....I promise there will be a good story in here somewhere.
Jessica woke up on Sunday morning confused. The previous night was a blur of sipping and spilling drinks. As she opened her eyes she struggled decide at whose apartment she must have past out. Her head was surprisingly ache free and she assumed she must still be drunk, but as she looked around the room she realized where she was. She was not on a friend’s couch but instead in her old bedroom at her parents house. She was horrified. How obnoxiously drunk must she have been for her friends to drop her off with her parents of all people at some ungodly hour of the morning? She laid in bed thinking for awhile before she even noticed the calender.
It had all started a few weeks back when Jessica ran into Trevor. Trevor had been one of her many love interests in college, but it had never panned out the way it should have. He was always going abroad or seeing someone else, and Jessica did her fair share of the same, but they both seemed to know it eventually would happen. But it didn’t ever happen, and when she ran into Trevor just 17 days ago there was a sense of regret she had not expected. Especially since it was the day after her long time boyfriend had proposed to her. She was so excited to finally start her life with him, to see Trevor felt like a punch in the stomach. He was nice, and just like she remembered and she tried so hard to suppress the feelings she felt rising up inside her. She knew she couldn’t move forward in her life without at least entertaining the idea that she could be happy with Trevor, but no self respecting man, especially not her fiance would wait around for her to figure things out.
She reached for her phone on her bedside table and was surprised to see it plugged in and charging. She felt momentarily proud of her drunken for thought, but that feeling quickly evaporated as the confusion of why her phone had morphed from an iphone to an old nokia. She picked up the phone; struggling to remember how to use it, she searched through her recent calls and text messages. None of her friends from the night before showed up. She searched through her contacts looking for someone to answer the questions racing through her head now. She did not want to go talk to her parents with no recollection of the night before or how she ended up there. But she seemed to be missing most of her friends from her contact list. A feeling of dread sunk in as she noticed her most recent call was to Trevor at 11pm.
Just then her mother knocked on the door, and pushed it open slightly. “Jessica, It’s time to get up. The race is in 45 minutes.” “What race?” She replied not even taking into account the fact that her mom didn’t seem at all surprised to see her. “the turkey trot. you know the one we go to every thanksgiving since you were about 10.” Jessica stared at her blankly not putting any of the pieces together. “I think you had too much to drink last night, I know the night before thanksgiving is the best night to go out and see your friends but you should have maybe had a few less. I think you’re still drunk. who drove you home last night?” Jessica thought her mom was right about still being drunk but she also thought she must not be understanding her correctly. “It’s thanksgiving?” was all she came up with. “yes It’s thanksgiving. hurry up and get dressed so we can run this race. I’ll even let you go back to bed afterwards.” Her mom left and shut the door behind her, leaving her more confused than ever. She looked at her phone and remembered in college how she had one just like it. She got up and out from under the covers and realized she was in her favorite pajama bottoms and a long sleeve t-shirt she got from a race in high school. She searched her bedroom for her clothes from the night before. She had been wearing striped shorts and a tank top. She had carried her new pink lesportsac. She couldn’t find any of it. She looked at her phone again. It said the date was Thursday November 28th. She turned to the calender above her desk, where her laptop sat covered in stickers. It showed the picture for October but the year was 2007.
She had no idea what was going on but as her mother yelled again to hurry up, she grabbed a sports bra and shorts from her closet and got dressed to run the turkey trot.
The race seemed like a dream to her. She saw all the same people she always saw on thanksgiving day, but they seemed more familiar than ever. her eyes were drawn to Mr. Blake’s large hat that was shaped like a turkey, and as soon as she saw it she thought “not again” but everyone else seemed to be seeing it for the first time. She ran the race, determined to finish as soon as possible so she could go back to bed, but her legs seemed to refuse her. She still got third place in her age group.
Her mom lectured her on the way home, “I know you’re tired, but I don’t really get your attitude right now?” “I’m sorry, mom” “you know when you go back to school,” Jessica imagined she was a dog and her ears perked up. she had graduated several years ago, was she talking about grad school? “if you want your dad to keep putting five hundred in a month, I think you need to act a little more like we’re your parents.” Jessica just stared blankly back at her mother. She hadn’t gotten an allowance since junior year.
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