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  Jamie follows me around like a mother hen, making sure I don’t do anything too stupid. I bat my eyes at guy number three. But all of a sudden, this horrendous, head spinning, stomach-churning nausea hits me all at once like a ton of bricks. I take off to the bathroom, stumbling over my boots, making it just in time. Vomiting has an immediate sobering effect. I hide behind Jamie as we pass quietly through the crowded bar towards the exit sign.

  Jamie drives my car to my house and spends the night. Quietly, so as not to wake Will, she locates spare blankets, and we sleep like bookends on opposite ends of the couch. As we sit the next morning in our miniature kitchen, chatting over coffee and laughing at what a falling down idiot drunk I was the night before, I feel lighter than I have in ages. All too soon, I’m driving Jamie back to Tony’s, clinging to her when we say good-bye.

  By the time I emerge from a long cleansing shower wrapped in a towel, the air is clouded with steam. I use a towel to wipe off the mirror while I brush my teeth, expelling a whoosh of minty breath while observing my flushed face in the mirror.

  I always did like my skin best right after a hot shower, all freshly scrubbed and shiny before the soot and grime of everyday life pressures clog it up and dull it out. My light brown eyes reflect the light of the overhead bulbs, giving them a sharp glint, and my round-tipped nose and chest are still red from the hot water. I practice smiling but it’s so forced my lips feel like unmolded putty. Will used to say my smile is ten times bigger than the biggest town in Ohio. That would be Columbus, where he grew up. His obsession with all things Ohio is so great that to be compared to it in any way is a high compliment, coming from him.

  By the time Will is due home from work late Sunday afternoon, I’ve rehearsed what I want to say over and over in my head. I need to make him understand that we can start again. The TV is off and the blinds are drawn while I rest quietly on the couch, drinking a diet soda in near darkness. I check the time and nervously take another sip of soda. The carbonation burns my nose and eyes as the cool liquid bubbles down my throat. I finish chugging it and go back to the fridge, but this time I grab a light beer. My stomach is settled enough to handle it by now, and I need something a little stronger for this conversation. The loud, cracking sound of the tab slices through the silence in the room and I continue to wait and think.

  Our relationship is like a garden that hasn’t been watered in a long time. It just needs a little bit of nurturing to bring it back to life. My chin dips, and my head falls forward. I wake with a start. Again, my chin dips towards my chest then all of a sudden, I’m clutching Will’s hand. My other hand grips a jumbo sized, silver water pail and I’m straining towards a sea of scorched roses tissue paper thin with neglect. Will’s smile radiates love and warmth, but I’m so intent on getting the can closer to the shriveled roses, I don’t smile back. The sliver of space between my watering can and the flowers gets smaller and smaller, but just when I think I’m close enough to tip the can, releasing the water towards my mark, I awake with a startle and instinctively clench my fingers around the half empty beer can in my hand to keep it from falling over. It’s an hour and a half later and Will still isn’t home.

  He’s not picking up his cell phone. I wait another hour in rigid, mind racing silence then wander aimlessly about the living room just for something to do. I call him again and leave a message. “Will, just calling because... uh... because you aren’t home yet. I’m starting to worry. Please call me when you get this.”

  It’s not like him to go anywhere after work on Sunday but if he’s not coming home, he usually lets me know. I didn’t think our relationship had yet deteriorated to the point of casual indifference regarding each other’s whereabouts.

  That’s when I notice his shoes, or lack thereof. He never puts them in the closet where they belong and they’re normally strewn about and left in random places around our apartment. Heart pounding, I walk into our bedroom and lean against the door frame, eyes darting suspiciously, trying to figure out what that something is that doesn’t feel right. Swallowing hard, I slide open his side of the closet and gasp when I realize it’s empty. Every last stitch of clothing hanging there yesterday is gone.

  Frantically, I throw open his drawers and each one is as empty as the one before it. In the bathroom, his shower gel is still perched in the windowsill, but there’s not even a trace of microscopic hairs that normally litter the sink like an army of ants, the ones I always complained about him not cleaning up. I notice a few other missing knick knacks and I can no longer feel my legs. All of the blood in my entire body seems to have rushed to my head, making me slightly dizzy. He’s not here, and neither is his stuff.

  I sit down. I stand up. I open the front door and stick my head outside into the cool air, looking both ways as if searching will make him materialize out of thin air. I sit cross-legged on the coffee table, surveying the scene, imagining his trajectory as a crime scene investigator would. The minute I walked out the door to meet Jamie, he would have darted around the apartment, frantically collecting his things and hauling them out to his car. He only has a few gym bags and one suitcase, so, depending on how pre-meditated this was, it was probably still happening while I was at dinner, pouring my heart out to Jamie and strengthening my resolve to save our relationship.

  After loading up his car, he would have moved it out of the parking space so we wouldn’t notice it was full of things that you don’t carry around in your car every day. That would explain the open parking space Jamie conveniently slid into when I expected to have to park blocks away. He would have crept past us on his way to work like a thief in the night while we slumbered on the couch, oblivious to his departure or his intentions.

  My already round eyes widen to saucers when I notice the dining room chair. It’s just a chair now, no longer a de facto bookshelf bearing the load of a pile of magazines precariously close to tipping over.

  I stand up, but the ground beneath me has gone away. Bile and despair rises coldly in the back of my throat, so I quickly sit down again and place my head between my knees. All is silent, except for the beat of my heart thrumming loudly in my ears. When it feels safe to lift my head, my eyes immediately zero in on that empty chair. I can’t take my eyes off it.

  He finally got rid of those magazines. I wonder if he took them with him wherever he went or if he tossed them in the dumpster on his way out.

  Chapter 5

  Two days later, I’m still numb. In a daze, really, too shell shocked to even cry. Work feels like an out of body experience or a bad dream I’m desperately trying to wake up from. If I go about my life as if nothing has happened, maybe he’ll come back. I’m willing to forgive, if he is.

  “Silver Insurance. This is Alexis. How can we service you today?”

  The company has decided on a standard uniform greeting we are required to say every single time we pick up the phone. How may I service you? What are we? Underpaid prostitutes? In addition to being annoyed every time I pick up the phone, I’ve also been embarrassed. I half listen as my insured goes on and on about the same thing she went on and on about yesterday.

  “It’s very hard for me to find rides to work every day. I can’t afford a rental car. What am I supposed to do?”

  “Mrs. Roth, I understand you are in a very difficult situation, but the longer you wait to get your car in the shop, the longer you will be without transportation.”

  “But I can’t pay my deductible.”

  I struggle through the first half of the day, listening to customers complain about their stupid cars and their stupid fake injuries. When lunchtime rolls around, Sarah and I sit outside on the benches together to eat. I cringe inwardly as she begins her usual wedding chatter. My eyes are welling up with tears, and I don’t want her to notice, so I fake a sneeze.

  “So, I decided on colors. I’ve always liked turquoise. Maybe it’s cliché, but it’s my favorite color and Jason doesn’t seem to care one way or another, so I’m going to go with it.”

&nbs
p; “Turquoise was the most popular prom dress color when I was in high school.”

  I didn’t go, but I can still hear Jamie huffing in indignation that everyone had the same color dress as hers. My response? That’s what they get for being so secretive about their dresses.

  “Sarah, do you ever just wish you were somebody else?”

  She stares blankly. “What do you mean?”

  “Just what I said. Do you ever wish you could be someone else? Living a different life...doing a different job.”

  “We’re lucky. We get most of the holidays off, good hours, and it only takes three years to be 100% vested. And you can be somebody else, and do something else, if you want to. We all can. That’s why I’m going to grad school in the fall to become a marriage and family therapist.”

  I wish I was grateful for twelve holidays a year and the daily office grind of a cubicle drone or that I knew what it is I actually want. Maybe your perspective on life is different when you haven’t been dumped by your fiancé and you know you won’t be doing this job forever.

  I check my phone again. No calls. I was hoping to come home from work yesterday and find him sitting on the couch. No one would have to know he ever left. Wishful thinking. There’s no use. If he left that way, he’s not coming back.

  “You know how Jamie spent the night on Saturday?”

  Sarah nodded.

  “Well, that night, while we were out, Will packed all of his stuff and was gone by the time we came home.”

  “Seriously?” she says with a smile that quickly dissipates when my expression doesn’t change. A wave of shock passes over her face. “Oh my god, Alexis. I’m so, so sorry. Are you okay?”

  It’s such a shitty thing to do—there’s nothing anyone could ever say to make me feel better. Not right away, anyway. She reaches out, putting her arms around me, but I shrug her away and zip up my lunch bag.

  “I’m fine. I just have to figure out my next move.”

  I grab my purse and tell her I’ll see her in the office.

  On the drive home that day, my thoughts drift back to my grade school best friend’s mom driving us home from gymnastics practice so many years ago. Betsy and I are sitting in the back seat covered in chalk dust. Her mom was a stay at home mom to three and most of the other parents had to work, so she was the carpool go to person. She picked us up and dropped us off at daily practice, took us to meets and hosted many slumber parties and camping trips. We spent a lot of time in the car.

  I can still see her driving with one hand on the wheel and the other hand holding up her head while her arm rested on the door with her elbow sticking out of the window. She sighed a lot. Just looking at her like that, I got the sense that the weight of the world was on her shoulders, and I remember clearly thinking to myself with the innocence of a child that I would never be that way. As a ten-year-old kid sitting in the back seat chatting with my gym buddies, I had no comprehension of the menagerie of worries she could possibly be struggling with because childhood is an idyllic bubble of joy. I hadn’t yet sprouted too rounded hips or boobs to make me feel self-conscious, and my biggest worry was if I would nail my back handspring on the balance beam or if my dad would let me go to Disneyland. I didn’t know how hard my parents had to work to make any of that possible, but I know better now. I can think of plenty that could have caused the sadness in her eyes and the weariness in her face. The happy ten-year old who lived for sleep overs, squealed in delight over pancakes for dinner, and covered the walls of her room with giant posters of her favorite gymnasts is gone. In her place is a defeated twenty-four-year-old, head resting in hand, elbow sticking out of the window, on my way home from a long day of work with a head overflowing with anxious thoughts.

  I wipe away a tear. I was too shocked to cry at first, but it finally hits me. First, one rogue sob—then another, until my entire body trembles with pent up pain. It doesn’t feel real, but it does. It can’t be, but it is. Hot, angry tears flood my face, and I cover my mouth to stifle my cries as I run into my apartment.

  My tears are never any one thing, but an avalanche of one emotion that spirals into the next seamlessly so I end up crying about everything at once. Heaving sobs rack my body for hours and even when the tears run out, I can’t stop. I keep seeing that sweet, love struck, teenage boy Will once was and the adoring girlfriend I used to be. How did this happen to us? I don’t recognize myself in the mirror before I go to bed. My face is a mottled shade of red, my eyes swollen shut and my runny nose rubbed raw.

  The hollow in my chest continues to grow wider, and I can think of nothing else. My mind repeatedly takes me back to the moment I realized he was gone, and a fresh wave of uncontrollable nausea and grief ensues. I have to call in sick the next day because in the morning, I look and feel like I’ve contracted a dreadful disease.

  I call in sick the next day, too, and the next, which turns into the rest of the week. Never in my life have I called in sick three days in a row or not taken a shower for four. It isn’t until I’m completely disgusted by the sour taste in my mouth and the death warmed over reflection staring me down in the mirror that I take a shower, attempting to cleanse away the filth and the fog. I vigorously brush my teeth and plug in my dead cell phone because I can’t go on like this forever.

  I sit on the edge of my bed, hunched over with my legs tucked underneath the cocoon of Will’s extra-large The Ohio State T-shirt, staring into space. He missed this one in his hasty departure and it’s saturated in his heady scent. In need of distraction, I grab the chic lit book on my nightstand that I’ve stopped and started over so many times, it’ll probably have to go back to the library before I ever get close to finishing. Thirty minutes later, I realize I’ve not even turned a page.

  My phone vibrates and Mom appears on the screen. She would call in the middle of this disaster. When we talk, it’s all surface chitchat where I pretend that things are going better than they are—so do they. It’s just easier that way. There’s no point in telling her what’s going on, so I hesitate for a second.

  “Hello Mom.”

  She asks me how I am, to which I reply “fine”, because whenever I tell her I’m not, she has a tendency to gloss over grief in favor of less complicated emotions, which never fails to hurt my feelings. I can already hear her response. Oh honey, you’ll find someone better. Everything will be just fine. I want to scream. It’s not fine! It’s awful! Nothing will ever be okay! I want to tell her that Will doesn’t want me anymore. I want to tell her how miserable I am. More than anything else, I want her to console me. I want her to hear me. But I can’t and she won’t.

  She gets right to the point. “Your father had a heart attack.”

  “Is he okay?” I shriek into the phone.

  She goes on to explain that it’s actually the second one this year, but it’s not as bad as the first one and he is recovering very well. Silent tears slip down my face. Why didn’t she tell me? I don’t question her because, for better or for worse, this is how my family is. We suffer in silence and we spare each other the painful knowledge of things we cannot change.

  “I’m coming,” I say, already reaching for my laptop to check on airfare I can’t afford.

  “Honey, there’s no need. He’s pretty wiped out, but he’s doing fine.”

  She continues to insist that they are fine. “Everything is under control. Dad decided that he wanted you to know this time, but he doesn’t want you to worry yourself over it or jump on a plane. We’ll plan for a visit when he’s back on his feet.”

  I wonder how they’ll get by with Dad out of work. His security guard job requires enough physical activity, it’ll be a while before he’s well enough to return. Mom’s a customer service rep at a bank, with unsteady hours. I know better than to ask. I won’t get a real answer because in our family, we are always fine.

  Chapter 6

  Panic sets in when I realize Will is really and truly not coming back. My emotions cycle to hell and back, driving me into a vat of nervo
us energy and giving me a pressing need to do something, anything to regain some semblance of control. Since I can’t afford to live here alone, I’ll have to move. I rummage through drawers and closets, getting rid of excess junk. My budget is under review to determine fund allocation for rent. I browse the Internet for apartments in between staring at my silent phone in disbelief. Will never returned any of my calls and still refuses to pick up his phone.

  Doing all of these things makes me sad and it’s really the last thing I want to do while my emotions are still so raw, but I can’t stop and it has to be done. My life is falling apart but keeping busy is the only thing that makes me feel like I might be able to put it back together again.

  Each day is a tireless blur of motions from which I feel completely detached. Work. Check Craigslist for new apartment vacancies. Eat. Sleep as much as possible. Self-loathing is a palpable rhythmic throbbing emanating from the center of my head and I’ve forgotten how to smile or laugh. A real smile and a genuine laugh. Not the fake ones we hide behind.

  I’m usually really excited about the holiday season if nothing else, but this year even hearing Jingle Bells in the frozen food aisle at the grocery store doesn’t cheer me up. Twinkling lights hang from rooftops and giant blow up snowmen appear on front lawns. In spite of the holiday cheer, I’m a flat and emotionless shell of a person. Between my Dad and Will, I just can’t.

  I went over to Sarah’s house for Thanksgiving, and still not a single word from Will. It’s like finding out your favorite show is cancelled right after the biggest plot twist ever in the season finale, only it’s much worse because it’s not characters on TV that are left hanging in the balance—it’s me. He’s gone silent on Facebook, and the only way to track him down would be to show up at his job and as broken as I feel, I’m not full-on psycho. Mercifully, no one asks me about my fiancé, so Sarah must have clued them in on the fiasco.