“I need a decent close to this quarter. Marley from finance is going on maternity leave next month, and if I want a shot at her job, I need to keep reminding them how good I’d be at it.”
“I thought you said Marley’s job was the worst.”
It totally is. Finance is a slog meant for the soulless. “It has a nice paycheck. And I like nice paychecks.” Not to mention the comfort that comes with having a little extra padding in the bank.
Dax takes my now-empty glass from my hand, opens my fridge, and pulls out my Brita for a refill. He shuts the door and stares at a Kijiji printout picture of an English bulldog puppy. “Who’s this?”
I remove the magnet from the picture and cradle it in my hands. “That’s Buster.”
Dax lifts a curious eyebrow.
“Stuart and I were talking about getting a puppy. I wanted to give him a people name like Justin or Bradley, but Stuart said that was ridiculous. So we settled on Buster.”
The sadness returns. I’m too drunk to figure out if I’m mourning Stuart or the dog. Either way, the feeling builds in my stomach until it fills my entire chest. I’m a fish tank with a crack. The fragile glass is fighting the pressure of the water, holding on as the crack grows and spreads, threatening to burst at any moment.
I tip my head back and gulp down my water. A last-ditch attempt to wash away all of the emotions inside me. With the last drop gone, I slam the empty glass down on the countertop. But instead of the typical ping of glass on marble, the sound we hear is more of a crunch.
“Ew!” I hold up the empty glass and the quarter-sized dark smudge on the bottom of it. “What the hell is that?”
Dax takes the glass from my hand and studies it. “Looks like a little spider.” He takes a paper towel from the roll, wipes away the carnage, and hands it back to me. “What’s wrong?”
My chest feels heavy, and my eyes are filling with tears as waves of remorse roll over me. My internal fish tank shatters.
“I murdered him,” I sob. “I did. He was just crawling along minding his own business, and I snuffed the life right out of him.”
“It was just a spider, Gems.”
He doesn’t understand. That spider did nothing wrong. He was just hanging out, trying to put one hairy leg in front of the other, and he got his life demolished. “Yeah, but he probably had a wife.” A terrible thought occurs to me. “Oh my god, what if he had, like, little baby spiders?”
Dax takes the glass from my hand again. “Gems, I think you’re really drunk.”
“I know.” I look down at my naked legs. “Where are my pants?”
Dax takes me by the shoulder and steers me toward my swirly staircase. “You left them at Livi’s. We tried, but you insisted you never wanted to wear pants again.”
Then I remember. “Oh yeah, right, pants are the worst.”
Dax’s hand is on my back as I stumble up the steps. When I look back, I laugh at the sight of his intentionally turned head, doing its best to avoid my underpanted ass. When we reach my room, I swan-dive onto my bed, rolling over to the side. I watch him watching me.
“You should take yours off too, join the movement, Dax.” I kick my liberated legs to illustrate my point.
Dax stands by the stairs, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t think that would be a very good idea.”
I wiggle until I’m sitting up on my elbows. “Why the hell not?”
“Because…” He hesitates. “It just wouldn’t.”
I flip onto my back. “Suit yourself, no-pants party for one.”
I attempt what can most accurately be described as a waterless backstroke until my words seep through the tequila and sink in.
Oh god…
Oh god…
“Oh god.”
I roll my head back toward Dax. “I’m going to die alone, aren’t I?”
He comes to the end of my bed and sits down. “What are you talking about?”
This breakup with Stuart is an omen.
“I am going to be having a one-person no-pants party for the rest of my life.”
The tears return. Rolling and tumbling down my cheeks as I envision a lifetime of tiny closets and Lean Cuisine dinners for one.
“What if Stuart was my person? My one shot at a decent relationship and I fucked it up! Like I hit my peak, and now it’s all downhill.”
Dax reaches out his thumb and wipes a tear from my cheek. “Stuart was not your person.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know.” His voice is so firm. Assured. “Stuart was not the guy.”