I was ready for it to be three o’clock so that I could get the hell out of this house, this state. Every inch of the city, a memory I’d just rather forget. When it was finally six a.m., I jumped out of bed, put on my workout clothes, and left for a good long run.
I ran without direction, hoping that it would clear my head and exhaust me enough that I would, at the very least, be able to sleep on the plane. I enjoyed running and ran as fast as my feet would carry me, logging at least six miles before I rounded the block leading back to the house.
I stripped just inside the doorway of the house, anxious to get into a steaming hot shower. I showered in the guest bedroom, hoping that Brian and Leah had confined their activities to the master bedroom. It was a good thing Bri didn’t seem to have any intention of coming back here. I was sure she would want to burn every last sheet, wash cloth, blanket, and towel. I wanted to do the same myself but knew, with my luck, I would probably end up burning the entire house to the ground.
Sufficiently pink and warm from the hot water, I dressed in comfortable sweats for the plane and went about the business of packing the few items I thought necessary to bring. I didn’t have much here. Most of my belongings were in storage, and I didn’t want to go and collect them just for a trip.
Packed and ready to go by ten and not wanting to stay in the house a moment longer, I decided to go ahead and make my way to the airport. I didn’t want to pay for parking, especially considering I wasn’t sure how long I would be gone, so I called a taxi. It would be about a half hour wait before a driver could arrive, so I picked up my mess, locked up the house, and went to sit out on the front porch to wait for the cab.
It wasn’t surprising, but still seemed quite odd to me that Bri would leave me an entire house. I always thought that was something people only did after they died and, thank God, she hadn’t. I couldn’t make myself stay in the house, so once I found Bri I intended to try and talk her into taking it back. If she wouldn’t, I would simply sell it and use the money to re-stock my savings that had been painfully depleted due to the divorce.
The taxi driver arrived right on time, and I found myself at the airport, checked in and through security by noon. With three hours to kill, I decided to grab some lunch and maybe a drink, or two, or three, in the chain restaurant and bar located just down from my gate.
Eating alone is a strange thing. As I sat there munching on my plate of potato skins and sipping on a gargantuan margarita, I realized quite pathetically that I didn’t ever remember doing this before. How does someone make it to the age of twenty-eight without ever having eaten in a restaurant all alone?
I knew the answer, but it made me utterly ashamed of my lack of independence. Of all the things in the world, I was most terrified of being alone; just another of the reasons I’d allowed myself to so easily fall under Brian’s spell although I knew I didn’t love him. Jep Franks was the only man I’d truly ever loved and, if I was honest, still loved. I married another simply because I couldn’t stand the thought of being alone and didn’t expect love like that to find its way to me ever again.
Sitting there alone, staring at couples and groups of people come in and out of the restaurant, I thought of Bri and how opposite of me she truly was. It was a wonder that we ever became such good friends. She would revel in the aloneness, the happy solitude of sitting by herself watching others’ lives move around her. It made me feel alone and sad, wondering if others judged me for traveling alone. Did they think I was simply a runaway with no one to come along for the ride?
I always gave her such a hard time for spending so much time alone, but truth was, I envied her. Although she always had her lively yet flighty mother, she’d grown up just as alone as I. Instead of it making her dependent upon social interaction, she’d become strong and independent.
I’m not saying that I admired everything about Bri. Good grief, it was frustrating trying to get her to go out on a date. Men fawned over her, and she just simply never saw it. She was constantly oblivious to the glances and gawking eyes. Usually, I did the gawking. If I hadn’t always been tied to a man, I would’ve taken advantage of my singleness. While I did wish to follow Bri’s lead on the independence front, I had no intention of ending my gawking days.
The male species, the exception being Brian of course, was made to be admired and now that I had been released from the prison of being married to the dark, cloudy, negative force Brian became, I intended to do a lot of admiring.
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