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Instead, Penny lay on her back staring up at the textured plaster ceiling without moving. A faded yellow water stain shaped like a snowman stared back at her.
Her limbs felt heavy, like they’d been encased in cement. The thought of doing anything made them feel even heavier.
Go on, get up. Have a glass of water and an Advil. Maybe a banana too. Then get dressed and go to yoga.
It would make her feel better. She knew it would. But she didn’t actually want to feel better. She wanted to wallow. Just for today. She was entitled, wasn’t she? She’d just broken up with her cheating boyfriend. If anything entitled you to wallowing, it ought to be that.
She typed out a text to her friend Melody.
I think I’m coming down with something. Not going to make it to yoga today.
Penny tossed her phone down and went back to sleep.
She slept until noon, which she hadn’t done in months. Not since her last breakup. She stayed in her pajamas and watched a House Hunters marathon on HGTV all day, directing all her residual anger at the insufferable, underemployed couples on the screen who felt they should be able to afford a chef’s kitchen and whirlpool tub with the money their rich parents had gifted them for a down payment.
She didn’t even feel like knitting, that was how bad things were. Roxanne’s half-finished baby blanket taunted her from the coffee table. If there’d been any junk food in the apartment, Penny definitely would have eaten all of it. Instead, she had to content herself with toast. But she put butter and sugar and cinnamon on it so it’d feel like dessert. So there.
Olivia called in the afternoon to check on her. “Did you talk to Kenneth yet?”
“Yeah, I called him last night,” Penny said, pushing herself upright on the couch.
“How’d it go?”
“About how you’d expect. He tried to deny it, and then he tried to make excuses. So I told him to stuff it.”
“Good for you,” Olivia said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Penny brushed bread crumbs and sugar granules off her chest. She was on her fourth piece of cinnamon toast.
“Do you want me to come over? We could watch TV and order pizza.”
Penny didn’t want company. Having company might interfere with her plans to feel sorry for herself. “Thanks, but I think I’m going to call it an early night. Yoga really kicked my butt today.”
“You went to yoga this morning?”
“Yep.” Guilt burned in the pit of Penny’s stomach. She knew it was wrong to lie, but she wanted to be by herself. If Olivia knew she’d skipped yoga to stay home and wallow, she’d insist on coming over.
“That’s good. You’re really doing okay?”
“Sure,” Penny said, trying to sound like she meant it. “I mean, I’m bummed, obviously, but I’m better off without him, right?”
“You definitely, definitely are.”
“There you go. I just have to repeat that a few hundred more times, and by Monday I’ll have forgotten him altogether.”
“If you change your mind and want company, give me a call.”
“I will, thanks.”
When she got off the phone with Olivia, Penny called the nursing home where she volunteered on Sundays and canceled her shift. She could already tell she wasn’t going to feel like leaving her apartment tomorrow.
She was taking the whole weekend off. From everything.
On Monday morning, Penny lay in bed trying to convince herself to go to her spin class. Her limbs still had that encased-in-cement feeling, and she was completely drained of both energy and motivation. This was what she got for spending the entire weekend alone eating badly and wallowing in self-pity.
She knew better. She had her routines for a reason.
When Penny first moved to Los Angeles, after she discovered the boyfriend she’d left her perfectly happy life in Washington, DC, for was cheating on her, she’d fallen into a little bit of a depression.
