I waited in the airport for hours for the next available flight. It gave me time to cool down. I had never lost my temper like that before. I had never punched another guy. I was glad that if I was ever going to only punch one person, it was Tom.

My knuckles were bruised and I took it as a badge of honor. I put ice on them, hoping it would keep the swelling down. It was expensive to fly last minute from Santa Barbra to Las Vegas. I didn’t care. I had more than enough money. I didn’t want to spend another moment here, even if that meant taking coach.

I was mad at Tom. He deserved what he got. I had been waiting to punch him since I had heard about him. I never would have thought I would have gotten a golden opportunity like that.

Whatever April saw in him, I was blind to. She could run off to him. I didn’t care. I was so disappointed. She wasn’t the smart woman I thought she had been. If she fell for a doof like that, there must have been something I was missing.

I didn’t know why she went back to him. We were having a great time. We were having a perfect time. I thought that maybe we were starting to have a spark. I could have seen myself seeing her several times within the next month. I could have seen myself asking her out formally.

I fell for her spell. I must have been distracted by her beauty. I had thought she had been perfect. I was told that she was great. I didn’t understand why she wasn’t getting any jobs. I also didn’t understand why someone would leave her. There had to be something.

She got what she wanted after all. She got Tom back. She could go back to living her happy perfect life from before her accident. She could get re-engaged and marry someone on the verge of bankruptcy. They could be homeless together and be clueless and hopeless people.

This was the first weekend I lost money being an escort. It was also going to be the last time. I wasn’t going to whore my services out for friends anymore. I would never do a sexual favor for free again. I had standards.

The plane was called and I watched the movie they played on the way back. It was one of those romantic comedies that was really popular in the early 2000s. I hadn’t seen it before, but I remembered the commercials and I remembered knowing women that liked it.

I needed a drink. I hated romantic comedies. No matter how honest they tried to be, they were still just a story. I watched the same imperfect beginning end with the same perfect ending in other movies time and time again. It was boring, predictable, and old. It never happened that way in real life. And when it did, there was still a ton of shit that had to be worked through.

And they never put in the troubles. They never had the relationship after a few years. They didn’t put in the couples therapy or the divorce that happened if the therapy didn’t help. They didn’t put in affairs or anything but good feeling and light humor. I wanted to live in a Walt Disney world like that. I wanted to live in a world where my greatest pleasure wasn’t being an escort and I didn’t feel so god damn lonely.

Meg Ryan was on the screen, denying her inevitable future. That’s what the characters always did. They fought the happiness until they no longer could. They wanted to be upset. It made it a tunnel vision, like a relationship would fix all the problems you didn’t know you were having. It didn’t work that way in real life.

In real life your romantic interest left you for their douche of an ex-fiancé because their self-confidence is low. In real life there wasn’t a big character change or happy ending, just a ton of small changes and tiny victories.

I counted this weekend as a loss except for the punch. It was well worth it. Even if it had broken my hand, which I am glad it didn’t, I would have done it again.

I wasn’t sure what to do with my life after this trip. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be an escort anymore. Maybe I should move back to California, or somewhere else on the coast. I would love to swim. I had more than enough money and time. Even if I just did it for a year, it would be worth it to get away and reevaluate everything for a while.

I looked online at condos. I tried to find one with a small lease. If all else failed, I could just stay in a hotel. I would have originally stayed with Alex, but now it would be too big of a risk to run into April.

I could run away from my parents and put an out of office reply on my messages. Maybe I could get a secretary for my messages from clients in the mean time. I didn’t need any more money. I could be set for the rest of my life if I was careful with funds.

I thought about it. Running away from everything and everyone sounded nice. A fresh start. I could change my name and work only when I was bored. Maybe I could become a surf board trainer. Maybe I could just chill out forever.

I saw the water and ocean below us, the land shrinking smaller and smaller. The sparkle of the waves reminded me of our day at the beach. It all reminded me of April. The sooner I left the better. Or at least that was what I kept telling myself. I could never visit that hotel again and I would be fine. It was gorgeous and I would miss it, but I would be fine.

We flew farther and farther away from it as we saw the guy get the girl in the movie. It wasn’t a long plane flight from Santa Barbra to Las Vegas, but it felt like it took forever. I couldn’t wait for the credits to roll. I couldn’t wait to get away from what was the worst weekend of my life.

I never wanted to go to another wedding ever again. I took my phone out and blocked April’s number. It was for her own good as well as mine.