Page 1 of Christmas in Comets Valley
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AERA
I’d cometo learn that people handle breakups in one of two ways. One, it broke their heart and thrust them into a spiraling pit of despair. Or two, it shaped and molded them into a better version of themself.
And ten months after finding out my ex-fiancé, Tye, had been cheating on me for theentiretyof our decade long relationship, I could confidently say our breakup had simultaneously done both.
To the eyes of the world, I was accomplishing the goals I’d dreamed of since the day Ben and I started our fashion brand, Inamra, eleven years ago. While in reality, I was sitting at home alone, holed up in the darkness of my bedroom. Much like I had been for the past three hundred days since the breakup.
I knew my relationship with Tye hadn’t been picture perfect, but then again, whose relationship was? So what if we didn’t have sex every day or even every week? Okay, maybe it was more like once a month… if that.
In my defense, we both owned two of the fastest growing companies in the country, so forgive me if it was a little hard to find the time. Between days chock-full of meetings, which were immediately followed by late nights at the office finalizing last-minute projects, sex was the last thing on either of our minds.
Or so I thought until ten months ago when I stepped foot into Tye’s office for a surprise lunch date after one of my meetings got canceled and quickly learned I was the only one in our relationship who couldn’t find time for sex.
Much to my surprise, when I opened the door to his corner office, I found Tye’s secretary bent over his mahogany desk while he jackhammered in and out of her like a madman.
She must’ve been an out-of-work actress based on how piercing and animated her moans were. She and I both knew he wasn’t that good, no matter how hard she tried to convince herself otherwise.
I couldn’t help but feel bad for the people in the offices next to him who had to listen to her shrill voice yelling, “Fuck me, daddy.” Over and over again.
The two of them were too enamored with their impending orgasms to notice I was standing in the doorway, staring back at them wide eyed with my breath caught in my lungs.
In a fit of rage, I stormed out of the building and left the door wide open, hoping it would ruin the high of their orgasms when they came back to earth and realized one of their coworkers could’ve stopped by to watch the show.
A quick word to the wise: if you’re planning on banging your secretary during your lunch hour, at least have the brains to lock the door first.
Fucking idiot.
Heat flushed through my body as I stomped to my condo a few blocks away with bunched fists balled at my sides. A blaze of fury engulfed me so fully that I was certain passersby on the street could see steam smoking from my ears.
Back at the condo, it didn’t take long before I was gathering Tye’s things and throwing them into trash bags. Only stopping to toss the bags into the hallway for a courier service to pick up and deliver to his office.
Approximately forty-five minutes later, I’d successfully removed any semblance that Tye Smithgerald Jerod III had been in my life and it was only then that I allowed my fury to melt into embarrassment.
Ten years I’d been with him andthatwas how our relationship ended? At noon on a random Tuesday in February, a decade long chapter of my life came to a close within the span of an hour.
Unbelievable.
A suffocating sensation tightened in my throat, but I managed to push it down long enough to call the building’s maintenance team and ask them to come change the locks right away. And I made damn sure they billed the rush charge to Tye’s credit card.
It had been ten months since that fateful day, yet it still felt like a fresh blow to the stomach every time I flashed back to the grueling memory.
And while I hated to admit it, instead of coping with the breakup like a normal person, I’d become a recluse. The kind of person who locked herself in her office and threw herself into the thick of work twenty hours out of the day… every day.
My friendships faded months ago. And if it weren’t for my half brother and his family coming to stay at our vacation house in Malibu a few times this past year, the likelihood that I would’ve had social interaction with anyone outside of the office was slim to none.
I’d clocked more hours in the last ten months than I had in the eleven years since Ben and I started the company. While I wasn’t exactly proud of my lack of a social life, I had the accomplishments to make up for it. Like finally landing a coveted spot at Paris Week of Fashion this past winter and showcasing two collections of our most detailed haute couture pieces to date.
We’d made it into Miami Week of Fashion a few years back and even headlined the New York shows for the last three, but becoming a key show in Paris… that’s when a designer knew they’d reached the peak of their success.
I should’ve been riding the high of being named one of the “top up-and-coming fashion designers in the world” by nearly every major media outlet in the world — rightfully so, might I add—but with the holidays approaching, all I could feel was a ripple of emptiness settling into the depths of my bones.
No matter how tirelessly I worked day in and day out, I knew when I shut my laptop at the end of the night and laid my head down against my pillowcase, the hollowness inside would consume me whole.
It always did.
So, like any rational person who wanted to avoid their own personal purgatory, I laid in bed tucked snugly beneath a cloud cotton duvet while mindlessly scrolling Socialgram at two in the morning.
