I had no idea how I managed to finish the rest of my shift that night or how I was able to still function and drive. My heart was crushed. The devastation made me practically gasp for air. At one point, one of my customers asked me if I needed an Ativan. That was when I decided to throw in the towel. Call it a day. A fucking awful day that ended way worse than it began.

And I never saw it coming. That’s the thing I couldn’t figure out. How was I so wrong about her? She seemed genuine. Then to find out she not only had a boyfriend, but she was moving in with him soon? What the fuck?

I didn’t want to believe it. The more I went over the lengthy conversation I’d had with the butthead, the more I realized I’d been taken. What reason would that moron have to lie to me? None. He didn’t know me from Adam.

What reason did Vivienne have to lie to me? Let’s count. Number one: I drove for a living—as far as she knew anyway. Jared was highly successful. Annoying as hell, yes. But the man brought in some dough. Of course, she wouldn’t want him knowing we had an affair.

Number two: He hated her house. They probably spent all their time at his. Therefore, not much chance of him spying a poor driver boinking his girlfriend.

She’d fooled me. Twice.

I really thought we were starting something. It wasn’t going to be smooth sailing. I knew that. We had our age difference, not to mention our financial differences. For some foolish reason, I thought we could work through that shit.

Instead, Vivienne decided to keep me hidden away. She’d have her sugar daddy but also me on the side. Nice. Vivienne never gave me any hints that she was a player, but maybe that was what made her great at sales. A poker face.

I was torn out of my thoughts by a knock on the door. Given the familiar tap, tap...ta-tap-tap...tap, tap, I knew who it was, and I opened it despite the late hour.

“Yo, Eddie. What’s up? Burning the midnight oil?” I asked my friend as I let him in. Eddie smiled at me and prowled in, making himself comfortable as usual. Eddie was his American name. One day he told me his Chinese name, and I swore I spent twenty minutes trying to say it, unsuccessfully. It was a beautiful name. I was just complete crap at learning other languages.

“I saw your light on at night for a change. Where ya been hidin’ out?” he asked coyly and began to search through my cupboards for something to eat. Eddie was pretty much always hungry, even five minutes after he just ate. I guessed that was the real reason why his parents finally kicked their twenty-five-year-old son out of their house. Who could afford to feed him?

Apparently, I could because he was here eating my food every day.

“Places,” I answered him vaguely.

“Girl places?” he chided and began to laugh. His laugh sounded more like a machine gun than an actual laugh.

“Don’t you worry where I’ve been. I’ll be here at nights from now on.” I informed him, defeated. After all, I didn’t want to be here. I would give anything to have been in Vivienne’s bed doing wonderful, nasty things with her and to her. Not sitting here in my crappy apartment watching as Eddie successfully pieced together a bologna sandwich.

He stared at me and frowned deeply. “Something happen? I’m guessing you were with a chick?” He cocked his head to the side. “What did you do?” he asked, assuming I did something wrong. What did I do wrong? I fell for a smart, hot, older woman who used me. That’s all. Fuck, that stung. My stomach growled loudly watching Eddie as he consumed his sandwich. Well, technically, it was my sandwich.

I decided to get up and eat something for the first time in hours. Trying to keep my shit together while I drove meant not eating or drinking anything for fear it would come right back up. The nausea from seeing Vivienne with that douche had set me off. His words replayed in my head all night. Everything he said before we got to her house was on a constant loop, playing over and over again with more and more detail until I was sick.

After hours of punishing myself, I finally came to the realization that she just wasn’t looking for what I was. She wanted a quick, on-the-sly encounter, and I wanted… What the fuck did I want?

I shook my head as I opened the door to the fridge. Fuck. All of Vivienne’s leftovers were sitting in my fridge. Goddamn that woman.

“Ed, it’s your lucky day,” I told him as I began stacking all of Vivienne’s plastic containers onto the counter beside the fridge. I’d accumulated a lot of these little bastards.

“What’s in there?” I had piqued Eddie’s interest. That wasn’t unusual. If it came from a fridge, Eddie was interested. I pulled out a plastic bag and packed everything up.

“Enjoy. But I need the stupid containers back, okay?” I shoved the still swaying bag in his direction. “Don’t chuck them out,” I added, but had no idea why. What the hell did I care if Eddie stomped on her fucking coveted plastic ware? As far as I was concerned, he could burn them. Well, more like melt them.

He stared at me in disbelief and sat down on my couch. “What’s going on, buddy?” he said through a mouthful of bologna. “Someone made that for you special. Your woman? I’m not going to eat something she made for you. Even I have my limits.” He chomped off another bite of his sandwich.

“You have limits on what kind of food you eat? Since when? You don’t seem to discriminate when it comes to the contents of my fridge,” I pointed toward the fridge, the bag swinging around wildly, “or my cupboards. Or the pantry.” I sounded more pissed by the second.

“Cool down. You and your girl have a fight? That happens, you know, with any relationship. Just buy her some flowers, then apologize for whatever shit you did wrong. Girls love flowers,” he added, popping in the last corner of crust.

Yeah, I’d go buy her flowers and deliver them to her while she was in bed with another man. Doesn’t that sound fucking fantastic? That was probably where they were right now, in her giant bed, enjoying each other. She’d probably had a great laugh about the comedy of errors that destroyed the evening for me. What were the chances I’d get the call to come pick up her and the douche?

“Nobody to buy flowers for, Ed. Not anymore.” I sighed, sliding down onto the couch with him as I chucked the stupid bag onto the table. Jinxy jumped up onto my lap for some love.

“Dude, don’t freak out. Couples fight, they get over it, and the makeup sex is awesome.” He snorted before exploding into laughter again.

“You’re not listening to me. There’s nobody to buy flowers for or to have makeup sex with. Not for me anyway. She, however, has her boyfriend to do all that stuff with.” I threw in to make him understand the whole picture so we could stop talking about this shit already.

He slapped his legs. “Shut up, man. She was two-timing you? You? No way. I don’t believe it,” he said, shoving his hand in my face in disbelief.

“Believe it. The whole time she was with me, she was sleeping with someone else. They’re moving in together soon, too,” I said as I pulled Jinxy in for a hug while I propped my feet up onto my ultra-cool coffee table that I found at a garage sale.

“This does not compute, man. How could she mess around on you? It just makes no sense.”

“You want to know the sad thing? I was really into her, Ed. I really thought we—” I cut myself off before I started sounding like a big whiny bitch in front of my friend and lost his respect entirely. “Whatever. She made her choices.” She made mine, too, without consulting me first.

Eddie got up to grab a soda from the fridge. He threw me one, and I held the cold can against my throbbing head. I got headaches when I didn’t eat. That was one more thing I learned from my childhood. But when I was a kid, it wasn’t heartache that kept me from eating. It was poverty and neglect.

I popped the can slowly, listening to the bubbles fizz. Hopefully, a few mouthfuls of this and I’d be feeling better. My head would feel better anyway. The rest of me might take a while.

“What’s this? Twenty-three messages? Thirty-one calls?” Eddie said as he scooped up my phone on the counter. Nosy bastard. “That does not sound like a woman who is ready to give up on you. Call her back and see what she says,” he said as he lobbed my phone to me. Jinxy got spooked from the movement, dashing away.

“I really don’t need to hear her excuses and apologies so she can make herself feel better. It’s been a fucking shitty day. I just want to drink this and head to bed. I’m fuckin’ wiped,” I said, leaning my arms on my lap, trying my best to hold myself together. My head felt like it was going to explode, my guts ached, and my mind just kept going places it shouldn’t.

It was over. I needed to accept it and move the fuck on.

“I’ve never seen you like this over a girl before. Usually you’re one cool customer with the ladies. This woman must’ve been something special,” Eddie said in a quiet, worried tone. He had such a serious look on his face. “How about I bring over my DVD player and we watch a movie or something?”

Eddie was one of the holdouts. He still owned a DVD player and roughly a million DVDs. He collected them like I collected books, so far be it from me to call him out on his addiction when I had my own bibliophile issues. There might be an empty spot somewhere in one of my bookshelves, but not likely.

I found it rather difficult to pass by the used bookstore across the street. It called me in, so it wasn’t really my fault. I was a sucker for great books. There were certainly worse things I could be addicted to.

“Cool customer?” I shook my head, chuckling. Leave it to Eddie to make me laugh when all I wanted to do was go to sleep and forget this shit ever happened. “Well, this cool customer needs sleep. But thanks for the invitation, man. I really appreciate it. Maybe tomorrow night?” Tomorrow night sounded so fucking far away. That was another entire twenty-four hours without Vivienne—without her laugh, her smile, or our funny conversations. I took another long gulp on my drink, wishing I had something stronger than soda in the house.

Booze wasn’t the answer, though. I’d also learned that early. It works pretty well to dull the shit you had going on in the present, but come morning, that same shit was still there to greet you, bright and early. Only then you got to deal with it while nursing a hell of a hangover.

Not to say I didn’t have the occasional beer, but my drinking days were done. They had been for years now. I liked to be in control of myself. But right now, all I could think of was how a little numbing might be nice.

I gawked down at my phone as it started buzzing again with an incoming call. Vivienne.

I was tempted to pick up and yell and scream at her for fucking with my head. I put down my phone and my drink before I threw them both across the room. Running my hands over my face, I asked for serenity and a new life.