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“Of course, he will.” Mr. Brownnose the Second. He had his head so far up Tory’s rear end I wasn’t sure where Tory ended and Jacob began. He was probably the reason I just lost my job.
The line went dead. There wasn’t agoodbyeor agood luckor alet’s do coffeelater like I’d received in my other firings, just empty air. Figured. The call ended abruptly, and I tipped my head back against the headrest, staring out through the tinted glass roof of my car up to the impending snow-filled clouds.
There were only two people I could call right now to talk to or at least hear a voice of comfort. One was my best friend Amanda, but I knew from our morning text she was in court this afternoon so that call was out. The other was my boyfriend, Gerry, and desperately I tried to remember what was on his docket for the day. When nothing came to mind, I asked the car to dial his number.
“Hey.” It was an unusual way to answer, but I let it slide.
“Hey, Ger. I’m having a moment.”
“Oh yeah? Me too.” There was a shuffling noise on his side of the line. “Just a second, guys. It’s been a weird Wednesday.”
“We could hashtag it.” Yes, it was desperate to grab for a lifeline of dumb funniness as I was already grasping, but I didn’t know what else to do.
I sunk deeper and tapped the heater button to warm the seat. A deep, bone-chilling sense of cold had wrapped around my body and without warning, I shuddered violently.
On his end of the line, something dropped and crashed.
“Hey, guys, be gentle.”
“Gerry? What’s going on?”
“Awe, jeez, I’m not going to be of much help. Give me a minute. Not you, Car, the guys.”
“Oh, okay.” A solid lump of throat-choking pain dropped into the pit of my stomach. My words were breathless and void of any of the emotions swirling inside my head.
“Oh man, Cara, I hate to do this over the phone.”
Oh no! Please, no.
“This isn’t working out with us, and…” A long, earth-shattering exhale. “I’m breaking up with you.”
“What?” Tentacles of lancing pain wrapped around my heart and constricted. Not only was I struggling to breathe, but I was also fighting to hold onto any form of consciousness. It all had to be a dream. I pinched myself and yelped. Nope, not a dream.
“Cara, I can’t stand the way you eat your breakfast cereal.” It came out in a whoosh.
I shook my head. “What? You’re breaking up with me over the way I have my breakfast?”
“It’s more than that, but jeez-Louise. That’s just… It’s wrong.”
The staccato of my heart picked up in intensity.
“Although you eat cereal like a serial killer, it’s more than that. Can you even tell me where I’m going this weekend?”
At that moment, I couldn’t even tell him what my name was, how was I supposed to have remembered where he was? All I saw was a box of Mini Wheats, a bowl of milk, and a spoon. What was wrong with that?
“Cara?”
Right, that was my name. My breath was as frozen as the exterior air.
“Cara, can you hear me?”
I nodded. “I don’t believe this.” Cereal? That was the hill he was going to die on?
“Toronto, remember? I’m flying to Miami for Digger’s wedding. The one you said you were too busy to attend. Because you had work to do. Always had the work.”
It wasn’t that I was too busy, it was more along the lines of I couldn’t stand Digger and whatever his bride-to-be’s name was, and while I wished them well, spending thousands of dollars to attend that freak show wasn’t on my agenda. However, I had told Gerry he had my blessing to go, but I didn’t remember the wedding being this weekend.
My knuckles turned white as I clenched the steering wheel trying to pull the heat from it into my cold hands. Cereal and a lack of remembering his weird friend’s wedding – that was the catalyst for a breakup?
