For the first time in a long time, I leave the office early. At least my penthouse isn’t filled with memories and her scent.
Except being home is just as bad. Maybe because there are no memories or her scent here. There should be. I should havebrought her home with me last night, fallen asleep with her in my arms, and woken up this morning with her still in my bed.
I exercise in my home gym for longer than normal, trying to exhaust myself, but I toss and turn, finally falling asleep just a couple of hours before my alarm is set to go off. It’s a restless, shitty sleep filled with dreams of Amelia’s hurt expression.
Chapter 12
A one-way ticket on the hot mess express
Amelia
Watching the luggage carousel while half drunk is amusing and slightly nauseating, but I can’t look away. I hit the first open bar I could find in the airport before boarding the plane in New York and have been sipping on vodka cranberries ever since. Fourteen hours and three layovers later, I realize I probably should have eaten more than a bag of gummy worms. I feel like shit on top of already feeling like shit. Drinking with a freshly broken heart is a bad idea.
My bags haven’t shown up yet, and I make sure I’m at the right place for the fourth or ninth time before pulling out my phone to call Bean. She called me earlier when I would have been on my lunch break at work, but I was somewhere over Missouri at the time. Or maybe it was Michigan. Could have been Montana. Why are there so many states that start with the letter M?
Oh, wait! It was Mississississppiiii. Missippi. Mississipipi. Fuck.
“Minnie, I was starting to get worried! Are you okay?” Bean asks.
“I’m fine. I’m good. I’m good. Good gooooood.” I carefully enunciate every word.
“Are you drunk?” She sounds amused. It would be amusing if it weren’t so fucking depressing.
“No. Um, rude.” Okay, I’m more drunk than I thought I was.
“Ha! You are! I love Drunk Minnie!”
“Not me. She got me into thismess in the first place. She applied for that job and now I needa ride.” My words definitely have a bit of a slur to them.
“Do you want me to log into your account and order you an Uber?”
“No no no, Bean. I need you to come pick meup,” I say, trying not to run my words together.
She laughs. “How drunk are you? I can’t pick you up. You’re in New York.”
“Nope, wrong. I am home. Almost home. I’m atthe airport. Come getme, please.” I close my eyes and lean against a pillar. “I need you, Bean,” I mumble into the phone.
“Shit, Min, what happened? Never mind, you can tell me in person. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Where are you?”
“Baggage claim.” I open my eyes, but they take a few seconds to focus. “Um, number three. Oohhhh, there’s oneofmybags. You’re coming, right, Bean?”
“Getting in the car now. Get your bags and sit down. Stay there, Minnie. Don’t drink anything more unless it’s water or coffee.”
“K. Mwah.” I make a kissy noise and hang up before stumbling over to the first of my bags. I checked three, so I sit on the first one like it’s a chair and watch for the others while sipping the drink I ordered when I got off the plane. I won’t buy another one, but I can’t let this one go to waste. When I finally have all my bags, I drag them over to a bench and wait.
If there’s no traffic, it’s about a thirty-minute drive from our little town of Cottonwood Creek, Washington, to the Portland airport, but it doesn’t take much to turn it into a forty or sixty, or million-minute drive. I usually check the map app, butI don’t want to look at my phone. Every time I do, the little red bubbles showing a voicemail I haven’t listened to and messages I haven’t read taunt me. I’m afraid to open my email. Shit, I should probably do it so I can block him there, too. And how long will it be before I’m dodging Katie?
My life got messy fast.
Stupid Alex.
I hate him.
And I hate that I hate him. Tears start falling again, and I can’t do anything to stop them.
“Oh, Minnie,” Bean says, kneeling in front of me. She cups my cheeks in her hands and wipes my tears away with her thumbs. I lean forward, letting my forehead crash onto her shoulder, and her arms go around me. Safe, I let myself break, and she holds me while I sob all over her. I don’t know how long it takes before my tears dry up, but she doesn’t complain because she’s the best friend a girl could have.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur.
