Hot Mess by Emily Belden

Author:Emily Belden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Graydon House Books
Published: 2018-01-10T18:19:22+00:00

17

The next morning, I email my boss, Connor, to tell him I need to take a sick day. He writes back and reminds me I don’t have any PTO left to use. Between requesting time off for pop-ups and other rehab-related to-dos, I’ve spent all my remaining paid time off on Benji. So I ask him instead to take it out of my vacation. He says Daxa got rid of vacation two years ago and now it’s all just under PTO, which, again, I have none of. He asks me to call him. I don’t. He then writes back again and says that if I absolutely cannot make it in today, he can count it as a mental health day.

“I absolutely cannot make it in today,” I type back before slamming my laptop shut.

I haven’t moved from the couch since I got back from my little journey yesterday. Wait, I take that back. I went down to the drugstore for two pints of Ben & Jerry’s and the latest copy of OK! magazine. It’s probably all made up, but I find reading about other people’s drama soothing when I’m in crisis mode. Either way, fifteen dollars and a couple thousand calories later, I’m officially playing keep-away from my life as I know it.

That includes Jazzy and Maya. Short of telling them that yes, I went to Garfield Park and yes, I survived, I haven’t communicated any further with them. It was a mistake to delve as far as I did with them into my relationship with Benji in the first place.

Speaking of, I’m not sure if it has sunk in yet about Benji. I won’t go as far as saying he’s missing. That’s a term reserved for people who go hiking alone in Appalachia or little kids who are left unattended at a gas station in Waco, Texas. My trip to the West Side was a wake-up call, but I’ve seen enough episodes of Intervention to know that addicts don’t go down so easy. He’s alive. He’s not well, but he’s alive. And although I have no solid proof of that, the feeling in my gut is all the conviction I need. He’ll turn up, I keep thinking to myself. Like a pair of sunglasses or the remote for the DVD player.

It’s weird thinking I’m sleeping on top of his knives. I thought about moving them from underneath my bed, but I don’t know if I want a reminder of a person I can’t find to be so out in the open.

At first, I saw those knives as a glimmer of hope, a sign that he was just giving me space to cool off and let the swelling around my eye subside. Now I see them differently. Clearly, he was too fucked up in the moment he left to realize what was important to bring with him. Knives? To cook? Because I’m a chef? No. None of that registered. At least he didn’t sell them for drugs, I guess.

I’m

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