Between (Sparse Updates)

One

"Fuck," I grumbled when my cell phone's shrill ringtone ripped me from a dead sleep.

I rolled over and stuffed my head under my pillow, hoping it would stop soon so I could go back to the pleasant dream that was already slipping from my memory.

I let out a relieved sigh when silence filled my room again. I stuffed my pillow back under my face and hugged the bottom half of it to my chest as I prepared to return to a lovely dreamscape, but unfortunately, the peace was short lived. Moments later, my phone started ringing again.

I groaned, turning over and groping blindly for it on my desk, which currently doubled as a nightstand. I knocked over an empty water bottle in the process, but as soon as I had the phone in my hand, I forced my eyes open, saw the time, and groaned again. It was my roommate calling.

"What do you want?" I grumbled, closing my eyes again as I held the phone to my ear. I could hear loud, bass-heavy music pounding in the background, so it wasn't hard to figure out where he was.

"Can I get a ride home?" he slurred heavily.

"It's two in the fucking morning, Ben."

"Please?"

"Call Safe Ride," I muttered, since the program was meant to handle this exact situation. 

"Dude. I'm drunk and underage. I'm not calling Public Safety to bring me home like this."

"Then walk."

"That's a long ass walk, Christian. Plus it's blizzarding out. If I try to walk home I might actually die."

I sighed, weighing my options.

"Fine," I grumbled, sitting up to find a pair of jeans to throw on, "but you owe me big time."

"Yeah, yeah. What's your ETA?" he asked.

"Well it'll probably take about twenty minutes for me to walk up to my car and get the snow cleared off of it. Then an extra ten or fifteen to get to you."

"Ok. Call me when you get here."

He hung up and I ran my hand over my face as I tossed my phone to the side. After taking a moment to blink some of the sleep from my eyes, I dressed myself; threw on my boots and jacket; grabbed my keys, gloves, and wallet; and began the frigid journey out to my car.

It was quite a hike up to my parking lot. Parking on campus sucked, so I had to park half a mile from my dorm, and that was the closest option. The only good thing about it was that I could cut through a few campus buildings to get there, which provided at least a few heated reprieves from the weather.

By the time I reached my car, I was wide awake and hating my existence. The air itself seemed intent on killing me, since the temperature alone made all of my exposed skin ache. It was as if millions of tiny needles were jabbing at the pores on my face, amplified with each gust of wind. None of that was made better by the sight of four or five inches of snow already piled up on the car I knew I had cleared off just yesterday.

Sucking it up, I grabbed the end of my jacket sleeve with my right hand and used the same forearm to sweep away the snow clinging to the top edge of the driver's side door. That way, I wouldn't have to deal with a pile of snow falling into my seat when I opened it. Once that was done, I had to unlock the driver's side door manually because my car was old as shit and most of the electronics inside were starting to go haywire. If I tried to use my key fob to unlock the doors, it would unlock and relock them in a random sequence and it was a nightmare to get them all unlocked at the same time without doing it manually from the inside.