Page 19 of My Cosplay Escape
“I worked a double shift, and then I ran home,” I say, kicking off Gwen’s shoes.
“I don’t like you running alone at all hours of the night.” She sounds exasperated.
I tug my knee up to my chin and close my eyes as my back adjusts. “I can outrun anyone.”
“It stops. Right now. Do you hear me? I’m not staying up all night praying that my daughter isn’t dead in a ditch somewhere because some DUI diva can’t be bothered to slow down.”
“Mom!”
She hands me a trifolded piece of paper. “This came today.”
Oh no. My student loan statement shakes in my sweaty hand. “You opened my mail?”
“My last name and address were on the envelope. Excuse me for making an honest mistake. When were you going to tell me you defaulted on your loan?”
I reach around the stack of boxes in the closet and grab my fluffy winter robe. Yes, it is July, but it is one of the only clean items hanging in my closet—Mom’s closet.
“You need to do laundry.”
I try to close the closet door, but Daniel’s boxes are in the way.
“And when are you going to do something about those boxes?”
I pause. Mom is almost hysterical. She’s definitely more of a morning person. Unlike me. It’s another source of contention that she’d love to talk about with meandher therapist.
I inhale, quietly and slowly, before turning around. “Mom, I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have texted. I should have added the shift I was picking up to the calendar.”
“And the loan?”
“I’m picking up extra shifts at the gym, aren’t I?” True, but I’m also going to Comic-Con and pretending that I’m a different person, a caricature of a sexy, confident woman, which I’ll never be. “And I’ll do laundry in the morning. I’ll be here till noon, and we can watch all theBake-Offsyou want while I fold—”
Mom puts a hand on her hip and stares at me.
Oh, right. “Never mind. You have church.”
“Yes.” Mom jabs the power button of her computer. “And an extra shift here and there.” She shakes her head. “It’s not enough, Sarah. You’re barely making enough to cover your credit card payments.”
I really need a better place to keep my statements than my mom’s desk. I sigh and plunge my hands into the pocket of my borrowed hoodie. Adam’s business card brushes against my fingers. “I know. I’m working on it.”
“And the boxes?”
I stare at the three carboard boxes monopolizing the real estate of the office/spare bedroom closet. “Yeah. The boxes too.”
Chapter Six
Sure, there are divorced men who sell all their earthly possessions (save what can fit in the super-expensive backpack they registered for at REI while their fiancées are too busy addressing wedding invitations to notice) and take to the wide-open road and find themselves on the Pacific Crest Trail, where they manage to rescue the world’s most pathetic-looking dog that suffers from anxiety, depression, and hip dysplasia. While hiking, and staying at the occasional spa, they post buttloads of pics with novella-length captions about how they found themselves, and really, it was the dog who rescued them. Then they decide to teach English in China with the dog and plaster their adventures, which consist of clubbing, eating, and being worshiped by all the adorable schoolchildren. Don’t get me started on the gorgeous “friends” who pop up in their feeds and drape themselves across the divorced men and all the little IG squares with an abundance of beauty, grace, and flawless skin.
Daniel didn’t sell all his earthly possessions. A lot of them he just couldn’t be bothered with. “I’ll get them when I come back,” he told me. “I just can’t deal with this right now.”
So I got to deal with it. I agreed to hang on to his random stuff—three full XL boxes that make it impossible for me to close the closet door.
It was the least I could do, right?
Bright morning sunshine streams through the kitchen window, making my mom’s robust potted herbs chartreuse and glowy. I have half a mind to tell these herbs to fudge off as I wait for my comfort wellness tea to cool. Instead, I scroll through Daniel’s Instagram feed. Mom stormed off to bed with threats of calling Brent after church to talk about dental hygienist school. Yay for picking up a morning shift at the gym. My thumb hovers over Daniel’s stories before I remember that he’ll see my views. I hit the home button of my screen.
I’m not stalking. My ex’s Instagram is public. I’m not pining either. Daniel is a douchebag. But Iambitter. And sad. It’s desperate to want to have something I can put on Instagram to show that I, too, can be a successful, fully-realized individual, even if I am not flanked by adorable children and gorgeous members of the opposite sex everywhere I go. But that’s where I am. Contemplating muttering obscenities at the cheerful herbs in my mom’s kitchen and looking to prove I’m not a pathetic cliché of a Gen Z.
I open up the photos on my phone, but there are no pictures, no evidence, of my cosplay and epic day at Comic-Con. I have nothing to post. The last photo I took was of where I parked my mom’s car for my shift at the gym two weeks ago. My last post was of a nebulous ocean before dawn.
