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Home Alone

He wanted to leave, but she didn't want to go home alone.

By Zianna WestonPublished 3 years ago 8 min read
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Home Alone
Photo by Dale Nibbe on Unsplash

The piercing heels of her stiletto patent leather boots clapped against the wet sidewalk. The puddles under her feet are no match for her step and they move to envelop her foot. They never stood a chance. A single drop of red falls from her finger, a peaceful drop that mixes in with the dirty street water. Another piece of Yankee Hat that will never return home.

--

By Onur Binay on Unsplash

The night had started out rather mundane and ordinary. Chase checked his phone for the millionth time, but all that stared back at him was the date and time, no messages. Behind the date and time, her hand was pressed against his chest. Her head tilted back in laughter looking up at him. He can’t for the life of him remember what’d he’d said to evoke the laughter but he loved that this moment was immortalized on his lock screen. They looked so… happy. And they were.

The screen grew dim again and instinctually Chase opened the screen. No new texts. No calls. No Instagram dm’s. No Facebook comments or messages. Nothing on WhatsApp. He even checked LinkedIn but still, nothing. She was serious this time, she was done. Amelia. Amelia was done.

He loved her name so much. The sound it made when he said it slowly. Or how goofy it sounded in rapid succession. It was his favorite name and now he had no occasion to say it. The name was banned by his friends, and when he did venture to sneak it into a conversation it was met by immediate disdain and aggressive eye-rolling.

“We’re not talking about her tonight dude, NOT TONIGHT”, Travis had asserted. “This has to stop. We’re going out and you’re going to get laid by someone else because I can’t fucking handle this moping anymore!”.

So, they’d gone out.

By Alexander Popov on Unsplash

“What about her?” Travis announced, a little too loudly, over the music. His third whiskey ginger appeared to have taken its effect.

“Naw dude. Come on. I told you, I don’t want anyone tonight,” Chase said as he set his gin and tonic down on the bar.

“Man, fuck this. If you’d rather go home and cry, fucking go for it. But one of us is getting some pussy tonight,” Travis slurred as he wobbled off of his barstool and made his way to the dance floor. He had his eyes set on an Ariana Grande look-a-like in a low-cut magenta dress.

Chase knew his friends were ready for him to just bang someone new and move on, but that’s just not how he operated. He needed time to grieve and process that the woman he’d dedicated three years, the best three years, of his life to was really completely unbothered by the unfathomable amount of pain he was in. He felt like his heart had been ripped out of his chest and lit on fire. How was it possible to try and fall in love again when it seemed like the most he was capable of doing was just breathing in and out, and somehow getting through each day still breathing?

That’s when he saw her. A leggy brunette in a short black skirt, a black satin tank that hugged her perky tits, and black patent leather stiletto boots that elevated her from naturally tall to model height. Her large brown eyes caught his gaze and her bright red lips smiled boldly in his direction. Chase’s eyes darted to the left and to the right to figure out who this bombshell was smiling at. But his end of the bar had been deserted for the dance floor. Was she smiling at him?

There’s no way. Chase turned back to his drink and checked his watch. He figured he’d give it another 5 before faking an upset stomach and heading home.

“Hey, is this seat taken?”, Chase heard her before he turned to look at who had asked the question. But he could tell by the tone of the voice that it was her. She sounded melodic and confident, like if a 25-year-old single barrel bourbon could speak. Bold, yet smooth. Expensive and highly sought after. Chase felt like he was in the presence of someone very special.

“Umm, yeah! Wait, no I mean yeah you can sit there. No, it’s not taken,” Chase managed to squeak out. Jesus, why didn’t he just tattoo “Women intimidate me and that’s why I dated my last girlfriend for three years before I inevitably scared her away and I should probably just get a cat because I’m going to die alone” across his forehead?

“Thanks,” she said as she sat down. “What are you drinking?” she asked as she raised her left eyebrow playfully.

“G-g-gin and tonic,” Chase stuttered. Fuck, was the stutter really back? Guess all those years in speech therapy as a kid hadn’t worked after all.

“Aww, babe do I make you nervous?” she asked as she took a sip of her drink. Some type of dark liquor on the rocks. The drink of someone decisive who gets what they want. As she asked the question, she placed her hand on his thigh. It felt nice, the warmth, the pressure, the physical contact of something besides a pillow or rolled-up blanket that he was used to cuddling with before eventually nodding off into a restless sleep.

“Sorry, I just broke up with my girlfriend, so I guess I’m a little rusty,” he said, immediately regretting bringing up his ex-girlfriend in the first five seconds of conversation.

“Well then,” she said, leaning in closer so that she could whisper seductively straight into his ear. “we’ll just have to get you another drink so that you can forget her”.

The rest of the night at the bar was spent in flirty conversation. Chase had only planned on having one drink, but that turned into two, which turned into three. But halfway through the third drink, he started to feel funny. Like when he had gone to the carnival in 4th grade with Greg Kowalski and threw up all over his older sister’s shoes after riding the tilt-a-whirl. She had been really sweet about it, insisting she wasn’t mad to try and save him from embarrassment, but he had never been able to look her in the eyes after that.

This felt just like that. The room had begun to spin a bit, and he needed to blink every two seconds to get his eyes to refocus.

“Babe, you don’t look like you’re feeling too good. Let’s go outside and get you some fresh air,”. It wasn’t a question. But he wasn’t in any condition to argue. He had no idea where Travis was anyways, so Chase figured he would step outside, regain his composure, and call an Uber to go home. It was at this moment that he realized his hand was empty. Where the fuck was his phone?

The heavy door swung open as Chase was assisted into the dimly lit alley. As soon as he stepped outside he projectile vomited all over the ground. The patent leather stiletto boots, unfortunately, found themselves to be in the splash zone.

“Jesus Christ! Is this how you treat people? They buy you drinks and listen nicely to your stories about your pathetic ex-girlfriend and then you fucking vomit on their shoes?!” she screamed as she rushed to get out of the flight path. “Do you think I would run out here, grab the Yankees hat off your head and start throwing up in that? What the fuck is your problem?”.

Chase attempted to say sorry, but as soon as he began exhaling the second wave of throw-up surfaced.

When he finished, he could tell she was mad. She kept saying she was getting them a car. But he didn’t want to go with her. He wanted to get back into the bar, find his phone, find Travis, and go home. But he could barely tell the pavement from the walls, and the walls from the sky. Was he sitting? Or was he leaning up against something?

“I want to go home,” Chase slurred.

“Well, I don’t want to go home alone,” she demanded as she put his arm over her shoulder and began lifting him up. He was able to stand, but only if he could lean on her to steady the waves he felt like he was standing on.

A blue car pulled up and the last thing Chase saw before the world went totally dark, was the maniacal look in her eyes. They were no longer chocolate brown, instead, they matched the color of her boots, pure black.

--

By @botto.ph on Unsplash

The drop of blood mixed with the dirty street water as her boot splashed it violently. A little blood on her boots she could handle, but that vomit had sent her over the edge. She had been on the fence until that point as to what she wanted to do with Yankee hat, but as soon as he threw up on her she knew he had to go. Her left hand clutched a lock of his frustratingly average brown hair. It couldn’t compete with some of the others in her collection. The pink highlights from the Rockstar drummer in the punk band that was playing on 8th street. Or the bright toe-head blonde from the sunkissed surfer. Still, even though she despised the brown, she had to document it. When she got home she found the box, wrapped in brown paper. She carefully unwrapped the box and placed the brown hair in between black curls, and a shorter red tuft. Yankee hat was never going home.

Short Story
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About the Creator

Zianna Weston

I am a true crime obsessed pet mom to Barb the cat and Harv the dog (adopt don't shop!). Ravenclaw. Currently somewhere in Los Angeles, probably watching a movie.

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