Walking Disaster

fucking know. Probably not enough to deserve her.”
    Cami shrugged, holstering the bottle back in its spot. “I think you should let her be the judge of that.”
    I lit a cigarette, taking a deep breath, and adding my lungfuls of smoke to the already murky room. “Toss me another beer.”
    “Trav, I think you’ve had enough already.”
    “Cami, just fucking do it.”
    I WOKE UP WITH THE EARLY AFTERNOON SUN SHINING through the blinds, but it might as well have been noon in the middle of a white sand desert. My lids
instantly closed, rejecting the light.
    A combination of morning breath, chemicals, and cat piss stuck to the inside of my dry mouth. I hated the inevitable cotton mouth that came after a hard night of drinking.
    My mind instantly searched for memories from the night before but came up with nothing. Some type of partying was a given, but where or with who was a complete mystery.
    I looked to my left, seeing the covers pulled back. Abby was already up. My bare feet felt weird against the floor as I trudged down the hall and found Abby asleep in the recliner. Confusion
made me pause, and then panic settled in. My brain sloshed through the alcohol still weighing down my thoughts. Why didn’t she sleep in the bed? What had I done to make her sleep in the
chair? My heart began beating fast, and then I saw them: two empty condom wrappers.
    Fuck. Fuck! The night before came crashing back to me in waves: drinking more, those girls not going away when I told them to, and finally my offer to show them both a good time—at the
same time—and their enthusiastic endorsement of the idea.
    My hands flew up to my face. I’d brought them here. Bagged them here. Abby had probably heard everything. Oh, God. I couldn’t have fucked up any worse. This was beyond bad. As soon
as she woke, she would pack her shit and leave.
    I sat on the couch, my hands still cupped over my mouth and nose, and watched her sleep. I had to fix this. What could I do to fix this?
    One stupid idea after another flipped through my mind. Time was running out. As quietly as I could, I rushed to the bedroom and changed clothes, and then snuck into Shepley’s room.
    America stirred, and Shepley’s head popped up. “What are you doing, Trav?” he whispered.
    “I gotta borrow your car. Just for a sec. I have to go pick up a few things.”
    “Okay . . . ,” he said, confused.
    His keys jingled when I took them from his dresser, and then I paused. “Do me a favor. If she wakes up before I get back, stall, okay?”
    Shepley took a deep breath. “I’ll try, Travis, but man . . . last night was . . .”
    “It was bad, wasn’t it?”
    Shepley’s mouth pulled to the side. “I don’t think she’ll stay, cousin, I’m sorry.”
    I nodded. “Just try.”
    One last glance at Abby’s sleeping face before I left the apartment spurred me to move faster. The Charger could barely keep up with the speed I wanted to go. A red light caught me just
before I reached the market and I screamed, hitting the steering wheel.
    “God dammit! Turn!”
    A few seconds later, the light blinked from red to green, and the tires spun a few times before gaining traction.
    I ran into the store from the parking lot, fully aware that I looked like a crazy person as I yanked a grocery cart from the rest. One aisle after another, I grabbed at things that I thought
she’d like, or remembered her eating or even talking about. A pink spongy thing hung in a line off of one of the shelves, and that ended up in my basket, too.
    An apology wasn’t going to make her stay, but maybe a gesture would. Maybe she would see how sorry I was. I stopped a few feet away from the register, feeling hopeless. Nothing was going
to work.
    “Sir? Are you ready?”
    I shook my head, despondent. “I don’t . . . I don’t know.”
    The woman watched me for a moment, shoving her hands in the pockets of her white-and-mustard-yellow-striped apron. “Can I help you find something?”
    I pushed the cart to her register without responding, watching her scan all of Abby’s favorite foods. This was the stupidest idea in the history of ideas, and the only woman alive that I
gave a shit about was going to laugh at me while she packed.
    “That’ll be eighty-four dollars and seventy-seven cents.”
    A short swipe of my debit card, and the sacks were in my hands. I bolted into the parking lot, and within seconds the Charger was getting the cobwebs blown out of her pipes all the way back