Wine-O

Darlene, Anna, and I waited until Jessica was done making out with her guy before asking if she was ready to go. She grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and drunkenly slurred that she couldn't wait to get home. Jessica blabbered on and on about how cute the frat boy was and how she was so happy we stuck around the house. I honestly didn't really think he was that attractive, but Jessica has an odd taste in men. To each his own. She'll be the first person to criticize another person's choice, though, and that truly infuriates me at times.

Anyway, the next morning I woke up to the smell of bacon. My mom didn't always make breakfast Sunday mornings, but when she did I got excited. I threw on appropriate attire and walked into my kitchen.

"Yummy," I said to my mom as I piled my hair into a messy bun. "Any for me?"

"Of course," she said, motioning to the plate of bacon. "How many eggs do you want?"

"Two scrambled, please," I said as I put two pieces of whole wheat bread in the toaster. I walked over to the dining room table where my dad and brother were sitting. I know I don't write about them much, but I'm actually pretty close with my immediate family. We're all busy during the week, but we make sure to spend time together on the weekends. We sat and ate breakfast before watching some television. Around 3 o'clock, I excused myself to do homework.

I had so much to catch up on, but I didn't mind it. I was doing well in my graduate program. So far I had a 4.0 GPA and I was on track to graduate in May. I couldn't believe how fast the program was going. It felt like yesterday that I was applying to programs. What was I going to do after I graduated? I had no idea and the more I thought about it, the more stressed I became.

I picked up my phone after transcribing interviews for a few hours. I tried not to look at my phone while I typed them and would use my phone or Netflix as a reward for an hour or two of work. Dr. O' Conner said he was thrilled with my performance on the tasks he had given me and it was really motivating. It gave me some momentum to continue with the pretty boring job of simply typing the conversations between the PhD students and mental patients they were dealing with.

When I looked at my phone, though, I had nothing new. I was kind of disappointed that Justin hadn't contacted me. Didn't he miss me? I remembered him wanting to get dinner a couple weeks after we broke up. Did he still want to? I knew it was for the best to just keep some distance, but it was hard. All I wanted to do was text him and see how he was doing. I didn't even want to think about his first weekend being single. It made my stomach churn.

I placed my phone down and got a lot more work done that night. For the next week, I kept myself busy and the weekend was upon us before I knew it.

I stayed in Friday night but rode my bike to Darlene's on Saturday around five. We started drinking wine while we watched the whole last season of Girls. The night got a little fuzzy as we started the second bottle, but I remember Jessica showing up somewhere around eight or nine. The weather was pretty nice so we went for a walk around the neighborhood. I stopped drinking as we walked (even though Darlene brought a water bottle full of wine with us). I remember throwing my bike in the back seat of Jessica's car at the end of the night and having her drive me the few blocks to my house. Nothing like an innocent girl's night of drinking at a friend's house, right?

This might be true if it weren't for cell phones. I woke up Sunday with the worst headache. I looked at my phone and my heart dropped. I had a single text message. It was from Justin. I had my iPhone set so that the message appeared before opening it.

"Sorry, I was asleep. Crazy night? ;)"

"Fuck," I thought to myself. I took a deep breathe. Now that I saw the text from him, I suddenly remembered taking out my phone and typing Justin's name out, but I couldn't remember exactly what I wrote. It must have been something about missing him. Or wanting him. So embarrassing. I couldn't procrastinate any longer. I swiped the text message and looked at the messages I sent.

I was happy to see I only managed to send out two. The first one read, "Hey friend, you awake?" and the second one said "Come on dudeeeeeeeeeeee"

I guess it could've been worse, right? I placed my phone down for the moment and stared at the ceiling. Why did I have to break first? I told myself I wouldn't break first! However, I couldn't undo what I sent. Then, I thought of it from the bright side. Justin responded. At least I was able to talk to him and instead of blaming my stupid emotions, I could just blame alcohol! This wasn't my proudest moment, but I decided this wasn't so bad.

"Oops. Yeah, sorry about that."

"Haha, it's okay! It's nice to hear from you :). How're you?"

It was a loaded question, but I tried to give a politically correct answer. "I'm okay. How about you?"

"Hanging in there," he wrote back. "So, when are we getting that dinner?"

I bit my bottom lip. I really did not think he was going to follow up on that. "Next weekend?" I texted back.

"Sounds like a date," he answered.

So, dinner with Justin. This can't go bad.