Page 23 of Unstoppable You

My stomach was empty, but still unsettled. I definitely had to wait a while before I could attempt to move. Gingerly, I made my way back into the living room and found my phone on the floor. Yup, screen was still cracked. I’d need to get that fixed as soon as possible. Great.

I managed to get myself onto the couch again and flipped through the pictures I’d taken at the dive bar. They’d gotten worse as the night wore on, and the last few were just shots of the floor. At least I had some evidence of my reckless evening.

I ordered a breakfast sandwich, hash browns, and a giant iced latte that would hopefully restore me. Until it got here, I tossed back a few painkillers and a glass of water that almost made me gag, but I got it down.

I sort of drifted until the food arrived, throwing on a sweatshirt before I went downstairs to retrieve my sustenance.

“This could be really good or really bad,” I muttered to myself as I opened the still-steaming sandwich.

It ended up being good, and I managed to keep all of it down. By noon I had perked up and was feeling less like I’d been peeled off the sidewalk after being run over by a garbage truck.

I had a million notifications, many of them from Connor. I ignored those and then realized that I’d sent a few messages to Larison and Jo last night.

Seems like someone’s having a good timeLarison had said after I’d sent her a ton of terrible pictures. I typed out a belated response.

I’m paying for it today. Connor “accidentally” sent me a dick pic and I kind of lost my mind.

Her answer was quick.Oh shit. You really need to block his number. Don’t let him take any more of your time or energy.

She was right, and I couldn’t keep thinking about nightmare scenarios where he was in a car accident or something and was only able to call or message me. Or if he was arrested or something.

It wasn’t like he didn’t have parents who babied him and a sister who, in spite of how he treated her, answered his calls.

He also had plenty of extended family that would drop anything to help him. And friends, somehow. He had plenty of guy friends who put up with his shit until they got tired of him again.

I pulled up his contact and sat there with my thumb hovering over the block option until I actually did it. There. I blocked him. Now he couldn’t use my number to contact me. He could still find me on social media, but that took a little more effort and Connor didn’t like making much of an effort.

I hadn’t read his messages. No doubt he was pissed at what I’d said. As if I was the one who had wrecked our relationship. As if I was the one who had flushed four years down the toilet.

He was never going to take responsibility for anything he did. Ever.

But blocking him was the next step in breaking his hold on my life. I’d gotten him out of my apartment, but now I needed to completely evict him from my life.

I wanted to be a different kind of woman than I’d been when I dated Connor.

The rest of my Saturday was spent looking up other people’s youthful rebellious stories online and trying to decide what I wanted to do for myself. Obviously now that I was older, some things were out the window. Underage drinking, sneaking out of the house, etc.

But there were plenty of other things that I’d wanted to do, or thought about doing, or wished I could do. I pulled up a blank note on my phone and started adding things to my list.

My Fuckit List. No more Bucket List. It was time for the Fuckit List.

Throughout the night I kept adding things as I thought of them.

Among the things like “dance on a bar” and “go skinny-dipping” and “crash a wedding.” I also added “kiss a girl.” Because why not? Most of my friends had gotten drunk and kissed a friend or played Spin the Bottle and gave another girl a peck at a party.

I needed to rack up my rebellious points and that seemed exactly like the kind of thing that would help. Maybe I could accomplish the dancing on the bar and the girl kiss on the same night. I’d definitely have to have a few drinks in me for the girl kiss. It wasn’t like Iwantedto kiss a girl or anything. Anytime I’d ever seen something like that, I’d always thought I should look away and my stomach had twisted in an uncomfortable way. I wasn’t homophobic or anything, but it just made me feel…strange.

As long as I had enough shots beforehand, I might not even remember the girl kiss. It would be quick, and then I could check it off my list.

Now I had a mission.

One thing I hadn’t thought of was how much time I now had to myself. Being Connor’s girlfriend had sucked up a lot of my day. Doing all of my chores on top of his had been utterly exhausting.

Now I had to figure out some better ways to fill my time. Mine. It was all mine now.

Chapter Ten

James

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