The XOXO New Adult Collection: 16 Full Length New Adult Stories (260 page)

I threw myself on the bed and sobbed one of those intense cries that start off about one thing, but end up about something different. My father called it a
good cry
. Oh yes, I thought about every bad thing that had ever happened to me, allowing myself any reason to be sad.

“Why, why,” I cried out. The pity party was in full force and lasted the entire day. Heartbreaking love songs filled my apartment while tear filled tissues littered the floor. I needed it and wanted it that way. I wanted the sorrow to consume me like a flame so I could be reborn from the ashes like a phoenix. And that’s what I did for days, a pathetic routine of sleeping the day away, eating little food, and doing nothing useful. My professional mind advised me otherwise, but the idea of leaving the apartment, exercising, and being with other people felt like a harder burden than the depression.

By the weekend, my friends were so concerned that they showed up to execute an intervention. I awoke from another nap to find Telly and Holly standing over me. Holly knelt down to face me. “You ready to get out today, sleepy head?” she asked in her sweet, maternal way.

“No. I don’t want to go anywhere.”

Telly knelt next to Holly and in the same tone said, “There’s a big sale at Nordstrom today. Half off select shoe wear.” Her words a bribing tactic no different from the kind a mother uses to get her child to eat his vegetables.

“I don’t care about a shoe sale, Telly.” I turned my head in the other direction thinking that if I didn’t see them they wouldn’t be there. Telly did not accept that. She stomped over to the other side of the bed and bent down so I could see her face. Her maternal tone was replaced with an attitude of disbelief.

“Don’t care about a shoe sale?” She gaped at me for a moment, looked up at Holly, then back at me. “Honey, when was the last time you brushed your teeth?” She tried to smile, but it turned into a cringe. I pulled the pillow over my head, but could still hear them whispering to each other in the hallway.

Ten minutes later they returned. Holly stole the pillow from off of my head. “Telly drew you a nice warm bubble bath. I think it’ll help. You wanna take a bath?”

“No,” I said, firmly covering my face with my hands and curling into a ball.

“Come on, Marin. It’s just a bath. You’ll feel better,” Telly said.

“I appreciate it guys, really, but I just want to be alone right now.” How could they not get it?

“That’s it!” Telly said, pitting my hardwood floors as she stamped over in her stilettos and tore off my comforter. “You can’t just lay here day in and day out. If you want to start feeling better you have to get out and do something. This isn’t you. You’re stronger than this. Don’t let that selfish son-of-a-bitch do this to you. Take your life back.”

Surely deep down I knew she was trying to help, but it wasn’t very apparent in the moment. Why couldn’t they leave me alone and let me deal with my heartbreak my way?

“You can’t lay here forever,” Telly said.

Tough love was definitely her tactic, and it pissed me off. I stomped over to the bathroom and slammed the door shut. I brushed my teeth rashly and stepped into the tub still dressed in my three-day-old pajamas. The girls came in after me and stared from the doorway as I sat fully clothed and soaked in bubbles.

“Is this what you want?” I shouted with tears in my throat. “I’m taking a bath and I’m brushing my teeth. Do you feel better now? Because I feel the same.” I rose from the tub, my pajamas saturated and dripping warm bath water. I looked onto Telly’s pity filled face.

“Telly, I’m sorry I don’t care about bubble baths and shoe sales right now. And Holly, I’m sorry I don’t want to leave the house or eat anything. I’m sorry, but I don’t.” I broke down and sunk back into the sea of bubbles. My eyes filled with tears, blurring my view of them. “I can’t. I just can’t.”

Holly wrapped a towel around my shoulders with few words and they left me alone. They helped me to my bedroom and into dry pajamas. My point was clear to them, and so they let me be. I fell asleep, and when I awoke I felt a wave of embarrassment over the way I acted. Yes, my fiancé cheated on me. Yes, my wedding was over. And yes, I was sad. But that was no reason not to bathe, change clothes, or eat.

Those five days had been such a blur, and I recalled it like one incredibly long and painful day. Even with all the sleep, my body and mind were still so tired. My friends were right, the only way to feel better was to get up, and that’s what I did. After a long, hot shower, I put on some jeans and a tee-shirt and made a PB&J. I wasn’t quite ready to leave the house, but it was Saturday night, and I had slept enough for the next month.

Just as I was about to sit down with a new magazine, I heard a knock at the door. I was sure it was Telly with cocktails, or Holly with dinner, or both. But I was wrong on both counts. It was Chad standing in the hallway. His head hung, and he barely looked at me. I froze.

“Hey, Marin,” he said. I remained stiff not knowing what to say, what to think, or what to do. “Can I come in?”

I took a deep breath and stiffened.

“Sure.”

He entered the living room. I remained by the door wanting to reopen it.

“How are you?” he asked.

“How do you think I am?” I said.

“You’re right. That was a stupid question.”

“What do you want, Chad?” I was surprised by my emotionless persona.

“I miss you, and I’m so sorry. I can fix this. I can make it right.”
Make it right?
His face was desperate. I considered every possible couple’s counseling trick I could think of to move on from something so devastating, but nothing seemed viable.

“I don’t think this is going to work,” I said. His face became desperate.

“Marin, please.” He gently took my face in his hands and I fought the urge to cry. In that moment, as I inhaled his cologne, I missed him. I wanted things to go back to the way they were, lock the door behind me, and never let him go. But I couldn’t. The truth was that deep in my heart I knew it was over. “I love you,” he said.

“I know, but I can’t do this.” My voice choked on a lump in my throat and a tear escaped. He wrapped me in his arms, and I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting like hell not to cry on his shoulder. Whatever strength I had was no match for his touch, his smell, his voice.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, holding me tightly to him. After a minute, my eyes dried, and I pulled away. For the last time, I gazed into his brown eyes, the ones that once filled my life with love. I searched for something I might have missed, but found nothing.

“I need you to go now,” I said.

With a regretful sigh, he covered his face. I thought for a moment he was crying too. He pushed the hair out of my face. “I’ll never forgive myself for this, for what I’ve done. I’m sorry I let you down. Take care of yourself, okay?”

I nodded. A second later, he was gone. I closed the door behind him and placed my forehead against it, tears streaming down my cheeks and dripping off my chin. I had mourned my loss for nearly a week, but the sting of severed ties felt as fresh as an open wound. I will never know how my body expressed so many tears in such a short period of time. It was over. My heart was broken. The end. At the same time I felt a sense of relief, relieved that I could move on.

When I was done crying, I glanced around my apartment planning my next move. The most appealing option was to return to bed for another week of sadness and despair, but I had finally made progress and didn’t want to regress. Instead, I channeled it into something useful; cleaning. When I got to the bathroom I realized what a mess I’d made. It was one of the only rooms I had used during the week, and given my depression, I didn’t bother to clean up after myself.

I snapped on some yellow rubber gloves and got down to work, which included scrubbing the tub, the toilet, and the sink. I also polished the mirror and the faucets, then swept and mopped the floor, wiped down the baseboards, and reorganized the cabinets.
Whew
, I thought wiping the sweat from my brow and smiling with accomplishment. The freshness of the bathroom transformed my spirit. It was the best I’d felt in days.

Following the same protocol in the other rooms of the apartment, I dusted, scrubbed, and organized. I rearranged the furniture in my bedroom and in the living room. On a whim, I took down my drapes, and then decided to put them up again. It was three in the morning when I finished and admired my work in every room. Everything was so clean it was like new. It felt almost like a fresh start. I was a firm believer in changing your space to change your life, and here I had done it without even realizing it. My cleaning venture exhausted my mind enough to stop thoughts of Chad, and so I slept like a baby.

Determined to get back to my normal routine, I opened the drapes and let in the morning sun. My newly cleaned apartment looked even better in the daylight. I let out a peaceful sigh as I sipped my coffee and picked at a blueberry muffin. Then, there was a knock at the door.

I jumped up to look through the peephole fearing Chad’s reappearance. This time it was only the sweet face of my wavy-haired friend. She greeted me with a caring hug as I let her in.

“This place looks great!” Holly said, noticing all of my hard work. “You even rearranged the furniture.” She looked closely at the arrangements in my living room and spotted my half eaten muffin.

“Are you eating?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m eating,” I said, rolling my eyes though her astonished tone was completely justified.

“How do you feel?”

“Better. I’m going back to work tomorrow, trying to get back to some kind of normal.” I was feeling better, but I wasn’t sure if I would ever be normal again.

“A new normal,” she said.

A new normal
, I thought. What would that mean for me, a series of half-tried relationships or a dozen cats? Then again, I would have more time to focus on my career. Maybe it was a good thing. I hadn’t even considered the idea that my break-up could be helpful. Only time would tell, and so I would have to push through.

“I brought you something,” Holly said. She revealed a small bookstore bag. I reached inside and pulled out a square-shaped hardback titled,
Daily Meditations for a Broken Heart.
A scripted font and a peaceful picture of an ocean with birds flying into the sunset adorned the cover.

“I know you’ve been in a funk, and I thought this book could help. It got great reviews online.”

I smiled and gave her an appreciative hug. “Thank you.”

“Listen, I need to tell you something important.” Holly sat on the couch.

“What’s going on?” I sat next to her, my heart beating a little faster.

“I have some really good news.”

“What is it?”

“You’re not going to believe it.”

O
ut with it already!

“Remember when I started the initiative to build vegetation roofs?”

“Yeah, the Thailand Project, right?”

“Well, we finally have the funding we need. We’re gonna build fifty thousand green roofs!” She squealed with excitement.

“Oh, my God, that’s amazing.” I gave her a congratulatory hug. She had been working on the project for over two years. Her eyes welled with tears and her voice quivered as she replied, “I can’t believe it, ya know? It’s been a long time coming.”

I wiped the tears from her cheeks as she had done many times for me those last few days.

“There’s a downside,” she said.

“What?”

“I’ll be in Thailand for six months.”

My heart sank.
Six months?
I wasn’t prepared to be without her for six months, especially after my catastrophic break-up.
Be supportive
, I told myself.

“When do you leave?”

“A week after Rachel’s wedding.”

That would mean she was leaving in . . . “Two weeks!” I shouted. “You’re leaving in two weeks?”

“I know it’s bad timing, but I have to go. You understand, right?”

“Of course, I want you to go. It’s just I’m gonna miss you. We’ve never been apart that long before.” It was true I had never been away from Holly for more than a couple of weeks since we were kids. She even got an internship in the city where I moved for grad school.

“Well, you have Telly and you know Rachel’s here for you too.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” I sat for a moment trying to imagine the next six months without Holly. “Well I guess we can still talk on the phone,” I said, reassuring myself that her absence wouldn’t be so bad.

“Actually, no.” She cowered as the words left her.

“What do you mean?”

“I won’t have phone or internet access most of the time. Even if I did, we’re going to be working sun up to sun down. I’ll be in touch as much as I can, but it’ll be sparse.”

Sparse contact? Sounds like no contact. My heart couldn’t take any more surprise bombs. The little bit of solace I was able to generate was lost and replaced by an itch to crawl back into bed to sulk. It may have sounded dramatic, but it wasn’t. The thought of being away from her for so long was almost as depressing as my newly ended relationship, but she had been supportive of me. Always supportive. I needed to do the same.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I said. She smiled, placing her forehead against mine.

“Thank you,” she said.

Holly stayed a little while longer, but when she left the silence became uncomfortable. I needed to keep busy. My chick-rock Pandora station resounded throughout the apartment while I went through my bills. When the bills were paid, I organized my computer files, and when that was done, I cleaned off my DVR and my Netflix list. The to-do list I had compiled for months was nearly complete and there was little left to do at the apartment. Then, I stumbled on the book that Holly brought me and opened it to see what it could offer.

After reviewing the stages of grief with fresh eyes, I found the section on visualization and breathing techniques to help with heartbreak. It incorporated mostly meditations, but some affirmations and yoga too. I attempted the first meditation in the book, which was only twenty minutes. The scent from my lavender candle filled the room as I sat crossed-legged on the floor. The book instructed me to take deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth, with eyes softly closed, then to visualize myself surrounded by family and friends. Then, it said to repeat in my mind, “I am not alone.” For twenty minutes I thought,
I am not alone, I am not alone, I am not alone.
I came out of the exercise and looked around at the empty room. No one around. No one to smile for. No one to hold. No one to love.