Page 2 of Unstoppable You

“Fuck Connor,” Jo said, passing me a glass of beer.

“I’d rather not, actually,” I said, taking the sweating glass and stopping myself from immediately chugging it. Larison had driven me here and I was taking a car home so my plan was to get absolutely smashed, something I’d never done actually done before.

There were so many things I’d never done before.

Jo and Larison gave me similar sympathetic looks as I swallowed a huge gulp of beer and tore the meat off a wing with my teeth, discarding the bones in the empty bucket that had been provided.

I’d never felt so feral in my life. The idea of tearing off all my clothes, running into the woods, and screaming until my lungs bled definitely had its appeal.

I wanted to scratch and bite and claw and wreck and ruin and destroy.

The fire today hadn’t done much to slake my rage. If I could have set Connor’s truck on fire and watched it burn, that might have satisfied me. Maybe not even then.

Larison and Jo tried to talk with me, but I was only half-listening. The rest of my brain was busy these days. Occupied with other matters.

Rage and vengeance required a lot of energy, apparently. I was exhausted.

“You sure you’re good to work next week?” Larison asked me. She might be my friend, but she was also my boss, so things could get a little tricky sometimes.

“Absolutely. I’m happy for the distraction. I just want to get back to normal.”

There was no getting back to normal for me. Normal was the exact thing I wanted toavoid. Where had normal gotten me? It had gotten me a man who fucking cheated on me. It hadn’t made me rich, or famous, or even happy.

Doing what I was supposed to do, what was expected of me, had never done me a goddamn thing.

It was time for something new.

My parents used to watch this older sitcom and one episode the guy decided to do the opposite of all his instincts, and everything started working out for him. That was the energy I wanted to bring to my life.

Fuck-it vibes.

Part of me thought about telling Larison and Jo about my new plan, but I was still keeping it to myself. I didn’t just want to dive into something recklessly. I needed to think this through.

What did I always do? Make a list. This would be a Fuckit List. All the things I’d stopped myself from doing up until now that I was going to let myself do.

It was going to be a long-ass list.

“Delaney?” Larison asked, and I realized I’d been staring off into space and thinking about my list.

“Yeah, sorry. I’m back.”

Reaching for a wing, I ate it rapidly and tuned back into the conversation between Larison and Jo. They were discussing a new book, of course. Normally I’d have been completely involved in the discussion and you wouldn’t have been able to stop me from talking, but my constant-burning rage was making that difficult.

It should have been a fun night out with my friends, but my heart wasn’t in it. I didn’t know why this breakup was hitting me so hard. I’d always been able to put things aside and keep a smile on my face and a song in my heart.

Fucking Connor. The night I’d discovered him was a complete blur. I know I’d done a lot of screaming and crying, but other than that? No idea what I’d said. It was a shame, because I still had plenty of things I wanted to say to him.

“Delaney?” Larison had obviously been trying to get my attention.

“Hm?” I asked.

“Do you want to just go home?” she asked, both her and Jo giving me concerned frowns.

I didn’t like that. Usually I was the one with the concerned frown looking at them. The one who was taking care of someone else. The one who was making sure that everyone was having a good time, and if they weren’t, I did my best to change it. This role reversal was as uncomfortable as an old scratchy sweater.

I didn’t like it at all.

There was no way to salvage tonight. I was fully in my head and not even wings and beer and my friends were going to bring me out of it.

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