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Even sleeping far away from it all, I still woke up in the middle of the night at times, sick to my stomach, choking back a scream.
It would pass.
I knew this was temporary.
Maybe once I moved on, got a new place to live, it would become even more infrequent.
Or maybe I would never be able to fully sleep through the night again.
Time would tell.
“Hey bud,” I said as Mackey flew out of the open door, going to take his tour of the property. He was hyper-aware of things ever since the night he attacked the woman who had been bashing my head into the house.
I moved inside, looking at the bottle of champagne I had sitting on the counter, bought on impulse the day before when I was in a very Fuck him and the horse he rode in on mood about the whole situation. It only lasted until I got home, took it out of the bag, and set it on the counter.
Then all I could think of was how pathetic it would be to drink champagne – something meant for celebrating – alone in my house with nothing really to celebrate.
It hadn’t exactly been a banner year for me. Crippling financial insecurity, a stalker who took the gross to level ten, a beaten face, blood on my hands, sex with a man who clearly didn’t want me. I mean… it was a real banner year for me.
I guess an argument could be made for celebrating it being over. For another rotation around the Earth that I could see as a chance to change things, to get out of my funk, to make my life something it had never been before, something I woke up in the morning truly excited to experience.
I couldn’t, however, seem to muster the enthusiasm to sit down and formulate a plan on how to create such an overhaul.
Hell, maybe I just needed to move.
I didn’t have an exact date for when I would suddenly be allowed to do such a thing – if I even could with how bad the market has been around here – and could no longer, it seemed, reach out to Quin. I guess I could ask Gunner. He had just gotten back yesterday, shooting me a text demanding something ‘cheese filled and awful for me’ sometime in the next week. Maybe I could get some details from him too. Without having to ask because he had made it clear that he thought what had gone down with Quin was completely unacceptable – on Quin’s part. And maybe a bit foolish on mine.
And he had no idea that it had gone beyond that last day at the office after we’d had sex.
I couldn’t imagine the lecture I’d get from him if he did know. Especially if he picked up on the fact that things had gone south like he knew they would.
But yeah.
Maybe I was done with Jersey.
Maybe it was time for something new. The south somewhere. Maybe Florida where what I could get from the sale of my house could get me something decent. I wasn’t overly fond of snakes, alligators, or humidity, but at least it was different.
My phone dinged, making my belly flutter hopefully as I lunged for it. There was a distinct, familiar sinking feeling when I realized it wasn’t from him.
It was Fenway.
A picture from whenever his celebration was at its height, two women pressed to either side of him in skimpy bikinis that just barely passed decency laws, half-melted iced drinks in their hands. Fenway himself was shirtless, showing off a chest and abdomen that was more muscular than you would expect, a little golden from his hours in the sun.
Ringing in the New Year right. Your pretty ass better not be sitting alone in the house with that dog.
Ugh.
That was exactly what I was doing, I realized as I moved to let Mackey in the door with some giant stick that was really practically an entire tree branch that he would systematically destroy all over the house, ensuring splinters for the next week no matter how well I swept up after.
I dropped down on the sofa, reaching to turn on the TV, watching commercials for the upcoming festivities, and feeling a deep unhappiness press down on me, making my shoulders feel lower, my head hang.
It was hardly twenty minutes later when I found myself moving to stand, walking over toward the door, shrugging into my coat, and reaching for my purse and keys.
I didn’t know where I was going; I just knew I couldn’t be cooped up in these four walls any longer.
It wasn’t until I found myself parked at the train station that I realized what it was I really wanted. Despite knowing it was a terrible idea, that it was asking for more pain, that if I showed up there, I was letting him see that I had been pining, that I was hung up on him.
