Something Just Feels Off

I jerked awake, my eyes opening wide.  Where was I?  I was laying on my side, facing a wall with a window on the edge of a foreign bed.  My eyes darted around wildly, trying to center my thoughts and remember where I was.

I had been asleep, deeply.  I felt more tired than I had before I'd gone to sleep, I think.

The dingy plainness of the room reminded me I was in a hotel.  I felt a random arm fling over my side, casually, but no other movement.  I squeezed my eyes shut tight, wondering if this was actually a dream.  I bit the inside of my cheek sharply, and the pain resonated through my senses, letting me know this was for real.

I eyed the arm that was draped over my waist, cautiously; the events of the past 24 hours were rushing back like a tidal wave, overtaking my thoughts.  As much as I wanted this arm around me, it came with a lot of repercussions.

~~~~~~~24 hours earlier~~~~~~~

Sarah and I had woken up early, and with hangovers, after downing a couple bottles of wine the night before.  Drowning our lonely sorrows.  However, something about wine makes me more hung over the next morning.  I think it dehydrates me.

We were trying to sneak through the grocery store as unseen as possible, in our sweats and oversized t-shirts, our hair looking like we had just woken up after sleeping on it.  Pretty much because we had.  We were craving biscuits and gravy, eggs, and bacon, so we were trying to pick up what we didn't have, so we could gorge ourselves without having to be in public for too long.

I felt uneasy while we were walking around, haphazardly throwing things into the cart, but blamed it on my pounding headache.  "We need Advil, too," I groaned to Sarah, who gave me a guttural caveman sound in agreement.

We were not fit for public.

I grabbed a carton of eggs, and was checking them for cracks when I felt I was being watched.  I looked up to see a man, about my height, slightly overweight, blatantly staring at me.  I squinted my eyes at him and gave him what I imagined to be a snarl-y look, and went back to my egg checking.

Like I said, not fit for public.  I'm not known for my friendliness and hospitality on the rare occasions I'm hungover. 

We trudged back towards the aisle with the medicines.  I was squatting, looking for a supersized bottle of Advil (because obviously we were going to need the largest size possible...), and Sarah was idly staring off in the distance, when I looked down the other end of the aisle and Mr. Judgey McJudgerson was standing there watching me (or us?) again.  He wasn't even trying to hide it by fake looking at items on the shelves.

"Sarah!" I whissped (whisper/hissed).  She was still blankly looking the other way.  "Sarah!"

She slowly forced her gaze to look down at me.  I grabbed a box of bottled Advil and stood up.  "Dude, check out Mr. Creepy behind us."  She started to turn and I grabbed her arm.  "Don't be obvious!"

She rolled her eyes at me, but started looking at the pregnancy tests, that were on the opposite side of the aisle.  I saw her look down there, and I looked up, and he was gone.  I frowned.  She turned and looked at me, and gave me A look. 

"I swear he was just down there."

"Yeah, okay," she said, again rolling her eyes. 

I scoffed and we headed towards self checkout.  While checking out, I saw him standing there again, by the door waiting to exit.  Still looking at me, but this time he was on the phone.

We went to leave and he was still standing there by the door.  Still staring.  As we walked past him, his gaze didn't leave mine.  I wasn't going to back down.  Right as we walked past him I snipped, "Take a picture, it'll last longer."

Sarah snapped at me, "Aleah. Rude!" at the same time the guy said, with a sneer on his face, "Already did."

Chills immediately ran up and down my spine and goosebumps popped up all over my body.  I gave him another long look, Sarah tightly gripped my upper arm and we sped walked out to my car.  I felt Sarah turn and look behind us.  "I don't see him," she said.  "And that was super creepy.  Although, that was probably uncalled for by you."

I ignored her last comment.  "Do you think I should call Brad?"

She scrunched up her face.  "Why?"

"Um, you DID just see what happened back there, right?"

"Duh.  But I think maybe you're being a little paranoid because of... you know... everything that's happened."

"Okay, if all that happened was the last exchange, I'd agree with you," I argued.  "However, you didn't see the other two times he was creepily staring at me."

She shrugged.  "You're right.  I didn't.  If you think you should, go ahead."

As I backed my car up, I looked in my rear view mirror and saw the creeper standing back behind my car, holding out his phone.  I gasped.  "Sarah, the fucker just took a picture of my license plate."

She whipped her head around.  "Call Brad."

Since it was the weekend, I figured Brad wouldn't be in his office.  I called his cell, and he answered, his voice ringing through my car speakers.

"Hey Aleah, what can I do for you on this fine Saturday morning?"

I didn't waste time and immediately told Brad what had happened at the store, my body tensing up, as I recounted everything.

Brad's voice was light.  "Oh okay, can you tell me what he looked like?"

Sarah and I took turned describing him. 

When we were done, Brad said, "Alright Aleah, thanks for letting me know.  I'm sure it was just a uniform keeping an eye on you, but I'll call you back if there's anything to tell."

When I hung up, Sarah commented, "He didn't sound very worried."

"No, no he didn't.  But, something just feels off."

~~~~~~~

Sarah and I were wrapped up in blankets on opposite ends of the couch, binge watching The Walking Dead on Netflix in anticipation of the new season starting in a few weeks.  It was now late in the afternoon, and we'd been napping off and on, still in our pajamas.  I had my phone next to me, waiting to see if Brad got back to me, but he still hadn't.

I was trying to take the approach that "no news is good news," but I just couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. 

We were right at a tense moment in an episode, when there was a banging at the front door.  Sarah and I both jumped, and she let out a shriek.  We looked at each other, eyes wide.  "Who is it?" she whispered to me.

"How would I know?  I've been sitting right next to you!"

There was another pounding at the door.

We got up, together, and made our way to the door.  She grabbed one of my tennis racquets, and I grabbed another, which I kept in my bag next to the door.  We held them back, and I tentatively opened the door.  The racquet in my hand fell to the floor with a loud clatter, shock freezing me in place at who was standing on the other side.