Page 3 of Vitamin Sea
“Hey!”
She tore her eyes away from the T.V. and looked again at her friend, which immediately caused Chloe to cower. The steely-eyed glare Lala was fixing her gave new meaning to the term ‘fiery redhead’. She sunk farther into the couch under her friend’s withering stare as cheers fromMaury’s studio audience reverberated in the background.
“But . . .” Chloe looked around helplessly. “He . . . I . . .” Her defiance faltered and her voice began to wobble.
A look of sympathy crossed Lala’s face and Chloe crumpled on the couch in a mess of tears. The bottle of wine hung precariously in her hand, threatening to smash to the floor in an imitation of her broken heart.
Lala was suddenly there beside her—she took the bottle out of Chloe’s hand and consoled her while she cried. After a few minutes, the sobs petered out into sniffles and the fountain of tears slowed to a trickle.
Lala patted her friend’s hand affectionately.
“I know you’re upset,” she sounded calm and measured. “I know you’re heartbroken and I know you think you will feel like this for the rest of your life. But you won’t. You’re better than that. You are a great person, and most importantly—you are my best friend.”
She paused.
“I know this is hard for you, but you need to get out and start living your life and stop letting that good-for-nothing bastard rule it. I love you. Your friends and family love you. The goddamned barista at the Starbucks on King loves you.” She paused. “I saw him yesterday. He told me he was thinking of calling in a wellness check for you, but he doesn’t know your number, address, or last name,” she paused again. “But I digress. The point is, we love you and we are here for you, but this has gone on for long enough.”
Chloe sniffled as Lala stood up, grabbed the frosting off the coffee table and headed over to the kitchen. The spoon clunked in the sink and the frosting landed in the garbage with a thunk.
She watched Lala head for the door.
“I’m coming to pick you up at noon tomorrow,” she said. “You’re going with me to yoga.”
Chloe opened her mouth to protest, but Lala cut her off.
“No,” her voice was sharp. “You are coming with me. No ifs ands or buts about it. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said before strolling out the door and shutting down any opportunity for a retort.
Chloe sat there for a minute, staring at the door and cursing the indignity of it all. If she wanted to spend the rest of her life wallowing in self-pity, wine, andtrash television, who was Lala to stop her?
Liam, the love of Chloe’s life, was gone. He’d broken up with her, shattered her heart. Their relationship was finished. Finito. La fin. And she was supposed to just suck it up and soldier on?
It was the kind of strategy that might work for some people, but it wouldn’t work for her. Soldiers were stoic and disciplined. Chloe was . . . a mess. Compost was, if not how she actually looked, exactly how she felt—like decaying matter. The discarded bits that end up in the bin. And you can’t turn compost into the statue of David.
If only I could recycle my feelings, she thought wistfully and let out a sigh.
She had been in this sorry state for three months. Three months and five days, to be exact. Not that Chloe was keeping track or anything.
Her friends and family had rallied around her initially, but as the days had dragged on and the world kept on turning, one by one their sympathy began to wane. Lala had been the longest-lasting outpost of support and was just the latest in a long line of people in Chloe’s life who had had enough of her moping.
The results ofMaury’s lie detector test sounded off in the background, but she was no longer paying attention. The poorly concealed elephant in the room, which seemed to be a permanent houseguest, reared its ugly head and forced Chloe to confront the problem. A grimace washed over her at the prospect of attempting to process her feelings.
The worst part of her and Liam’s breakup hadn’t been the sadness—although that was pretty bad. It was the conflux of emotions. There was misery, heartache, despair, and depression. But there was also yearning, anxiety, desperation, and regret. One minute she was crying her eyes out in bed, the next minute she was staring listlessly at the ceiling. Once or twice, she had even caught herself staring at Liam’s number, the ‘call’ icon tempting her like a half-off sale at Saks. Maybe she could pretend she had accidentally called him. Pocket dialed him. He would text her to see why she called, she daydreamed, and somehow they would end up back together.
Fortunately, she was led not into temptation. But only because she knew Liam would see right through the high-school ruse. And if there was any hope of the two of them getting back together, coming across as desperate would be a one-way ticket to Single-ville, population: her.
A fresh surge of sobs bubbled up inside of her as her mind flashed back to the night Liam had taken a meat tenderizer to her heart. She took a deep breath to quell the emotion and Maury’s voice suddenly cut through her thoughts:“Sometimes the hardest truths are the ones we need to hear the most.”
She looked at the T.V.
The daytime talk-show host was giving a pep talk to a woman who, according to the short description on the screen, had just found out her husband was sleeping with her sister.
Chloe sat back for a moment.
Obviously, she wasn’t in the same situation, but there was a large grain of truth in Maury’s pearl of wisdom.
The hardest truths are the ones we need to hear the most.
Maury was right.
