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Chapter Twenty-Eight
AJ
My eyes still burn. They’re swollen and feel gritty, like when you’re exfoliating your skin with an expensive face wash, the soothing scents of jasmine and vanilla filling the air. Except these are my eyes. And there’s nothing soothing about it. In fact, it’s downright painful.
That’s why, instead of getting ready for work, I called in sick. I secured a substitute from the approved list and called it in to Mr. Stewart. Honestly, though, it wasn’t that hard of a sell. I definitely sound the part. My throat is raw from crying, I sound congested, and I can’t stop sniffling.
Though my diagnosis is nothing like a head cold.
This is a case of broken heart-itis.
And it’s the most severe case I’ve ever had.
Dammit, Sawyer.
I start to cry again, only to get pissed at myself for crying again. That’s been my cycle since I came home late last night.
I blew off our family brunch, only to be bombarded with worried phone calls. They weren’t going to stop calling, so I finally answered one of Meg’s calls. I could tell right away that she didn’t buy my excuse of being sick. It took a matter of minutes before the calling started up again, this time from Payton. And when I heard the voice of my oldest sister, I finally caved and told her what happened.
Abby: What can I do? Do you need anything? *crying emoji*
Jaime: Are you freaking kidding me? *shocked face emoji* *angry face emoji*
Lexi: I’ll fucking kill him. No, I won’t. Hemi’s hungry. I’ve sent Linkin to kill him. *knife emoji* *poison syringe emoji* *axe emoji* *squirt gun emoji*
Jaime: It doesn’t have the same effect when it’s a little green squirt gun. *sad face emoji*
Lexi: Screw that and screw him. I’m gonna beat him with a squirt gun…as soon as I get this baby off my boob.
Meghan: Do we really have to talk about boobs right now?
Me: Shutting my phone off. Just need some time. I’m fine.
I hope I’ll be fine eventually is what I should have said. Because right now, I’m not sure I’ll ever be fine again. That’s also when I powered down my phone and dropped it on my passenger seat, ignoring the fifteen texts and seven missed calls from Sawyer in the process.
I drove around for an hour, unable to go home. I couldn’t be there, trapped in the silence. What I needed was someplace loud, someplace where there’s booze. The bar was probably open by that point in the day, but that didn’t exactly sound like a great place to go and drown my sorrows. Instead, I found myself at Brandy’s apartment, where I stayed until about ten.
She didn’t ask questions, not when she realized what was going on. She let me take up real estate on her couch as though I lived there, brought me wine and ice cream, and listened to me rant about how stupid men were, how they couldn’t keep it in their pants, and only tell the truth when they’re caught with their pants down and have no way out.
I thought he was different.
That’s what hurts the most.
I really thought he was one of the good ones.
Now, Ellen talks in the background from the television I have on just for noise. My ass has been planted on my couch for the last…well, for a while. Since I got home last night, actually. The thought of going to bed–alone–held absolutely no appeal, so I cried myself to sleep on my lumpy old couch that was a hand-me-down when Dad got his new one last year, surrounded by silence and loneliness.
And I’m pretty sure that smell is me.
When a knock sounds on my door just before noon, I consider just lying there (in the divots my body has already made on the couch) and ignoring it. But the knocker is persistent and just keeps at it. “Alison Jane, you open this door before I break a window and let myself in.”
Grandma.
I slowly crawl out of the hole I’m in on the couch, my feet shuffling noisily toward the door. “That’s called breaking and entering,” I say in way of greeting.
“Semantics, AJ. I could spin it as a welfare check,” she says, pushing herself right past me and into my living room.
“What’s that smell?” she asks, turning and looking at me over her shoulder, horrified.
