Page 92 of Pretty Please Me
I want to be mad. I want to chase after him and stab him with the heel of my shoe… but all I can do is laugh. I shake my head and laugh as tears fall down my cheeks because that was the last thing I ever expected after everything that’s happened over the last month. I realize his words don’t hurt me because I don’t agree with him. Trent can take his mediocre penis and Supercuts haircut back to his high school buddies and tell them anything he wants about me because if anyone in this scenario is bland, it’s him.
I fall back on my cozy bed and playback the memories of the worst date of my life and laugh at his audacity to sayI’mbland.
It’s strange to realize you’ve changed, that you respond to things differently than you used to. It’s like I’m looking at myself from the outside, finally seeing the bigger picture. I will never let a man—or anyone for that matter—make me believe I’m anything less than amazing ever again.
With six more days in this suite, I fully intend to make the most of it.
I roll over and pick up the phone. “Hi, would you mind sending up an order of the street tacos, chips and queso, and a large Pepsi? Oh, and what do you have for dessert?”
THIRTY-SIX
Sam
Three months later …
I collapse into my seat as I try to adjust to the rushed business of the airport during the holiday season. Having spent the last ninety days around the same group of about twenty men, working from sun up to sun down under the hot African sun, I’m exhausted even navigating this terminal.
My face feels oddly bare, and my clothes feel restrictive as I try to get comfortable in the stiff seat. Last night, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven when I stepped under a shower’s hot stream for the first time in three months. I didn’t realize what luxury hot showers were, and after this experience, I swear I’ll never take them for granted ever again.
My olive skin’s more of a golden bronze, and my hands are covered in a whole new set of calluses. I’m leaner, stronger, and more at peace than I’ve ever been in my life. I thought it would be hard to be cut off from the world, but it was exactly what I needed. Being able to immerse myself into a good cause while exerting myself to the point of exhaustion every day left me little time to overthink the laundry list of my past mistakes—not to mention the new ones. For the first time in my life, I could fall asleep without fighting off my inner demons.
Of course, the minute I stepped back into my hotel room last night, all the memories of what I was running from came flooding back to me like a tsunami. So, naturally, I let myself pretend for one more night that I didn’t completely fuck myself over by running away. It didn’t really work.
Despite the hot shower and real mattress, I slept like shit last night.
But now I’m sitting in the airport, waiting on my next connection and watching everyone buzz around me with excitement and determination as they try to get home for the holidays. I snicker as I watch large families bicker and argue while trying to run to catch their flights. There’s so much stress and anxiety in the air that it’s almost palpable. I feel like an alien observing another species entirely, as my thoughts couldn’t be further from the upcoming holiday.
I glance at the dirt under my fingernails that I failed to scrub away, and I’m reminded of something so much bigger than a holiday. Maybe it has to take something major like isolating yourself and giving back through hard labor to realize what’s really important. Or maybe that’s just what it took to get through for me because I was so closed off.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and stare at it. It’s fully charged, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to power it on just yet. I know that once I do, all my clear thinking will be polluted with all the things I ran away from. But I can’t run forever. I need to face reality, and I’ll probably spend the next three months playing catch-up on just my emails, not to mention everything else.
I suck in a breath and power the phone on, letting myself get reacquainted with the tiny computer that seems to run my life whether I like it or not.
My eyes widen as my email icon lights up with a red five-digit number, and my missed texts and voicemails follow closely behind.
Fuck me. This will take forever. I push my fingers through my wavy hair and sigh making a mental note to have my assistant schedule a haircut as soon as I return to Chicago.
I’m flying straight to Panama City since I promised my family I’d be home for Christmas. I even bought my plane tickets ahead of time and told them about it just so I wouldn’t back out. I haven’t seen or talked to anyone since the day my dad drove me to the airport.
I meant to call and keep in touch, but there wasn’t any service where we were staying, and I didn’t venture out to the city on the weekends like some of the other guys. I used my rare moments of free time to sit in the silence of nature and soak up whatever healing the universe had to spare. A smirk pulls at my lips as an image of Maggie sitting cross-legged on the beach, the wind swirling her hair around her as she sat there for what felt like hours refilling her depleted well.
I didn’t understand it at the time—I still don’t, actually—but she was on to something. So while I tried not to think about her, it seemed like nature constantly brought her up anyway.
It was cruel at first, and I was angry that I couldn’t shake the memories, that they seemed to haunt me more when all I wanted was to escape, but after a while, the loneliness took over, and I felt comforted by her memory. I found myself thinking of her when the sun came up, how the orange and pink hues mingled, reminding me of her bright ginger hair. I found myself staring at the stars many nights as they reminded me of the freckles spanning her nose. I tried not to think about the night we spent on the rooftop or any night we spent together, actually, but the memories always crept in anyway when I let my guard down.
So, while I was alone and there was no one there to see or know what I was thinking, I let myself dream of what it would’ve been like in an alternate universe. I let myself feel loved by her without judgment, and I kept it tucked away deep inside me while I worked until my hands bled and my muscles shook.
The hardest part was making myself stop after indulging in daydreaming for so long. I can’t know the pain I caused her, but I don’t deserve the pleasure of allowing myself to forget any of it. At least I could give her the space she needed to heal. It was the least I could do.
My finger’s still hovering over the email icon when the flight attendant announces it’s time to board. I sigh and shove my phone back in my pocket as I make my way on the plane.
Maybe I’ll let myself enjoy a little bit more fantasy before I rip the Band-Aid off.
I stare out my window as passengers slowly start to fill in the space around me
* * *
“Will you look at that? He’s actually here.” My dad hugs me and then opens the trunk for my bag.
