Page 5 of Any Second Now
“But it’s our house.” He reaches for me, palms up, but I step away. “And you won’t meet up.”
“We’ve been divorced for six months.” I open the car door and slide in. “I need space from you. But you keep coming here, to my work, my mom’s house. You email and text and call all the time. Please, stop.”
When he pops up on my phone screen, it’s labeledex-husband—don’t answer.
“And it’smyhouse.”
His face falls and I feel like I kicked a puppy. My ex-husband isn’t a bad person. I still love him, in my own way, but I’ve been working on getting over him since last summer when I found out he’d been gambling and making terrible investments over most of our five-year marriage.
Clearly, he’s not in the same place as I am.
I need a serious break from this life of mine.
“Hey, hey!” My manager comes around the corner of the pharmacy counter, shoving her purse in one of the cubbies and smiling widely at me. “I have good news.”
“Hey, Stacey.” I desperately need some good news right now. “That sounds promising.” My stomach feels all twisted and unhappy after the latest Jacob interaction. I guess I thought once the divorce was final, since we didn’t have kids or anything permanent together—not even a dog—that it would be a clean break.
I was wrong.
And it seems to be getting worse.
“Corporate approved your sabbatical request.” She gives a little squeal.
“What?” I spin my head to her and breathe in sharply. A shocked chuckle escapes my mouth. “No way.”
“Yes way. Eight weeks. Congratulations! I really didn’t think they’d approve it. They never give the pharmacists sabbaticals.” Stacey plants her hands on her hips.
“I didn’t think it’d go through.” Like I really, really didn’t. So much so that I don’t have set plans to fill eight weeks with, which is not like me.
My mom and I have had a working spreadsheet outlining my life options starting back when I was fourteen years old. It was helpful then, but now? It’s too much. At thirty-four years old, I feel like I should be in charge of my own spreadsheet, not a shared document with my mother.
There is one thing I’ve been working on secretly.
A big purchase in the works.
A spite buy.
“Just one unexpected detail.” Stacey scrunches her face.
“What?” I narrow my eyes. “And what’s that face for?”
“Your sabbatical starts on Monday. Yay!” She pumps a fist in the air and watches my reaction with wide eyes.
I gape at her, wondering if she’s joking. But she doesn’t back down.
“But… it’s Friday.” I swallow. “And I don’t work again till Monday.”
“So I guess this is goodbye.” My manager winks at me. “Are you still going to Colorado?”
Colorado? Maybe. I mean, I have my own timeline sketched out, and maybe I could get my spite buy by… Monday?
Stacey and I had talked about how there was a very, very lowchance of my request getting approved. I had two things in mind when I filled out the sabbatical request form.
The first is to go back out to see one of my best friends in Colorado.
I visited Lucy with our other best friend-slash-college roommate, January, over last New Year’s, and I’ve been itching to get back out there. I want to see Fort Collins in the summer. There was something magical about the snow-capped mountains surrounding the small college and hockey town.
Does it also have something to do with her incredibly hot younger brother who I might have kissed on New Year’s Eve in a move that was so out of character for me it must’ve been a champagne-fueled hallucination?
