The Call

Written by M.D. Doyle

Disclaimer: I had originally written this story under a different name for a specific use in a particular universe. I've decided to edit the story here and there and present to you a more general tale for people who do not follow the universe I originally wrote this for so that any reader could read this without being confused on characters,or events.

I hope you enjoy it all the same.

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The first call that Odessa Topal received after news broke about how she drunkenly drove into a house was from her mother.

It wasn't her house, no and thankfully, the occupants were in a room furthest away from the crash site but, at the end of the day, she drunkenly drove into a house. She remembered what happened. She did mean to stay at the house that held the party that was across town, it was just that at the last minute she remembered an assignment that she had to electronically hand in in less than a half hour for one of her courses.

She couldn't screw up now, her senior year was hard enough on her already.

And now this.

She took that turn too sharply, she didn't break fast enough, her phone was dead and she couldn't call her friend to pick her up.

It was a stupid mistake and she found herself in the living-room of a startled family of gophers.

Still slightly hung over from the night before, Odessa lounged on her uncomfortable dorm bed with a lavender scented eye pillow pressed to her face that she kept in her mini-fridge for such occasions as her mother barked in her ear.

What the hell was she thinking? Did she forget how her father died? What if she had hit a car with someone's father in it instead of a tree? Did she know how lucky she was to be alive, how this was her second, her second, time in jail since she was fourteen? Thank goodness it wasn't another assault charge because, really, her mother didn't need to deal with that again, even if it was self-defense. Did she know how lucky she was that she lived eight hours away instead of at home because her mother had brought her into this world and could certainly take her out of it?

Odessa knew better than to answer with anything but a "Yes Ma'am." There were no arguments here and the hare knew that she was never too old for a whoppin'.

The second call she picked up was from her attorney.

The weasel went on and on about how the family's attorney punishment, how she needed to issue a public statement and an apology, how she probably wouldn't get off too badly or get reprimanded from school since it was her first DUI offense and for the fact that, thankfully, no one else was injured. Odessa kept quiet as she scrolled through article after article about the crash an her arrest on her laptop ignoring, every comment from her classmates about how shocked they were that this quiet hare could do such a thing and they didn't think she had it in her to even drink.

Things like this just didn't happen in the small college town.

The last straw came when he told her how they wanted to put her into rehab as part of her punishment. Odessa yelled a firm "No, No, No," to that.

She'd pay whatever fine, attend a few AA meetings, donate to whatever charity, or listen to a lecture from some members of FMADD but she wasn't going into rehab. She didn't have a problem. She had one slip up and if they thought that they were going to go put her in some day program or away at some dry house then, so help them, they had another thing coming. Not now. Not when she was about to graduate.

Then came four more calls from numbers that Odessa didn't recognize. She guessed that they were from reporters.

The third call came from Carley Wohl, her best friend since freshman year, the closest thing that Odessa ever had to a sister.

Well, she couldn't really use the term 'sister', per se, since there was that one time the two of them got exceedingly drunk after their final exams in sophomore year and, since then, whenever the two of them decided that it was a Ladies' Night, the red panda would come over with a bottle of Jack, pints of Ben and Jerry's and some movie.

The Jack always made the good night perfect and once their heads got cloudy and pats on the back turned into caresses, they'd climb into her bed

Or the shower.

Or the student lounge on Odessa's floor.

It always easy, it's always quick, but it's that tender female side that sometimes Odessa craved and, shoot, there's just some things that Carley knew how to do that no other male could do quite right. It didn't make them lesbians or anything like that. They still had their boyfriends who had no clue what went on during those meetings or just kept quiet on the off-chance that they would get invited along.

It's their dirty little secret. It never messes with their studies or their friendships, and in the morning, the two of them would walk to the I-Hop a mile away and go out for pancakes, never feeling guilty since they would burn the calories off on the walk back. That was Carley's idea from the start, and the tradition stuck.

God damn, tonight would be perfect for one.

"Yes please," said Odessa as she balanced the phone between her bruised shoulder and her torn ear.

"And bring extra Jack," she added as she took a sip from her bottle of Jose Cuervo.

She wasn't about to just give up drinking just because she slipped up.

The fourth call came after Odessa got out of the shower.

It was her mother again.

Her ears still dripping wet, she found herself consoling her sobbing mother that, no, she wouldn't do that again. Yes, she knew how stupid she was, and no, she wouldn't make her Mama bury her only daughter like she had to bury her husband. She loved her too, very much so, and would see her soon, right after midterms.

The fifth call came when Odessa was tending to the lacerations on her face.

She winced as the medication stung her wounds and listened to her lawyer babble about how they wouldn't make her go into rehab. Community service, a fine, four AA meetings and the next time she pulled a stunt like this, she was out of school. That would be it. She should feel bad about how she represented her University and, damn it, she knew better.

Throwing out the bloodied cotton balls, Odessa decided that she could live with that.

The sixth ring she heard was from her doorbell to her apartment. Not caring who saw, she grabbed the red panda by the waist and pulled her indoors, locking their muzzles together, her paw already trailing up the others' shirt.

The Jack could wait.

She needed a distraction from all of those damn phone calls.