Page 78 of Love Undecided
Chapter 34
Kat
I can’t get my brain to turn off and nothing that is running through it makes sense. I’m not making sense of Brad and my thoughts about him. Am I still in love with him? Did I ever stop? Why did seeing him with Stacy bother me so much? If you had asked me a few weeks ago, I would have told you that I was totally over him. It was easy not to think about him back when I thought I was imminently dying and going through treatment.
Well, that’s not entirely true, I’m not sure if it was easy not to think about him. But I knew that I was correct in my convictions of not tying him to me for the rest of his life. Or, rather, the rest of mine, I guess that’s going to come first, right? At the time I said that I loved him enough to let him go, I just want him to be happy. I’m not the girl that’s going to make him happy whether he thinks I am or not. He’s wrong.
I grab my iPod, plug it into my speakers and cue mySudden Deathplaylist. It’s the one I listen to when all else is lost and I really need to wallow in self pity and despair:
“We’ve Got Tonight”– Bob Seger
“She’s Got a Way”– Billy Joel
“Here Come’s a Regular”– The Replacements
“Never Let Me Go”– Aretha Franklin
“Lonely Sinking Feeling”– Cowboy Junkies
“Look What You’ve Done to Me”- Boz Scaggs
“Hurt”- Johnny Cash
“3am”- Edwin McCain
I could go on and on.
Self-pity and despair is what I need right now.
I don’t grab a bottle of wine and I don’t go in the hot tub.
Instead, I lie on my couch and look out at the ocean. The best thing about my place, aside from being on the water, is the floor to ceiling windows that make up every west facing wall. The night is pitch black, which is perfect for my mood.
Aw, fuck it.
Apparently, I’m opening a bottle of wine. Since here I am in the kitchen, wine opener in one hand, wine bottle in the other. I mean, if you can’t use a terminal illness as an excuse to drink all night, what can you use it for?
I proceed to reenact the ‘all by myself’ scene from the movie,Bridget Jones Diary, drink my wine and sulk for the remainder of the glass, which goes a little too quickly.
About twenty minutes in to my self-indulgent pity party, I am a sloppy, snotty mess. I’ve gotLove Actuallyplaying on the TV with no sound and I just keep fast forwarding to all the sad scenes, my bottle of wine (now half empty) with a back-up bottle just in case, an industrial-sized bag of gummy bears, and my playlist. Everything that has ever been wrong or ever will be wrong in my life is working it’s way out of my system via tear ducts and nasal cavities.
I get a text from Remi asking me if I’m okay after seeing Brad and Stacy. I tell her I’m just having a blah night and can’t sleep, but it’s fine I’ll be better tomorrow. I just need to feel sorry for myself for a while. She tells me to text her if I need anything.
My tears finally dry up as I’m fast forwarding throughArmageddon, my go-to tear jerker movie; to get to the part where Harry is telling Grace goodbye, when I hear a knock on the door. I’m not expecting anyone, especially not this late. Within seconds there's knockingandthe doorbell, and I’m pretty sure I can hear a woman’s voice yelling. I wrap myself in my blanket and move to unlock the door, only to have Remi push her way in.
“What are you doing here?" I ask.
“Well, sometimes the self-pity wallowing nights are meant to be spent alone, and sometimes they aren’t. Besides, I brought wine and gummy bears and ordered Chinese delivery on my way here... ” she pauses talking and looks around my living room, “I see you started without me.” She leads me by the blanket over to the couch and sits me down.
“How far into it are you?” she asks. I’m not sure if she means my pity party or the movie.
So I say, “Just half a bottle. So it’s good you brought one. And Harry just said goodbye to Grace. And stupid Brad... is just... stupid and stuff.”
She leans over and hugs me. “I wondered if it would be hard to see him on a date. Why on earth he took her to your bestie’s winery is beyond me. He had to know you’d be there.”
I look at her and start crying all over again. “It’s not just Brad it’s everything. It’s my life. I’m going to be alone. No one is going to hold my face to kiss me goodnight at the front door. And I don’t want to be alone. The cancer is going to come back in some random fucked up place, and I know that I’m supposed to stay positive and I feel like I do but then there’re nights like tonight and I just can’t stay positive anymore.
“I can’t do it. I’m never going to make homemade lemonade and plan picnics with real plates. I’m never going to be that girl that wears a sweater set and capris and looks country club pretty and wrinkle-free. And it’s not even about Brad, not really. Or maybe it is. Fuck! I just need time to wallow and think as many negative thoughts as I can come up with. And then it will be tomorrow and I’ll be better, I promise.”
