Page 10 of Fate Fiction

My escape was just beginning.

three

. . .

Saturday, May 31st

Time spent packing over the last two days had served as a form of procrastination from the final painful, inevitable thing I had to face: calling my mom.

Whenever I talked to Sue I could whine, plead, and cry without a second thought. Laura Grant was not similarly receptive. How she and Aunt Sue could even share five percent of the same DNA—let alone all of it—was truly beyond me.

“Yes, Danielle?” My mom answered the phone in the same manner every time I called, which this year had been a record number of twice. The first was to explain to her how to log into Netflix so she could watch Bridgerton, a task too difficult to complete via text alone.

“Hey Mom, how are…things?” my voice pitched upwards as I stammered. I couldn’t come right out of the gate and blurt out that my only reason for calling was to break the news of my breakup before Sue could.

There was a pause on the other end. I briefly worried she passed out from shock. “Things are fine, have you been kidnapped?”

I almost laughed. Almost.

If I were kidnapped she would barely make the top ten list of people I’d call to rescue me. The only benefit I’d get from calling her is that she’d probably be able to pay whatever ransom was put out on me.

“No, no, I wanted to tell you Nick and I broke up.”

Another pause. Likely her trying to remember who Nick was, how long we’d been together, or any other information that an involved parent might remember. “That’s unfortunate dear, please don’t do anything rash like…getting bangs or something.”

There it was, the answer I’d expected from Laura. No comforting words, no reassurances, not even an “I’m sorry.” At least something else could be expected from this conversation, some money dropped into my bank account to serve as a bandaid. I should’ve called her first, I might have been able to afford the Cozumel trip if I played it up enough.

I was fussing with my hair in the mirror with her voice echoing on speakerphone, the scissors laying on the edge of the sink from my freshly cut bangs. I grimaced at the phone, thankful we weren’t on FaceTime.

“I already have bangs,” I replied flatly, resulting in a “harumph” from her. “I’m going up to camp for a week in a few days, in case you need to reach me call Sue.”

The highest compliment I’d ever received from my mother was that I reminded her of Sue. The emotional connection seemed to end there. We were all the other had, Sue acting as a thin thread between the two of us. I often wondered what our relationship would look like without our raven-haired mediator. Probably nonexistent.

“I’ll have Sue keep an eye on you,” my mom said.

And that was the extent of our conversation. There was a fifty percent chance she’d ask about “Nate or whoever that boyfriend is” the next time I saw her, but I was banking on odds being in my favor. I couldn’t really think about the alternative.

This morning, I woke up with the anxious excitement of a kid about to go to Disney World for the first time. I could have slept with my suitcase occupying the space in my bed that Nick used to, I was so thrilled to be getting away from it all in the most literal sense.

Six hours were now all that stood between horrible, terrible Boston and a week of bliss.

Bird song played in the background of my morning routine, the sun streamed through my bedroom windows bathing everything in soft, golden light. Everything was piled by the door, ready to be tossed into my trunk before I hit the road. It was all perfect.

On my Tour de Begging, I convinced Sue to let me come up a day early, before camp was officially open for the season. They didn’t need to prepare for me like other guests, I’d spent a summer doing that sort of prep anyways. I was a pro at dusting shelves and making beds. All I needed was a little bit of alone time to savor before guests overran the camp, and after my second call she understood the gravity of the situation.

My apartment had been a prison, but there was a sort of security to it. Nick had been such a flighty character that by the time the end arrived, we were little more than roommates who occasionally had mediocre sex. I’d comfortably reclaimed this space as fully my own.

Still, the ending came in phases. I’d walk past the mural on the side of a school he used to say looked like bad taxidermy and feel a twinge of pain, or I’d catch a whiff of someone who used the same cologne as him on the T and briefly scan the crowd for his face.

Aches would return in gently lapping waves.

I couldn’t figure out if I hated Nick or felt bad for him. He remained unblocked on everything, and I’d seen snippets of his life without me by way of Instagram stories. Nights at bars, sharing scores of Red Sox games, nothing had changed about him. He hadn’t texted me since his pathetic attempt at a final word.

It was like I hadn’t existed to him at all. Like the six years we shared were nothing more than a blip.

I wanted to get some sort of revenge. I wanted to rebound with someone sexier, come out of this thing hotter than before, become wildly successful, anything to prove that I was better off without him.

Nicks came a dime a dozen in Boston, hell, I worked with twenty of them, so if I really wanted to hook up with a clone of his I certainly could upon my triumphant return to society.