Choose Ali

The road left Mark with nothing but his thoughts.

Turning the radio off a couple phones into his trip, Mark started to think about what he wanted to do over the holidays. He had multiple different offers and they all had major pros with them.

Mark could be spending New Year’s Eve in Times Square with Tiffany, fucking Tiffany! Or he could spend that night all the way down in Australia with Jess, which would be truly an unreal experience.

If he didn’t like the idea of that, there was always Christmas away in Hawaii with Winter and her family. He would be upsetting his parents by ditching them for Christmas but come on, why wouldn’t he want to go there.

Then he had other ideas, he felt bad about how things had ended with him and Ali. Since they were both Californians, he could try spending the winter break with her, mending fences before possibly taking things to the next level.

All these thoughts raced through his mind as he drove down the highways, heading West. After 10 hours on the road, Mark was too tired to continue any further, he stopped in Jackson, Mississippi for the night, finding a cheap hotel to stay in.

The night was rough but thankfully he was able to sleep well due to being tired enough. Falling asleep in the creaky old bed, Mark didn’t wake up to any of the notifications that were buzzing on his phone.

The next morning he saw that Winter had asked him to come to Hawaii with her, that it was fine with her mom if he came.

The offer was nice, don’t get him wrong but Mark wasn’t sure he really wanted to spend his money on going there, even with her. Mark couldn’t help but think about staying in California for the holidays. He would be around family for Christmas and it might be a good chance to speak with Ali and maybe visit her.

For now, he decided to ignore Winter’s texts as he jumped back on the road in the early morning. The weather seemed to turn for the worse by Tuesday Afternoon, he had made up a lot of ground and probably should have been even further if the rain wasn’t slowing him down so badly.

Eventually it was too dangerous to continue, the rain was flying down almost sideways, heavy drops of rain at a fiery pace. He just had to stop where he was, Amarillo. It was near the top of Texas, he had **** but to stay there for the night.

He searched through the small town, looking for somewhere to stay for the night. The first motel he saw, had No Vacancy. Then the second one, No Vacancy.

Fuck, he thought to himself. He was just gonna have to spend the night in his car.

After another ten minutes of driving around which felt more like half an hour, Mark finally found somewhere that may have a spot available.

He parked the car out the front and did his best to run inside quickly, the rain falling on heavily, soaking him. Mark could barely see anything as he tried to cover his face from the falling rain. Coming through the doors, he saw the back of a girl that was just as soaked, talking to the reception.

“Lucky last,” the lady behind the counter said, handing over the girl a room key. The girl thanked her before turning around.

Holy shit. It was Ali.

“Mark??” she asked, instantly as shocked as he was, “What the? What the hell, did you follow me here?”

“No, no, I had no idea you were here, I’m just on my way home and happened to stop here,” he explained, “Didn’t want to drive any further in this weather.

They laughed softly, finding the whole situation such a massive coincidence.

“We kind of have a problem here though,” Ali then announced, “I just got the last room.”

She winced, feeling bad that she had just taken the last room for him. It was the worst case scenario for Mark who didn’t have a plan on what to do now, not wanting to keep driving around for another motel.

“Ahh that’s all good, I’m sure there’s somewhere else I can find for the night,” he said, getting ready to make an exit back to the car.

She hesitated before speaking up, “No way, why don’t you just stay in my room, it’s pouring down out there and you’re already completely soaked, please, just stay in my room for the night.”

Bingo. He didn’t expect Ali to offer that to him, especially with how things have been lately between them. She may have helped him out with Tiffany but that didn’t mean that everything was all sweet.

“Thanks Ali, I really appreciate this,” he said, picking up his suitcase that he brought inside.

They made their way upstairs to Ali’s room.