Chapter Twenty-Seven

“You need to get up if you plan to be at work on time,” Sammi says from my bedroom door. Her voice is hushed and careful, as though she’s confronting some feral animal.

Yeah. That’s me, an uncivilized, brutish creature on a bed, sheets tangled around her. Bet I look wild too. I haven’t showered since Matt walked out on Saturday, and I sweated like a pig while shivering on Sunday even though all I did was lie in bed. I can feel the sticky layers of old perspiration clinging to my now cool skin.

“You really should.” Michelle comes in and takes away the untouched lo mein she left on my desk yesterday. “You can’t waste away over a man. I forbid it.”

I wave them off, which takes considerably more effort than I’d like. They look at each other, and I read their unspoken communication loud and clear.

Sammi signals, She’s so out of it.

One of Michelle’s eyebrows rises. What do we do?

I don’t know. Call her in sick?

Michelle’s jaw firms. I’ll handle it. “I’ll have HR mark you as being sick.”

See?

“But you really should pull yourself together,” she adds.

My voice is listless. “Yeah yeah.” I wish I could read Matt the way I can my housemates. Then none of this would’ve happened. Maybe I should start dating Sammi and Michelle. We could start a three-way lesbian commune. I’m sure they’d be okay with it. They’re open-minded, one of the reasons we get along so well.

Sammi and Michelle go to work because they’re well-adjusted individuals who can adult better than I can. I’m like…a mess. But then I knew that. I just didn’t realize how much it would hurt when Matt realized it too.

Next time, I’m not dating a smooth-talking lawyer. Actually I’m not dating anybody. Fuck it. I’ll be a nun. I’m not picky like Sammi. I don’t need free Wi-Fi as long as the beds are comfortable and the clothes are clean. I’m sure nunneries have washing machines, but if not, I’ll buy one for the abbey. It’s going to be a charming little place in Austria. Once I get over Matt, I’ll run up one of the hills nearby and sing every day (as long as I’m alone; I don’t want to get deported for torturing the locals). Except I won’t be meeting Captain von Trapp. No. I’ll be the good sister who doesn’t climb trees, or scrape her knees, or waltz around with curlers in her hair and always shows up for mass on time. The Mother Abbess will keep me because I’ll be a perfect angel—a model nun.

Nobody here will miss me, except for Sammi and Michelle, and they can come visit. It’ll give them a reason to fly to Europe. They’ve both said they want to go.

Time passes slowly, but I don’t mind. It’s not like I have anything to do, or any place to be. It’s sort of nice to accept that I was right about a lot of things about me… Why did I struggle so hard to fit in? It seems silly now.

That evening, Sammi and Michelle check up on me. Michelle sighs. “You need to answer your phone. David asked me if you were all right when you didn’t answer his calls or texts.”

“He should’ve called Sammi,” I say. “She would’ve been happy to talk to him.”

Sammi sighs with exasperation. “That’s so not the point.”

“Then what is?”

“I went to the fourteenth floor.”

I frown. “Did you tell David I wasn’t coming in?”

“No,” Sammi says. “I went by to check on Matt.”

I glare at her. “You shouldn’t have.”

“We had a meeting between the app dev team and the finance team, and he happened to drop by briefly. If it makes you feel better, he looked like shit, so you guys are a perfect matching pair. Although if I have to be honest, he looked better than you since he was at least groomed and in a work-appropriate suit.”

I swallow. “Good for him.” Really. What else is there to say?

“God. You’re so fucking dense!” Sammi yells, then leaves, stomping her feet.

Michelle clears her throat. “Don’t mind her. She’s under a lot of stress.”

“I bet.”

“You really should eat something. And drink some water. It’d be awful if you ended up in the hospital for malnutrition and dehydration.”

I scoff. “Nobody goes to a hospital for that. This is America, the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world,” I say, although I don’t know what that has anything to do with hospitalization for malnourishment and dehydration.

But I drink the water she leaves in my room because… Well. I’m thirsty, and maybe she’s right about dehydration.

Of course drinking water has annoying consequences. When my bladder won’t let me stay in bed anymore, I drag myself out and go to the bathroom. Huh. I’m starting my period.

I wait…

Three…

Two…

One…

Nope. Relief doesn’t come flooding through me. The only thing I feel is cold indifference… Then slowly, like the tide, grief comes in to lap at me. It’s nothing crippling—I already experienced that when Matt walked out. This is different—gentler, in a way, but no less painful. It eats away at me little by little, like a weak acid…but acid nonetheless.

If I let it, it’ll eventually consume all of me.

But somehow doing something about it feels too monumental, too daunting a task.

So I return to bed and pull the sheets around me, tucking myself in because nobody else is going to.