Page 2 of Wish For Me

The feeling didn’t last. Fifteen minutes later, we’d transported enough totes and décor to clear the bed and the dresser; made the bed; and Mom now stood yawning at the door.

I smiled, trying to hide the fact I was rethinking all my life choices. “You better get to bed. Dad’ll be worried.”

“Your father’s out cold. He played squash today. He has a new friend who’s twenty years older than him and can kick his butt on the court. It’s funny, he knew John’s son through work, but had never met him…”

As Mom went on about Dad’s new BFF, I slumped onto the bed.

“…then tomorrow I’ll make everyone my favorite breakfast muffins and maybe we can head up to the mountains and do a sleigh ride! One of John’s friend’s just bought a ranch up there and—”

Mom cut herself off when she saw me. “I’m sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. You must be exhausted.”

I wasn’t, actually. More like defeated. Devastated. And pissed off at a man who was probably right now screwing the woman I woke up this morning looking up to. “It’s fine,” I said stiffly. “Can we talk about all this tomorrow?”

“Of course, honey. You get some rest.” She kissed me on the forehead. “You’re going to make your dad’s month when he sees you tomorrow. Heck, his whole year!”

After she slipped out, I flopped back on the bed, groaning. I could already see Dad’s disappointed expression when he found out Patrick and I were over. He’d warmed up to Patrick over the years. They weren’t buddies or anything, but he’d cooled it, at least a little, on his initial protective frostiness. I wonder what he’d think now if I told him I’d caught Patrick banging our play’s artistic director—my boss—in his Ebenezer Scrooge costume this morning, before I’d even finished my first cup of coffee?

The sight had been so absurd, I’d actually laughed when I’d opened the door to Beth’s office and saw them there. For a moment I’d thought it was some kind of bizarre prank. But when she and Patrick jumped apart, tucking themselves back into their clothes—or in Patrick’s case, his frock-coat—I hadn’t just freaked out. I’d sworn like a sailor and hurled my coffee mug. Their affair, as it turned out, had been going on since the summer. It didn’t just mean the end of my seven-year relationship. It meant the end of my job as a stage manager at the Hourglass Community theatre—a job I was lucky to get with so little real world experience—and any prospect of a reference from my boss, who’d sustained a travel mug to the chin injury, even though I’d been aiming at Patrick.

My penchant for drama didn’t just extend to the stage, apparently.

All those throwaway jokes Patrick used to make about our director being too hot for backstage work. His encouragement to keep busy heading out for auditions, even though I discovered through this job that I loved working backstage.

I pictured Patrick’s stupid, sweating face, and Beth’s too, the guilt there as she pulled away, knowing as my mentor she’d broken my heart as badly as he had.

Suddenly, I was violently opposed to lying in my sad little twin bed with its Christmas tree sheets. I’d been serious for far too long. Since Juilliard. Hell, since high school.

I needed to forget all of that, just for tonight. I needed to either get blackout drunk, or find something—someone—to help me forget.

Maybe both.

* * *

O’Malley’s was Quince Valley’s local pub, which I figured was the best place to find a man most unlike pretentious Patrick. In the summer, downtown was only a fifteen-minute stroll from my parents’ house. But in the winter, through a whole foot of freshly fallen snow that was still coming down, it was a different story. I probably—no, definitely—should have turned back the first time I went ass over teakettle. Or the second time, when I rolled my ankle. But by that time I was determined I was going to let nothing stand in the way of erasing Patrick and Beth from my mind.

That was, until I was standing across the street from the bar, and the reality of what I was doing. The door to the bar swung open as I stood there, and a pack of dudes staggered outside into the snow, the song “Stop the Cavalry” blasting out the front door behind them. I don’t know if it was the fact that they looked so drunk they could barely keep upright, or the song, which had always reminded me of Patrick because it had played endlessly in the pubs in London the one time he took me back there for Christmas.

I loved this song, even though Patrick hated it.

I loved Patrick, too. Didn’t I?

Tears welled in my eyes.

Christmas was a time for love and comfort. Not the drunken fumbling of a one night stand. If that’s what one night stands were even like. I’d only slept with one person in seven years, and before that, I’d only made out with a few boys in high school.

Somewhere in the distance, I swore I heard a little dog barking.

Beth had a cute little dog she brought to the theater sometimes. Until she found out Patrick hated dogs.

For a moment, my tears turned angry, but when they spilled over, I had to clap my hand over my mouth to contain the sob.

This was insane. I was in no place to jump into bed with a stranger.

I spun on my heel to head home.

Except spinning in the snow is a great way to lose one’s balance. So is having one’s vision blurred with tears. I cried out as I skidded sideways. I tried to regain my balance but as I did so, my foot hit the giant hardened snowbank behind me. I slipped fast as I tried to stand, my legs flying out from under me. I landed on my stomach on the packed snow and wheezed as the wind was knocked right out of me. Then, because I was still on the apex of the tiny mountain of filthy road snow, gravity took over. While I gasped for air, I rolled down the bank, finally coming to a stop on my back on the sidewalk.

From somewhere nearby I heard little yipping sounds. Was it me, trying to breathe? I gasped hard. It took me a few tries, but I finally got a decent breath of air into my lungs.

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