“Yeah,” I said with a devilish smile. “Idatedhim for a night ortwo.”
“Ugh. I don’t want to hear about your wild sex life,” Max grumbled next to me. "You work with me, so you're asexual. Period. You don’t have any of that devil vaginamagic. ”
Ryan barked out an obnoxious laugh. “I totally see Callie having a ton of devil vagina magic—she’s probably the grand wizard of themall.”
I set my coffee cup down and threw a balled up napkin at him that had been lying on my desk for who knows how long. He caught it easily, still laughing like the jerk hewas.
“Liv was telling me about a teacher she works with. The guy is single, stable—” Deanbegan.
“Thanks,eHarmony, but no,” I snapped, instantlyannoyed.
Ever since Dean met his girlfriend Liv and Ryan started dating Brooke, it’s like they both came down with some sort of widespread incurable disease that makes your heart malfunction and turns your brain into pink fluffy cotton candy. Worse still, they thought everyone else should suffer the same symptoms along with them. To me, all that lovey-dovey crap was a socially acceptable form of addiction.It’s disgusting. When I go out with all of them, ugh, they act like those obligatory overly mushy, sentimental couples who believe in the dumb ass fairy tale of meeting your soul mate. The four of them constantly have their tongues in each other’s mouths, all while murmuring how they can’t live without each other. And all they talked about, all they seemed preoccupied with, was how to find me a serious relationship. Last week, they'd even showed me a list of single men in the area. I didn't have the heart to tell them; I already slept with half ofthem.
I’m single by choice, not because of lack of options. The only thing I ever wanted to be committed to wasmyself.
Unlocking my coat and purse from my desk drawer, I started to gather up my stuff to leave. Why couldn’t a woman ever just be single without it being some huge pity party from her friends? Why did people think my life needed to revolve around me nailing down Mr.Perfect?
There was nobody perfect. Not forme.
I'd been utterly annihilated by relationships before, just like most people. To search out another one that’ll end the same way was total self-destruction in my opinion. I found most people asked themselves, “Hey, hold up…do I really want to deal with this love stuff?” Ironically, they answered with, “Yeah, this time it’ll work.I believe. I mean, even though my heart was charred ash, I have faith that there's more left inside this old bag of bones that's worth being destroyed,again."
Hell no, not forme.
I slipped my arms into my coat and waved each of them off with my middle finger. It was a loving gesture. “Wonder Woman, Superwoman, Bat Woman, they were all single, and I'm single, too, because just like them, I’m a badass superhero.” Wrapping my scarf tightly around my neck, I stepped out into the icy rain, still laughing at their confused expressions. I understood nobody got me, and that was all right. When you didn't let people in, you're bound to be misunderstood. And I wasThe Ms.Understood.
Driving home, the streets blurred in front of my eyes. It had been a long, rough day, and I needed to be back again in a handful of hours. I rushed home, blinking frantically—I just wanted my bed and maybe a nice glass of redwine.
As I pulled up to my house, the rain turned to an icy mist that hung heavily in the air. On the corner one of the streetlamps was out, casting the whole street into a dark, ominousshadow.
I climbed out of the car quickly and noticed the neighbor’s kid across the street, sitting alone on their front porch. I pulled up my sleeve to check the time on my watch: ten o’clock. Too late for a kid that young to be outside, and too cold to be without a jacket,again. How the universe chooses when some people get to be parents and others don't, I willneverunderstand. No child, especially one that young, should be outside alone in the cold, atnight.
If it were mychild…
I crushed the thought instantly. It would never be my child. I would never be able to say,my child. That privilege was something that was taken from me. And it's not something I could put into words or clear thoughts, so I stayed far away from thinking about it or dealing withit.
But this kid on theporch?
Just a few weeks before, I noticed the kid outside alone, wearing a thin tee shirt, a couple of sizes too big. I wondered if the kid even owned a coat. I'd never met the parents or parent. I was rarely home to be making nice with the neighbors, but with the way the house was kept, I'd say they didn't have much. I couldn’t even tell if the kid was a boy or agirl.
Then one night last week after work, I went to the mall and purchased a plain black coat. It was one of those heavily insulated ones that were waterproof and made for below zero weather. I slipped fifty dollars into the front pocket and hung it on the knob of their front door. The next day it was gone, but I’ve yet to see the kid wearing it. I lifted my hand and gave the child a small wave. He, or she, darted inside the house immediately.Good, now the kid wasn’t out in the coldanymore.
My boots crunched across the icy gravel of my driveway to my front door. I punched the alarm code in on the small keypad and let myselfinside.
Feeling the weight of the day on my shoulders, I undressed in the hallway, forgoing the wine, and just settled on slipping between the sheets of my warm bed. The house was quiet. I breathed in deeply, trying to relax my muscles and my mind. Decompress from work. A clock ticked somewhere, and I sighed, turning to lie on my side. Alone again, facing the empty wall, I pulled at my pillows until I was curled up aroundthem.
Somewhere outside, a small baby cried, and a sudden stab of blinding grief and crippling disappointment burned through my chest. I clutched the pillows tighter, wetting them with my silent tears as a heavy exhaustion swept me under. My eyes fell closed involuntarily, and I drifted off to the baby’s cries, praying that someone was there to hold the child and ease its fears—hating that it would never be able to beme.
But that was perfectly okay, because I was very used to beingalone.
