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Hey guys! I wrote this for some stupid contest a while back, and thought I needed your wonderful expertise. Story time!-
The house is cold today.
I could feel it even while I was still swathed in the five blankets I kept on my bed for days like this.
I knew that as soon as I got my lazy a** out of bed, I was going to race for my dresser drawer and steal some pants to put on under my oversized T-shirt, but when I actually made the move to throw off my cover, it was like I had dreamed the whole thing. The air was…
Well, it was almost balmy.
I put a foot to the floor.
Nothing. No cold, no shivering toes. Not even cold enough for the hated pants.
But I wasn’t going to think anything of it; after all, I’m not a weather man. Instead, I hurried to the small kitchenette to nuke some day-old coffee before getting dressed.
It’s January, but the leaves are still changing colors. Matt used to tell me that the trees liked to change their minds as often as I do here, but it’s been a while since he’s been gone.
I spent my next eight hours at work. By habit and by choice, I’m a career girl. As my mother so aptly reminds me, what other choice do I have? It’s not like I have anything to come home to, except for a sinkful of dirty dishes and last night’s laundry sitting in a heap in my small living room. That night, I remember I was too tired to deal with it, any of it. The mother, the crappy apartment, the rotting laundry.
I went straight to bed, slept for a few hours, and came awake to the annoying sound of the morning talk show host. I reached for snooze button on my radio-alarm for a few more precious minutes of sleep, but before I hit the button
((the house is cold today.))
I shivered. I unwillingly stepped out of bed.
Damn you, I told myself. You’re too young for hot flashes. Or was it cold flashes? I don’t know, but the next thing I remember is opening the door to my car. I hadn’t passed out, because I could feel that familiar early-morning caffeine buzz and I looked fully dressed. But the only other thing I can recall from that day is coming home beat, and I can’t picture what happened at work, or what kind of take-out I schlepped out for dinner. The next morning,
((the house is cold today.))
I stole a glace at the thermostat in the corner of the room, but the air wasn’t cool, and I was happy to leave my blanket forgotten in the corner of my futon. When I stepped out of bed though, it was like my feet were numb. I ignored it.
I went for my morning pick-me-up. My fingers had obviously sided with my toes, and I couldn’t even get enough feeling out of them to punch the buttons on my Coffee Mate.
I remember sitting on the couch, gathering up what little nerve I had left to punch in Matt’s numbers on my phone, so I could call him and scream about my freaky week. I had put my senseless pointer finger to the “talk” button, and I finally felt the cheap plastic. He was coming over today anyway, and I didn’t really want to bother him for something that wasn’t even important. I didn’t want to be that clingy ex-girlfriend. God, I missed him. I slept around, and I was wrong and he knew it and I knew it, and God, my mother certainly knew it. But luck was on my side the day he left. He was in such a rush that all of his worldly goods stayed in my apartment: favorite CDs and tacky photo strips, that awful green couch. All that relationship crap, all his other sentimental crap meant that I had another chance to talk him back in here so I could explain that it was just one damn night, but he never came back.
You know, I even remember the day he left. Like any other self-respecting slag, I groveled and pleaded and begged, but I couldn’t stop him from getting in his ’99 pickup, so I got in too. He didn’t kick me out.
“I’m not coming back.”
It didn’t take me long to read the look in his eyes.
I knew he would eventually come to his senses and dump me off somewhere, so I had until he registered that I was in the damn truck to plead some more.
“Matt…”
“Shut the hell up.”
“Matt, where are you going?”
“Shut up!”
“Matt!”
“SHUT UP!”
"Matt!"
"Dammit Matt!"
I loved you.
And lights and blood and that amazing numb feeling in my foot, except it wasn’t really my foot because my foot wasn’t there. I couldn’t move and I couldn’t see and all I remember thinking is
It’s so cold. The house must be cold today.
I woke up the next morning, shivering in my five blankets.
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