I left his truck with a smile on my face, a smile that didn’t leave until I had let myself into my dark house, a smile that stayed in place until after I’d brushed my teeth and climbed into my bed with Annie curled up next to me.
It was then that my smile slowly disappeared… that it turned into a frown as I stared up at the still ceiling fan and spread my body out on a bed I had shared with my husband in a house we bought together.
I expected to fall asleep quickly, but I tossed and turned until the alcohol wore off and my eyes hurt from unshed tears.
Eli was a distraction from the truth of my misery. Eli was fun to flirt with and divert my single-minded attention, but he didn’t fix the problems inside me. He didn’t solve my broken marriage or my heartbreaking divorce.
When I finally fell asleep, I thought I had done so sober. So when I woke up in the morning and found a new text message on my phone, nobody was more surprised than me.
Nick had texted: Me too.
I was confused until I saw the text sent directly before that one… the one sent from me at three in the morning. This is killing me.
Chapter Seven
14. He doesn’t notice the little things.
The next morning was brutal. I didn’t think I had ever felt this bad.
Besides the surprise text from Nick, my head had been squeezed in a vice grip and filled with a hundred dancing monkeys-the kind with the crashing cymbals-and my stomach threatened to upheave every time I moved or walked or talked or breathed or decided to keep living.
I crawled out of bed feeling like my mouth had been wrapped in cotton and dragged myself to a cold shower. The freezing water warred with my massive headache, but at least my body felt super-cooled.
I gingerly picked at a breakfast of Alka-Seltzer and Tylenol and washed it down with a huge glass of water, which did nothing to settle my upset stomach.
By the time I had dressed in my usual black pencil skirt and blouse, I only felt just this side of death. I glanced at the shoes in my closet and promptly stripped out of everything I had put on.
It was a flats and pants kind of day. I would not survive heels or skirts or anything but the most comfortable outfit I could manage. And since yoga pants were usually frowned upon by the administration, my tailored, wide-leg pants and a light pink sweater were going to have to cut it.
Thankfully, in the middle of October, the weather had cooled significantly.
Chicago falls could range from muggy heat that never wanted to leave to early winters that layered the ground with snow and ice. This autumn, thankfully, fell right in the middle. The breeze was crisp enough for light jackets and sweaters, the grass in my small front yard had begun to frost over in the mornings and the lone tree in front of my house had turned a brilliant rainbow of golds and reds.
It felt like football and Halloween and I loved every second of it.
By the time I parked my old Ford Focus in the teachers’ lot, I felt like a living, breathing human being again. Granted, a living, breathing human being with a nasty hangover headache and the kind of nausea that turned my skin green, but still. It was an improvement.
I met Mrs. Chan at the mailboxes and noticed the equally sickly hue to her complexion. She stared at her box with the kind of abject vacancy I could appreciate this morning.
“It’s going to be a long day,” I grumbled.
She jumped, startled to find me standing next to her. Eventually, her expression settled back into miserable. “Ugh,” she agreed.
I offered her a grim smile. “Starla’s is a bad idea during the week.”
She shook her head and said, “If any of those little bastards pull the fire alarm today, I will murder them.”
My eyebrows shot to my hairline and I had to press my lips together to keep from gaping at her. Mrs. Chan was somewhere around fifty years old with a graying bob and a sweet smile. I had never heard her talk like that before.
Ever.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” I offered tranquilly.
She held up her travel mug and wiggled it gently. “My homeroom better hope this works.”