A Night On The Town

A Story by Deirdre

Sup? Wrote this in my creative writing class a year ago and only realized it wasn't half bad.

        Sarah groaned as she opened her eyes. Her head was vibrating it hurt so much. The sun shining in through the window was not helping either. Then an absolutely horrifying thought came to her mind. She had no idea where she was. Then an even worse thought came next. She didn’t know who was sleeping next to her either.
       “S**t” she accidentally said out loud.
        S**t she said in her head after realizing she woke whoever was lying next to her.
         “Good morning,” He said as he smiled at her with baby blue eyes, “Would you like some breakfast? I could make some waffles.”
        Oh my God, this isn’t a man, it’s an infant, she thought to herself.
        “That’s alright. I should probably get going actually”
        “Oh, so soon? I thought you might want to stay a little while longer”
        “No that’s OK, my husband is probably wondering where I am”
        He looked a little sad. Oh dear, she thought to herself, this probably isn’t good.
        “I didn’t know that you were married.”
        “Yeah, well, the ring on the left hand is usually a tell tale sign. Actually come to think of it, where is my wedding ring?” Sarah began to frantically search the floor looking for her lost ring.
        “I didn’t see a ring on your hand last night at the bar. If I had I would not have tried to pick you up. I don’t do married chicks. I don’t dig having to fight off the husband.”
        Oh good, the pubescent child I just had a one-night stand with is trying to convince me that he has morals, Sarah thought to herself. Then all of a sudden she vaguely remembered something from the night before. There was definitely a fight, and lots of yelling. Her husband, Dave, was there, and so were a lot of people she didn’t recognize. Maybe a restaurant? I am never drinking again, she thought to herself. Then she landed on it. She definitely walked out of the restaurant, turned around to her husband, took off her ring, and threw it at him. This was going to be a very long day.
        She got dressed as quickly as she could, called herself a cab, and parted ways with her temporary bedmate, who’s name she could not remember. As the cab drove her back to her house she searched her purse without success for her cell phone. She had no idea where it was. Hopefully she had left it at the bar, and not at unnamed Man-Child’s house. Before she knew it, the taxi was pulling up to her house. She glanced at the car clock as she paid the driver. 10:00. No wonder she felt so sick, she never woke up this early on the weekends, even when she wasn’t hung-over.
        As silently as she could she opened her front door and punched in the 4-digit code into the alarm system before the timer went off. She shut the door and crept up the stairs. She decided a shower was the best way to rid herself of last night’s stench. When she got out of the shower and went into her bedroom to change, it was empty. She heard noise from the kitchen and knew that Dave was probably putting together some breakfast. She dressed quickly and went to the kitchen. The air was tense when she entered. Dave was making pancakes at the stove with his back turned towards her. Sarah waited in the doorway while Dave stayed at the stove. The awkward silence was more than Sarah could really bear.
        “So we aren’t going to talk at all then?” She asked tentatively
        “Where did you go last night?” She couldn’t detect any anger in his voice, but she couldn’t detect any other emotion either.
        “I stayed at Lisa’s.” She responded, hoping to God he hadn’t called Lisa’s looking for her.
        “What happened to your cell phone? I tried calling you.”
        “I don’t know, I think it fell out of my purse in the taxi on the way over to Lisa’s.”
        He nodded, but said nothing else. Sarah decided to concentrate on something other than her emotionless husband and began to set the table. By the time she had finished setting the table Dave had finished making the pancakes. They both ate quietly, only breaking the silence to ask for the syrup or juice.
        After breakfast he went out to the garage to tinker with whatever project he was working on, while Sarah decided to keep it easy by reading a book. At around 3:30 she woke up to the phone ringing. She had fallen asleep on the couch while reading her book.
        “Hello?” Oh no. Her husband had gotten to the phone first.
        “No, I’m sorry there’s no one here with name ‘Stacey.’ Nope no Stephanie’s either. Sylvia? Sorry, no.”
        Sarah felt her heart beat increase with each second.
        “Sarah? Yes there is a Sarah here. And who is this? Kevin?”
        Kevin! That was his name.
        “Sure just one moment, let me get her.”
        She swallowed hard as her husband handed the phone over to her.
        “Honey, I think it’s whoever you slept with last night. He says he has your cell phone.”
        “Oh, thanks, Dave.” Sarah got off the couch and moved into the bathroom and sat on the floor.
        “Hey, Sarah! It’s me, Kevin!”
        “Yeah, I know. What are you doing? Are you insane? Why would you call me at my house if you knew I was married, and also knew that we both slept together last night? Are you an idiot?”
        “Well, how else was I supposed to get you your phone back?”
        “My phone? My phone! I don’t care about my phone! What I care about now is how my husband is going to get back at his adulteress of a wife!”
        “You shouldn’t be so tense, Sarah. Maybe you should come back to my place, I could help with that problem”
        “I’m sorry, are you serious? You just ruined my marriage and you want me to come back to your place? Are you inept?”
        “What, you said that your marriage was pretty much over, right?”
        “I’m hanging up now.”
        Sarah took a very large breath before leaving the bathroom. She also tried very hard to not let the very threatening tears escape her eyes. She stood up, opened the door, and walked into the hallway. She made her way back to her living room, put the phone down on the in table and sat down on the couch opposite from her husband, who was sitting in an arm chair. She tried to avoid his gaze, but it became increasingly difficult, seeing as his eyes never left her face.
        “So, after one fight you decide to just throw in the cards and go out slumming?”
        “’Slumming’? Does anyone even say that anymore?”
        “Can you be serious just for once? I swear that’s your biggest problem! You act like a petulant child most of the time. Then the second you don’t get something that you want you go out and do as you please!”
        “It’s not like you didn’t know what I was like before we got married, Dave. What, did you think that I’d have some great change of personality the moment I said ‘I Do’ and that everything would be perfect? You knew what I was like before we got married, and I never led you to believe that I was any different.”
        “Oh, so it’s my fault that you went out slept with some guy you don’t know, because I should’ve expected you to act like that? Do you even listen to yourself when you talk?”
        “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. I never expected myself to be the type of person to cheat, but I was just so angry last night, and I just went into the first bar I saw. I drank a lot and everything sort of just happened. I didn’t realize what was going on at the time!”
        “Oh good, so I should just go ahead and forgive you for cheating on me because you drank so much you didn’t even realize what was happening.”
        “You know some of this is your fault, you know.”
        “Oh really! I can’t wait to hear this.”
        “After I through my ring at you and ran off, what did you do?”
        Silence came from Dave’s side of the argument.
        “Well, what did you do?”
        “I went back inside the restaurant and sat down at our table.”
        “Right. It’s so good to know that I’m worth so much to you that you’d rather go back and sit in some f*****g restaurant then go out after me. Maybe that’s all I want! Just for you to go out after me. Even now, you’re probably not even angry about how I preferred some college-aged idiot to you, you’re probably just angry because I f*****g embarrassed you!”
        “You’re being ridiculous. And it’s not like I didn’t try at all! I was calling your cell phone all night!”
        “Oh yeah, sure.”
        Sarah reached over and grabbed the house phone. She hit redial and waited for the other end to answer.
        “Hello?” Came Kevin’s confused voice.
        “Kevin, it’s Sarah.”
        “Uh, hi?”
        “Could you please check the missed calls on my cell phone?”
        “Yeah I’m not sure if I really want to be involved in this…”
        “Kevin. Check the f*****g missed calls.”
        “OK, OK. I’m checking, hold on.”
        Sarah waited a few minutes while she heard Kevin fumbling with the phone on the other end.
        “OK, there was one missed call from ‘Dave’ at 11:30.”
        “Thank you, Kevin.”
        Sarah hung up the phone and looked at her husband, who seemed a little nervous. She also felt a few tears begin to fall down her cheeks.
        “One call, 20 minutes after I had left the restaurant. You probably didn’t even call Lisa to see if I was with her. Tell me something; was this just a big mistake? Should we even bother anymore? I mean we obviously don’t care about each other. You ignore me when possible, and I crawled into bed with somebody who quite possibly has a smaller IQ than a Cray fish.”
        Sarah looked at her husband, waiting for him to answer. She couldn’t believe it. Barely a year of marriage, and it was already over. She had been so looking forward to growing old with someone.
       “I think I’m going to stay at a hotel for tonight, and we’re going to talk some more tomorrow,” Dave finally said, “I think it’s best that we don’t make any quick decisions right now.”
       “Whatever you say, Captain.”
       Sarah got up and retreated back into the bathroom. She crumpled onto the floor and began sobbing uncontrollably. She didn’t leave until she was certain that she had heard Dave’s car drive away. She was certain that she was going to be facing some very long days in the very near future.