Page 45 of Oh, Hell No

Winslet

I was not ever doing that again. I rubbed my face, groaning as I walked into the kitchen after nine the next morning. I didn’t remember going to bed. That wine was potent. I squinted against the sunlight pouring into the room and went directly to the Keurig. Coffee first.

Getting down a cup and putting it in place before hitting Brew, I tried to replay the night before. The familiar sound of the machine cranked up, and I headed to the living area to see what kind of a mess I had made. There had been ice cream involved, and if I had left it out, then there would be a sticky mess to clean up. My gaze brushed past the television to see it was still on, although nothing played. It was back to the Netflix screen that made you choose who was watching.

When my eyes swung over to the coffee table, I was prepared to find melted ice cream, but hoping I didn’t. My entire bodystilled, and my breathing seized on the middle of an inhale. An icy-cold feeling seeped through me as I stared at the sofa and what sat on it. My throat felt much like it had when Oz held me by it and squeezed. I shivered, my body reacting to the situation and every scenario that was rushing through my head. There was not one that made sense, not one that eased the terror, laced with confusion, that had me transfixed.

How in the HELL was the sloth from yesterday in my apartment? This was how horror movies began. This scene right here would be an excellent start to one. Another quake shook my body, and I realized I hadn’t finished taking a breath. I sucked it in hard, then let it out.

Think, Winslet. You drank a lot. There was some blacked-out part where you put the ice cream away, blew out the candle, and got in bed. What else happened? Did someone stop by?

My eyes swung then, making sure there were no other glasses around. But there was just mine. The Goldfish I hadn’t bothered to put away.

“Who was here?” I whispered, trying so hard to remember something. “Think!”

I closed my eyes for a moment. Had Toby come back?Oh, please don’t let him have come here while I was blackout drunk.What would I have said to him when I was like that? Would he have known I wanted the sloth? Gone back and won it for me and wanted to check on me and give it to me?

He hadn’t seemed that observant. I was finding that unlikely, but then there was no other person there that was around when he was playing that game. Besides, I hadn’t said I liked the sloth.

I stared back at it and all its cuteness. “How did you get there? Who brought you?” I asked the inanimate object as if it were going to reply.

Had it been a pure coincidence and he had chosen the one I wanted? I mean, it was a one out of three chance. It wasn’timpossible that he’d guessed right. But that meant he had come here last night, and I had no memory of it. I wouldn’t have kissed him, would I? Alec had always said I was brutally honest when drunk. I’d told him once that I faked orgasms during sex with him because I couldn’t ever get off before he did. That had caused a rather dramatic fight when I sobered up.

If that was the case, then what in God’s name would I have told Toby? I grimaced. He’d still left me the sloth. It had to have been him. It wasn’t like someone else would stop by and bring it. No one other than Toby was at that festival who also knew where I lived and would come visit me.

That was it. Not another soul, I thought as I started to go over and get the empty wine bottle.

But there had been one other…soul there who knew where I lived and had seen us at the ring toss game.

My eyes cut back to the sloth. There was no way…I mean…was there?

I scrunched my nose and went to the sloth and picked it up. I studied it closely.

Hadheeven been close enough to see what game we were playing? He wouldn’t have known I liked this one even if he could.

Right?

I stood there, replaying it all in my head for any clue that it might have come from Oz, which would mean he had stopped by last night. The things I might blurt out to him while I was drunk.

Oh, please no, God. Do not let that man have come by here last night. Not with me like that.

No, it was fine. I didn’t remember everything, but I did remember what I had googled and found out about him. That man was not going to go win me a sloth and bring it to me. He was more than likely in bed with Miss America, doing all the things I fantasized him doing to me.

I shook my head. “You are a silly girl,” I said out loud. “If anyone stopped by to bring you this, it was not that man. No way.”

Now, I just hoped whatever I had said to Toby wasn’t something too terrible. Because as annoying as his relentless texting had been yesterday, this was incredibly sweet. I hoped drunk me had taken that into consideration.

I set the sloth back down. “You need to stay in here because after all that panic, I need some time with Oz Jr. in my room to feel better,” I told the stuffed sloth.

My adrenaline high I’d gone through while thinking some psycho had broken into my apartment and left me a sloth, then going through possessed doll ideas in my head, which were ridiculous and I knew it, to the only reasoning being Toby had brought it while I was blind drunk had my body all tensed up.

Me, Oz Jr., and some fantasies without the image of the woman I’d seen on his arm last night would give me the endorphins I needed to restart and have a better rest of my day.

I had cleaned out my fridge, warming up the breakfast sandwiches and wrapping them in foil, then putting them with the other food items that Toby had brought, then left to go buy groceries. On my way, I stopped on the side of the road near the bridge where I knew several homeless people lived and dropped off the Toby food, not wanting to waste it. I had taken food there more than once. If I ever had too much and couldn’t eat it all before it ruined, that was where it went. I had found that place after asking around a couple of years ago.

Alec had thrown a big party at his parents’ house, and they had it catered. When I saw all the leftover food, I asked what he was going to do with it. It wasn’t going to fit in the refrigerator. Hesaid his mom would have the house cleaner toss it. The thought of that made the phantom hunger pains from my childhood rear their ugly head, and I went intooperation save the foodmode. When I started packing up the before it was thrown in the trash, her house cleaner told me about the homeless families under the bridge. When I asked his mother if I could take it all them, she thought it was a lovely idea and said she never thought of it.

Seeing them and how grateful they were for the food would have been thrown into the trash, I had made it a point to do this every chance I had. The faculty Christmas party at school last year, I had asked the principal, Mr. Clairton, if it would be okay if I took them the leftovers, and he had all faculty be involved and drive out there. I’d hoped it was eye-opening for them and they’d do that instead of tossing out food that was still good.

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