I needed help. Or a vacation.
Or perhaps, all I needed was a good-hearted woman to come home to at the end of a long day. I needed someone to put her head on my chest and take a deep breath with me when I walked through the door and help me check out of work mentally and check in to being home with her. Someone with a pretty smile who could promise good company and no stress when I was with her.
Like how it used to be when Piper and I spent the month together.
I gave my head a shake. That felt like a lifetime ago now. I’d moved on. I truly had. I didn’t love Piper anymore and I was happy for her and Wyatt—the Casanova process had worked just as it was intended to. She found love. So did Wyatt. Now they were well on their way to achieving everything Piper had ever dreamed of, including becoming a mother. I just considered myself lucky to have been part of that journey.
However, I wasn’t immune to a bit of jealousy as I longed for what she and Wyatt had. I’d give anything to have that feeling again. For a brief period after the wedding, I thought I almost had it with Piper’s maid of honor, but that didn’t pan out how I’d expected, and it was best if I didn’t dwell on that loss for too long.
Maybe that was why I’d let myself get caught up with Sienna in the first place. Desperation.
I tried to shake that thought away. It didn’t sit well. I wasn’t a desperate man and I refused to think of myself as one.
Perhaps it was loneliness. That was an easier pill to swallow.
If my grandmother ever knew I’d dated a woman like Sienna, she would have smacked me upside the head and given me a piece of her mind. She’d remind me who the hell I was and what I deserved, and it certainly was not a self-indulgent, ignorant, spoiled, selfish woman who only cared about her image and status and would do whatever it took to upgrade her life.
Shawn cleared his throat and I looked up.
“Did you hear me?” Shawn asked, his eyebrows knitting together. He had a pen poised over the calendar in his hands and had likely just ran me through what my day looked like, and here I was, zoning out on him.
“No,” I admitted. “Sorry, Shawn. I’m not sleeping well these days.”
“A desk makes a shitty pillow,” he said.
“Yeah, it does. Run that by me again. I’m listening now.”
Chapter 3
Janie
I had to use my hip to push my front door open after struggling out in the hall with my keys for what felt like an eternity. In one hand, I had the golden ticket to making my solo night at home (like every night at home) better—a bottle of cheap red wine. In the other hand, I had a bag of takeout vegetable chow mein and some mini spring rolls. Neither would solve any of my problems but they would help drown them out, if not just for the night.
And the nights were always the worst.
I started my routine the same as always. First, I went down the hall to my bedroom, where I traded my pencil skirt and deep red blouse for a summery pajama set. I kicked off my heels and padded barefoot to the bathroom so I could scrub my makeup off and slap on some moisturizer. After a half-assed attempt at a skincare routine, I returned to the kitchen, poured myself a glass of wine, and brought the takeout containers into the living room so I could plop down on the sofa, throw on my favorite sitcom, and eat straight out of the plastic to-go box.
I washed every second bite down with a sip of wine. Did the much-too-sweet bottle of shiraz go with the chow mein? Not really. But once I was halfway through the bottle, I didn’t seem to notice that much.
I spilled wine on my pajama set and chow mein on the sofa and just kept on going. The TV distracted me from the guilt and shame as I overate and overdrank—both of which helped erase the woes of the day.
How much longer would I be able to keep going like this?
In hindsight, I should have quit or at least spoken to Jackson Lee when I fell out of love with my work. When I was his assistant, I loved going into the office. I liked the hustle and bustle and being the middle person for him. I liked how every day looked different and I had flexibility with my work. The pay was mediocre but at least I was happy.
After taking the promotion, I knew things were shifting in a way I didn’t like. Each day was the same as the last. Every morning was spent with the same routine. I’d get ready and stare at myself in the bathroom mirror wondering who the hell the girl was staring back at me.
I didn’t recognize her.
When had that started happening? When had the girl in the mirror become someone else? Someone sullen, spent, and exhausted? Someone who’d lost her edge?
I wished I had answers to those questions. Maybe they would help me find my way now.
I stared morosely at the bottle of wine on my coffee table and poured yet another glass.
“Who needs answers when you have wine?” I asked the characters on my TV screen. They didn’t answer me, of course. They carried on with their scripted lives. I took a healthy swig and set the glass down a little too hard. For a moment, I thought I’d cracked the glass, but luckily, it was still intact. “You need to get a hold of yourself, Janie. What would Piper say to you if she saw you like this?”
Piper would have run me a bath, taken the chow mein away from me, and told me I deserved to treat myself better than this.
But did I really deserve more?
I was the one to blame for ending up here alone, exhausted, and empty.
The only thing I had going for me was the job I hated. I cried putting my makeup on most days, thinking about going into the office knowing I’d rather be anywhere else. I cried driving home. I cried lying in bed.
Maybe the tears weren’t only because of the job. Maybe it was because of a whole list of reasons and the job was the thing that pushed me over the edge because I had to confront it every damn day.
If Piper still lived with me and I had someone like her to come home to, I doubted I’d be struggling this much.
I hiccupped as another glass of wine went down.
“I need a change,” I whispered.
What options did I have? I could quit my job, but then what? How would I pay my rent? How would I keep moving forward without work? And what kind of work did I even want to do?
All those questions paralyzed me. I had no clue where to start. It was so much easier and safer to just come home, watch mindless television, drink wine, and turn my brain off until I had to get up again in the morning.
I can’t keep doing this forever.
The wine bottle was empty before nine o’clock. My stomach was heavy and full from the greasy chow mein and my head was spinning, so I stumbled up from the sofa and made my way into the bathroom where I ran myself a bath and drunkenly pretended Piper was doing it for me.
I pretended to be her as I poured my favorite bubble bath under the stream of water and set up some little candles on the edge of the tub. Next, I lit said candles and nearly dropped the match into the bathwater. When all was said and done, I tossed in a bath bomb that frothed and fizzed and spun end over end. As it dissolved, I stripped out of my wine-stained pajamas and stepped over the tub.
The water was a little too hot.
It burned, but I sank beneath the surface anyway, plunging all the way under so that the sounds of my apartment became muffled, muted, faraway sounds. I’d left my TV on. I could hear voices but they sounded like whales talking.