Trouble
My mom. She loves those movies. Still plays em all the time.
I do too. They’re my comfort movies.
Trouble
If you change your mind about the show tonight, let me know, yeah?
Yeah <3
It’s stupid and pointless and exactly the kind of exchange I need to get me through the bad days. I stare at the screen for a long time after, not ready to let go of the thread.
But the silence swells in the corners of the apartment, and eventually I drop the phone beside the pillow and let myself drift, wishing the morning away.
***
The week leaks past, each day bleeding into the next.
I sleep in until the sun is high, then pull the blanket over my head and sleep more. I wear the same shabby pajamas until they develop their own funk. I change only to shower, and even thenit’s more a rinse than a proper wash. My hair goes unbrushed, and by Wednesday it’s a frizzy mess.
There’s an unopened pile of mail on the entry table, and the only groceries I bother with are microwaveable.
I finish two novels and start a third, but my attention wavers. I can’t remember half of what I read. When my mind drifts to thoughts of James or Nash, I watch baking competitions where people scream at each other over meringue to distract myself.
I don’t answer calls. I don’t return texts.
Nash sent a photo from his show: a blurry crowd, a stage doused in purple light, the text reading “missed you.”
I stared at it and then set the phone to Do Not Disturb, hating the way the words feel like a hand at my back.
My email is a heap of unread notifications. There are at least three firm-wide memos in the mix, but I refuse to look at them. If there is fallout from the trial, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to see the polite “we thank Avery for her dedication” bullshit.
There is no comfort in it. Just a low, insistent hum of failure that never stops vibrating.
By Thursday, the laundry basket is so full I have to make a decision: either do a load or admit defeat and buy new underwear. I opt for the former, sorting colors in a bathrobe I haven’t washed since who knows when.
When the cycle finishes, I leave the wet clothes in the machine for ten hours, then run them again, embarrassed even in my solitude.
I catch my reflection in the microwave door: under-eye shadows, lips chapped, hair unruly. My skin looks dull, almost gray. I run a finger under my eye, marveling at the exhaustion.
Salem follows me into the bedroom and flops onto the sheets, belly up.
The sun sets, and I realize I haven’t left the apartment in five days. I think about going for a walk, maybe even just to the mailbox, but the idea of seeing other humans makes my skin crawl.
My Twilight marathon has long finished, and I have shifted to my comfort shows. Things like New Girl, Gilmore Girls, Gossip Girl.
All the girls, really.
I finish an episode, then another, then another.
When the week finally tips over into Friday, I am so far inside myself I can barely remember a time when I wasn’t.
I miss Nash. I miss James. I miss Mina, who would know exactly how to rescue me from this but would also be pissed that I let myself get to the state I’m currently in.
I close my eyes and listen to the city outside, the heartbeat of a world still moving without me.
Tomorrow, I’ll try harder to be myself again. I have to sooner or later.
