pulled my arms tighter around my freezing body, stopping at Garrett’s name in my address book. After that call proceeded directly to voicemail, I tried Kennedy’s number, only to be faced with dreadfully similar results. I started back at the beginning of my contacts, slowly realizing I had no one left here. Every number that I passed was that of a co-worker, a boss, a peer, an acquaintance from New York, but no one…

I stopped suddenly, my finger hovering over a name that I had not seen in my phone in three years.

“John?” I muttered to myself, blinking in disbelief. How had his phone number ended up in my phone again? I shook my head and thought that Garrett must have snuck it in there earlier in the day.

When I had moved to New York, as yet another act of independence, I had gotten my own phone line and a new number. All of my contacts had been deleted, which, at the time, only made it easier for me to attempt to move on from everything I had known in Arizona.

The wind howled again, this time accompanied by the creaking and whooshing of tree branches above me. One branch cracked loudly and I jumped, screaming, as it fell to the sidewalk not ten feet away from me.

Fear gripped at my body, and I braced myself before hitting John’s name in my list of contacts, holding the phone to my ear.

“Please pick up, please pick up,” I muttered softly to myself, hoping with everything I had that he would answer. After the second ring, there was silence, then static.

“Hello?” my heart lurched at the sound of his worried voice and I closed my eyes in relief.

“John?” I whispered, knowing he most likely could barely hear me over the storm.

“Lindsay?” he responded, and in the background I heard what sounded like the squelch of tires on the rain soaked road. “Are you okay?”

“John.” I said his name again, this time louder, before another tree branch cracked overhead. “John, I’m scared.”

I felt sobs grabbing at my throat, and I hiccupped as more tears escaped me.

“Lindsay, where are you?” he asked, his voice anxious with fear.

“I – I don’t know,” I cried. “I’m in a – a bus stop somewhere.”

“Can you see any street signs?” he asked. I peered to both ends of the street, but could see nothing through the sheets of rain.

“N-no,” I stammered as I shivered violently. I looked frantically all around me, hoping to catch something that would tell me where I was. I leaned forward in the direction of a blurry, neon sign. I could just make out the shape of what looked like a bowling pin. “I – I think I’m n-near the b-bowling alley, though.”

A sigh of, what sounded like, relief washed through my phone from John’s end before he spoke.

“Okay, I know where you are,” he breathed. “I’ll be there soon, just stay put, all right?”

I nodded, even though I knew he couldn’t see me.

“John?” I asked once more, this time nervously. “C-can you stay on the ph-phone with me? Until – until you get here?”

There was silence for a moment, and all I could hear was the sound of rain hitting the roof of the bus stop shelter. My teeth chattered and I closed my eyes.

“Yeah,” he responded finally. “Of course.”