I slammed my drawer shut and gathered my clothes. I didn’t bother with responding and instead headed to the bathroom. I didn’t want to talk about this. I didn’t want to converse about what a dick Damien was. Stating facts didn’t seem necessary. I sure as hell didn’t need to remember how I had been completely blindsided by my former boyfriend’s inner asshole. He sure as hell had kept that hidden.
I closed myself in the bathroom and wished I could fast forward time and be on the other side of graduation all ready.
The door pushed against my back and I stumbled forward as Maysie came inside. I arched an eyebrow at her as I reached behind the curtain to turn on the water.
“I knew you always wanted to see me naked,” I smirked, dropping my clothes on the floor and grabbing a towel off the rack.
Maysie snorted and then gave me her serious look. “I’m just worried about you, Riley. This whole depressed girl act is freaking me out a bit. I don’t know if I should be plying you with liquor or forcing you to go to church. Because I’m beginning to think you’ve been possessed.”
I sighed and opened the bathroom door. I not so nicely shoved her out into the hallway. “I’ll be fine. Aren’t I always fine? I just need more than two days to reconcile myself to the fact that the boy I thought I loved was a complete and total assface. Now please, I have to shower and get ready to face said assface at work this evening. And I don’t need to spend the next twenty minutes listing all the reasons he sucks and how I should react to seeing him. I just need to be alone, all right,” I said a bit more harshly than I meant to.
I knew Maysie meant well, but right at that moment I had very little patience for well-meaning chitchat. Though perhaps I should be a bit more receptive to her advice. Because the girl did know how to do the tragic, broken hearted thing with the best of them. Lord knows I had to sit through a mountain of it last school year during the drama otherwise known as “Jordan-gate.”
After getting out of the shower, I stood in front of the bathroom vanity and started to blow-dry my hair. I stared hard at the girl in the mirror and wondered how it all went so wrong.
Because, seriously, Damien and I had been solid. I’m not just saying that because I’m in some crazy state of denial. I know girls will whine “but things were great!” right after being dumped by their dick of a boyfriend while her friends laugh behind her back because the jerk had been boning half the campus and snorting coke off a hooker’s boobs in his free time.
But seriously, we had been solid! Better than solid. We were the perfect package. He got me. Or at least I had thought so. We had been together for over a year. And even if it wasn’t the crazy, passionate relationship Maysie had with Jordan, it was good. It was nice.
And my heart felt heavy without it.
My eyes narrowed as I took stock of my appearance. I was pretty. I could admit that. I didn’t do self-deprecation very well, among other things. I had nice, shoulder length hair that was so dark it was almost black. My eyes were a pale blue. Everything was proportionate. My nose wasn’t too big and my ears didn’t stick out. I felt pretty confident that I could check off raging case of the fuglies on the why-I-had-been-dumped-on-my-ass list.
So why hadn’t Damien been happy?
I snarled at my reflection. I was annoying the shit out of myself. Who was this girl and what happened to her self-esteem?
I was not one to question myself. I was very clear on my thoughts and opinions about things. I never deviated from course. And Damien had fit nicely into the picture I had created of my future.