Well, here it is, the first chapter of my book, or whatever it should be called. The closer I got to posting it, the worse I actually thought it was. But hey sometimes you gotta be ballsy I guess, right? I don’t have a title yet so for now I will just refer to it as Ellie. Feel free to leave critique and what not, I’d love some feed back whether it’s positive or negative. Well, enjoy I suppose. I’m going to go throw up from nerves now.

Chapter 1

Darkness. Blurry, hot, musky darkness. All I could see was my burgundy clutch and black heels thrown on a chair next to the bed. I didn’t recognize anything about this place. In fact nothing about this room seemed familiar. The sheets draped on my legs didn’t even feel familiar. Given that my head was spinning, I could tell I was definitely still somewhat drunk from last night, maybe really drunk actually, and yet I had a splitting headache warning me that a hangover was coming my way quickly. This cruel combination was not making it any easier to grasp this situation. What even happened last night and how did I get here? All I could remember was yelling at the bartender to get us limes for tequila shots but then it’s just a drunken blur from there– naturally. Any girl, especially me, should know that a good time out with Jose Cuervo came with the hefty price of memory loss, nausea, and enough regret to consider “quitting” alcohol. Last night was definitely no exception. I wasn’t usually the type to black out from drinking, so the fact that I couldn’t remember the majority of my night was alarming to say the least. Oh God. Not only was my lack of brain function something to worry about, but as I glanced down at myself, I noticed that there was a mysterious, crusty patch splattered across my stomach. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to realize it wasn’t exactly a mystery as to what this shit was. It was the confirmation of regret.

I tried to scan the room some more, hoping that clues from last night were just going to pop up in front of me. I was terrified to know who or what I had shared this bed with last night, but my curiosity forced me to at least take a peek at the answer. Glancing out of the corner of my eye, I was alerted with the answer I was, and wasn’t, looking for. There he was, my Prince Charming. He still had a tie around his neck from last night’s outfit and his hand was deep in his plaid boxers, holding his dick like it was a cherished stuffed animal. Between the puddle of drool surrounding his mouth and the detailed wolf tattoo on his chest, a wave of nausea was starting to hit me hard. I’d love to know exactly what my drunk ass found attractive about him. Clearly she and I didn’t have the same taste in men.
I needed to break out of this hell-hole fast, and without waking this beast lying next to me. The last thing I wanted to do was reintroduce myself, half-naked to this atrocious stranger. Partially blind, I stumbled to gather what I could find of my belongings. A fork fell off his dresser as I was grabbing my clothes, but he didn’t flinch at the ping of it hitting the wooden floor below. If I didn’t get out now, I’d be sure to somehow find myself knocking over a lamp or something louder. His room was the last in the long hallway, which meant that these other closed doors housed a few other strangers, which also meant anyone could see me with my inside out blouse and hot mess of a hair style before I could leave. Since it was extremely doubtful that I washed my face from last night’s makeup, I could only assume my eyes were smeared to the point where I probably looked like I suffered from bell’s palsy. Please, please don’t let any of these roommates catch me escaping.

Finally, the exit was in front of me. As the front door of this place opened, the daylight struck me like a bullet flying out of a gun barrel. Come on Ellie; get your shit together. Searching through my bag, I could only pray that my Ray Bans (yes this would also imply that I started drinking yesterday while the sun was still shining) didn’t fall out or break. Luckily, they were still in there. Once my eyes were fully recovered from the bright rays, I realized that I was only a few blocks from my apartment. Thank God I wasn’t in some disgusting, remote part of Columbus, actually, thank God I was still in Columbus! Over the years here, I’ve seen a handful of girls make the walk of shame down High street in the mornings, but this would be my first time in their shoes. Not even ten steps into the journey and I was getting the judgmental stares from strangers. You assholes don’t even know me! Don’t look at me like I need to be evaluated by some sort of priest. I am 22 years old and if I wanted to go home with a guy, I could. Little did these people know that I was a complete newbie in the single college life world and it was the fucking scariest thing; like scarier than my organic chemistry final determining whether or not I was going to pass the class. Their gazes affected me more than I thought they would though. They only confirmed that I was now dirtier than I ever thought I would feel. If only I could walk faster, or even better, if I could snap my fingers and just appear at home, with a giant tub of Nutella, and pretzels so I could eat my feelings and ignore the real issue of the matter. Just two more blocks, two more blocks and my horrifying walk of shame would be over.

At last, I saw my dinky apartment complex and I couldn’t have been any happier. This building was actually so ugly that sometimes I was disappointed in myself when I referred to it as my home. It was one of those set ups where there were 8 or so apartments all in a row, with paper thin, depressing, yellow-colored walls and green carpet from who knows how long ago. I scurried in to see my three roommates conjuring around the kitchen table with their “breakfasts”. All three of them were major calorie counters and health freaks so a meal for them was equivalent to one of my snacks. I’m sorry but girls who only have a piece of fruit or one slice of toast for a meal really freaked me out. I could feast every few hours and they would be over there complaining about how they couldn’t even finish a whole apple, like “oh my god Becky.”

I tried to dodge them and sneak downstairs without being noticed, but Jen caught me before I could head downstairs.

“El! Where ya goin’ so fast? Come in here!”

My other roommates, Ashley and Carrie were staring at me like I was an interesting highway accident they couldn’t turn away from. They were looking me up and down as if they’d never seen a person not fully put together. How was I supposed to explain to three Mary Mandolins that I was just getting home from a one-night stand?

“Oh, uhm, you know… Didn’t feel like walking home from my friends’ place last night.”

“Oh so you went out?” Chimed Ashley. I shot her a stare, quite equivalent to the straight-eye emoji. Yeah I did. I went out and consumed alcohol. You should arrest me and save me from my sins. I have never been the type of person to really hold back any animosity towards a person. My emotions were worn on my sleeves, and I never cared much who they offended. Obviously this didn’t always work out in my favor, but hey, you win some you lose some. Ashley though, no matter how blunt I was with the girl, she never picked up on my sarcasm, snide comments, or bitch faces, ever. Some people just didn’t know snarkiness even if it smacked them upside the head.

After a moment of collecting my most pleasant thoughts, I tried to hold back as much bitchiness as possible, and replied with a subtle, “yeah, but it was casual. We just wanted to dress really cute and stuff.”

They all nodded and smiled. I should probably explain my relationship with these girls before I carry on. We all chose to live together because of our majors. The amount of time and odd schedules associated with this public health engineering major, made it easier to just live with those in the program. We all thought that was just a wonderful idea, until we discovered this year that our living habits didn’t really mesh together well and at times we all hoped the others would get hit by a car. We chose against renewing our lease for the following year, but I did sign to move into a two-bedroom place with Jen for next year. They really were nice girls, don’t get me wrong, well expect for Carrie. Sweet girl to those who didn’t share an address with her, but she was the queen of passive aggressive tendencies around the apartment. Ashley on the other hand was almost always poised, but her old-fashioned, southern ways could be quite entertaining at times. And lastly, there was Jen. She was the friend you have those never ending laughing fits with, but would lend you her shoulder when you needed a place to just cry. I still wanted to ring her neck from time to time, but I adored our weird little friendship at the same time.

After presenting myself to the judges’ panel, I couldn’t help but want to hang myself even more than I had before. I knew they meant well, but sometimes, like today, the judgment truly made me feel like the scum on the bottom of the shower curtain. In attempts to make myself seem less hungover to them, I started babbling about some fake exam in a general education course that I had to study for all day. This would probably explain why I just made 3 cups of coffee, or at least I was hoping it would. If only they would just let me go downstairs so I could mourn peacefully by myself for the day. All I wanted, and probably severely needed, was a shower and for there to be a marathon of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills on TV. That show was like crack to me, and it could cure all hangovers, bad days, and went perfectly with a giant bowl of ice cream. Even though I had a paper due in a couple days, I already convinced myself that writing hungover would be counterproductive so the day was now left to being a complete vegetable and consuming my life with endless hours of middle-aged women pretending to be important. Realistically I would make any excuse not to write another stupid paper with a boring prompt though. TAs didn’t even really read papers anyways, they just scanned them for random petty points they could take off in order to crush the dreams of success for students. I constantly swore that college is just a crash course in politics sometimes, but that’s a rant to save for another time.
At this point I was practically feaning for a shower. Saturday’s night had left me feeling grimier than I ever thought I could. My skirt and blouse clung to me as if I was a piece of raw chicken meat marinated in oil and spices. I peeled them off my body and ripped my bra off as if I was freeing myself from some sort of torture mechanism. There were very few things that felt better than taking a bra off after wearing one for way too long. I could practically hear the bells of freedom ringing every time it happened. This particular morning was extra glorious.

Sprinting into the bathroom, I turned the water on, threw my towel on the rack and hopped into the shower. There was just something about rinsing off that was so therapeutic. Sometimes when I was having a stressful day I just liked to take a long hot shower. It always made the day better and helped me think through things going on in my life. But on this particular morning, I wanted to run away from my thoughts. I was avoiding the mental breakdown over my first one-night-stand and how five months ago I could have never pictured myself in this situation, partially because I was picking out engagement rings with my long-term boyfriend. I didn’t even know the guy’s name from last night, let alone how old he was, and if we used a condom. Well actually I couldn’t fully guarantee we had sex, but I could assume so given the fact that I was practically as sore as a deflowered virgin. What if I got something from him? Oh my god, I’m a fucking whore, never to be viewed as a respectable girl again. I should just wear a scarlet letter on my chest from now on. How did I let myself drink so much that this happened? I never would have let this happen if I hadn’t blacked out. Swallowing back a handful of tears, I turned the water off. That was more reflecting than I needed right now.