heavily contributed to my confusing situation, were back. It was weird.
My feet moved independently of my brain, but it was quite an effort to keep going. My mind juggled images of Jack and me, as well as fleeting images of ice cream. It was purely ridiculous, but what control did I really have over my drunken thoughts?
I got into the party store and headed straight to the Ben & Jerry's display. I grabbed our poison—Red Velvet Cake for me and Phish Food for Jesse—and paid as quickly as I could. The rumble of thunder gave me a hostile greeting from outside. I hated storms, especially when I was alone. And tonight, I was more alone—and vulnerable—than usual.
Cash exchanged with the clerk, I grabbed my bag of ice cream and made a mad dash for the sidewalk. As soon as I pushed through the double doors, I was greeted by a gust of wind that almost swept me off my feet. Yeah, just like Jack had...
A droplet of rain hit my scalp as I pushed onward. It wasn't that far of a walk. I'd be okay, I'd be—
Boom! Another blast of thunder shook my whole body and terror pulsed in my veins. The raw, un-muffled sound was nearly too much to handle.
The next time I felt moisture, it was the beginning of a torrential downpour. In mere seconds, the storm had fully come to life, snarling and growling and making an instant mess of things. Lightning crawled across the sky in bright, random, branch-like patterns. Unforgiving gusts of wind sent gallons of water onto my body. Shivers broke loose inside of me as tears spilled from my eyes. In too many ways, this felt like a warzone.
"Dammit!" I screamed out at a force I had no control over. I trudged through puddles that were forming rapidly. The harder I ran, the more I splashed myself. This was unusually strong rain. It felt like I had accidentally stumbled into New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. I couldn't even hide under awnings since the moisture was flying horizontally in sheets.
I couldn't control the choked sobs that kept escaping from my lips. With how soaked my shirt was, it didn't even make sense to wipe my eyes. When I realized I had accidentally walked a block in the wrong direction, it made me cry even more. I had walked outside and immediately followed the direction of the wind without thinking.
I kept my purse tightly under my arm, aggressively shielding it from the rain.
The storm felt like my life—and at that moment, it was my life.
I wanted to control every part of it, yet moments like these arose and I couldn't do a damn thing about them. No, I couldn't just disappear and wind up safe and warm inside my bedroom, escaping the raging weather. I hated that fact more than anything.
I wanted good things to happen at all times, but they didn't. I wanted to make the right decision each and every time, but usually I didn't. Whether my assessment was right or wrong, it sure felt spot-on in that moment.
And when my choices were made and I had to live with them, I drowned in what was left, a figurative, self-imposed sea of misery. I had hurt myself, and more importantly, I had hurt others.
Was the storm even real? Had I just invented it in my mind to illustrate a point? To highlight my mistake with Jack? Additional rain blasted me in the face, and I was sure it wasn't just my imagination. An ice cream vice had led me to this extreme discomfort, this raging and relentless force of nature.
I realized it was actually kind of stupid to blame it on the ice cream. It was me, fleeing from a uncomfortable situation, that's all. And no, it wasn't Jesse's fault either. He had a life of his own, one that I never should have been jealous of.
My phone kept ringing in my purse, but I wasn't about to take the call and potentially inflict the poor thing with serious water damage. Even though I was a mess, I wasn't about to do my phone in, too. Limiting casualties seemed like the best option for sure.
But what if it's Jack?
Why did I even care? I was still a block away from home, sobbing and soaked. The few remaining people on the streets looked at me with judgmental eyes, as if I was a leper.
Just another drunk college girl, they probably thought. I gulped down