Uh-oh.
Once.
Twice.
I drop my hands.
Somehow, through the haze of shock, my brain snaps into gear, warning me to get my chrysanthemum-stained fingers away from my breathing passage.
But it's too late.
The damage is done.
And that's how, right after getting dumped on live TV, I fall into an unstoppable sneezing fit.
I can't bring my hands to cover my face because that would only make it worse.
I've got nowhere to hide because I'm in a studio with three cameras pointed directly at me.
All I can do is stand there, face uncovered, with the studio lights beaming down on me, open-mouth horror-sneezing over and over and over again.
No wonder it went viral.
It was the most memeable, GIFable, instantly shareable trainwreck thirteen seconds of live TV since that actor from Ted Lasso forgot his own name in a late-night interview and inexplicably jumped up and started doing some Irish folk dancing.
The story blew up.
Meet the sneezy breakup girl everyone's talking about
Have you seen the sneezing breakup sensation who's all over the internet?
There's something sneezy about Evie
And that's how #BreakupSneezeGirl was born.
I snap the laptop shut and get up.
A sickly feeling skitters in my belly as I pace.
Well, try to pace.
I'm in a toilet cubicle, so it's more like I take two steps, spin on my heel, take two steps, and repeat.
I feel horrible.
And a little dizzy.
And I am so over feeling horrible about this. My relationship with Bryce wasn't exactly healthy. There were a bunch of red flags I was ignoring. Was I excited about getting married to him, or by the prospect of the proposal?
It was the latter. Definitely the latter.
"What am I doing here?" I mutter to myself. "This isn't healthy. I have to let this go."
"Everything okay in there?"
I let out a scream.
I'd been so in my head rewatching that stupid video, I didn't hear anyone come in. "I'm fine," I reply to my cubicle neighbor.