“I need another drink.” I’m sort of joking, because lord knows I’ve imbibed enough alcohol over the past few hours to last me a lifetime, but if this situation doesn’t call for excessive drinking, then I don’t know what does.
And when May actually rises from the bed and joins me in the kitchen, my decision is validated.
“Wanna talk about it?” May clinks her shot glass full of tequila against mine, asking me the question for the second time that night.
“Nope. How many shots do I need until I black out?” I down the liquid from my glass, wincing as it burns my throat.
Turns out, just the one.
2
My cure for getting over a breakup? Move on to the next person!
—Lana Parker, “So You Got Dumped, Now What?”
An evil bright light forces my eyes open the next morning. It’s either the ass crack of dawn, or my drinking caught up with me and I’m being beamed up—or down, jury’s still out.
I have to literally pry my eyelids apart as they seem to be caked in some kind of black gunk that I really hope is the remnants of last night’s proposal-worthy makeup look. Once I finally manage to unstick them, I’m forced to survey my surroundings. Which immediately makes me want to close my eyes again.
I managed to make it into a pajama shirt at least, an old one from high school, hanging off one shoulder and frayed at the bottom. Something warm is wrapped around my thigh. A minuscule lift of my head—one that sets mybrain spinning—lets me know it’s just May, our legs both intertwined and also splayed across the bed in some sort of drunk feat of physics. When I thunk my head back down, May grunts, because said thunkage lands on her right boob, which has apparently been acting as my pillow.
“Are you going to puke again?” she mutters, none too gently pushing my head onto a real pillow.
“Not sure.” I hold my head as still as possible, not ready to find out.
“We are way too old for this shit.”
“Think we can Postmates Gatorade?” I shift my head a fraction of an inch and the room doesn’t rotate. Progress.
“And will they bring it directly to this bed? Because I do not plan to get up for at least twenty-four hours.” Her voice is now muffled by my quilt, which she has wrapped around her entire body, presumably to hide from the light and the sound of my voice.
There’s no reasonable explanation for why this is the moment I get the giggles, but one escapes my parched lips, and before I can control it, an avalanche of laughter spills forth.
“Oh my god, shut up.” May tries to throw a pillow at me, missing entirely
But my giggles are contagious, and once I get going, she can’t help but join. Before long, we’re curled up in tight cannonballs, hysterically laughing and, thankfully, not puking.
“Oh my god,” I choke out when I can finally form words. “I got dumped last night!”
The declaration sparks another wave of laughter. I clutch at my stomach, both as a way to continue to remain puke-free and because this is the most intense ab workout I’ve gotten in years.
“I thought I was going to marry him, and instead I got dumped!” My cackling continues for several seconds before I realize I’m the only one still laughing.
May manages to push herself into a sitting position, though the quilt is still wrapped around her like she’s a mummy. She brings herself too close to my face and stares dead-on into my eyes. “You are too good for that milquetoast motherfucker.”
I swallow down another laugh, which is on its way to morphing into another bout of tears, tears that I do not want to shed. Tears that wouldn’t so much be for Evan or our relationship, but for what this breakup means in the bigger picture of my life. “Good word.”
“I know.” She pulls her head free from the quilt. “I’m going to get in the shower. Then you are getting in the shower. Then we’re calling in sick and going for brunch.”
The wordbrunchmakes my stomach turn. “No booze.”
“No booze. Coffee and carbs.”
A magic combination that’s enough to perk me up, just a tad.
May shucks the rest of her blanket cocoon, shimmying until she is sitting next to me, both of us leaning against my natural wood headboard.
“How are you really?”
