Moving on

He grabbed my hand as I tried to walk away and swung me around wrapping his arm around my waist. We kissed one last time; sweet… tender.. final. “Please understand I don't want to do this, I love you but we need some time apart”  I felt my whole world crumble away as he said the words I'd been dreading hearing. Words I knew were coming but I was too selfish to say myself He let me go and we went our separate ways. It felt like a movie as I drove home in silence. It had been 6 years. 6 years of laughing, crying, passion, fighting and making up. 6 years of memories. 6 years that felt like a lifetime and it was over with 5 words. I can’t do this anymore.   Adrian was right; we couldn’t continue with the way things were. We spent the last 3 years fighting trying to cling to something that had been gone for years trying to mold each other into what we thought the other should be. It was toxic, sad... heartbreaking.  Honestly it should’ve happened a long time ago… should’ve happened the first time I cheated on him the 3rd year we were together. I should’ve never done it and I knew that but I started using drugs again and my judgment was clouded. Not that that’s an excuse, because it’s not. It’s simply just that when I use I'm a different person with no regard for anyone; I’m someone who cares about no one. The man I was with before Adrian is the one who convinced me to try opiates, he was abusive and manipulative and just an all around bad guy. I was actually still with him when I met Adrian. He helped me turn my life around but I still had considerable moments of weakness. Things were never the same after I had hurt him… I knew that but I thought that if I healed and got clean things would change, things would get better... I couldn't heal while we were together not fully and certainly not because of anything to do with him but because of me. I needed to figure out who I was and what I wanted in life.  I was dreading calling my friends and family; so I didn’t.  For years it was Adrian and Kali life of the party, we were gonna spend the rest of our lives together. No one really knew about our issues, we kept our relationship private and we never spoke ill of each other to anyone else. No one could expect that things would end the way they did. Not that we ended on bad  terms… just sad ones.  Exactly seven days later I opened my eyes because I felt my cat Butterscotch walk across my lap. She's a beautiful calico, the runt so she’s kinda small for an eight year old kitty. I roll over to look at my alarm clock. 3pm… I should really get up but my head is pounding.. I shouldn’t have gone out last night again…I think to myself lazily. I’ve been going out every night getting plastered. I don’t want this to be my life, but I don’t know how to cope. I’m 28 years old. Why am I acting like a 17 year old who just broke up with her highschool boyfriend?  I haven’t spoken to anyone other than the late night bartender at Around the Block all week. My mom has left me 15 voicemails. My best friend, Jesse, has left me at least 25. Even Adrians’ sister Lynn has called me. I decided to listen to them. Mom: “Kali, honey, please call me. I heard about what happened with Adrian. You know I love you and I’m here for you” there were about 6 of those. “Kali, you haven't called me back. It's been 3 days. I'm really worried about you, you’re father and I just wanna make sure you’re okay.” “Kali, it’s been a week now, if I don’t hear back from you by the end of the day I’m coming over.”  I sent her a text, Hey mom I’m okay! Please don’t come over I just need a little time.  Jesse:  “Hey girl, your mom called me because you’re not calling her back so at least send me a text.” “Kali, I know you’re going through a lot right now and you like to be alone when you’re going through it so of course i’m just gonna call you a bunch until you answer me.”  “Girl I'm not trying to be pushy but you could at least send me a message or an emoji? Come on girl you know you can talk to me”  “I know you’ve been going to the bar, where I work I might add, and if you don’t text me back or call me back I'm coming over. I have a key sooooooooo don’t think I won't.” Jesse I’m fine lol please don’t come over I just need a little space, love you thanks for looking out for me! Now that that’s taken care of it’s time to shower, I think I’ve showered once since the breakup but it's only been 7 days. I feel the warm water run through my hair down my face and down the rest of my body. My scalp is sore from keeping it in a huge knot at the top of my head for the last week. I've been standing here for 30 minutes and I haven't even grabbed my shampoo yet I'm just enjoying the feeling of the water pushing all the bad energy off my skin and down the drain. I grabbed the shampoo and rubbed it slowly into my scalp with my finger tips, it takes the knots right out of my hair. I always shampoo twice because of something I learned in cosmetology school 10 years ago. Maybe I should’ve finished school. I let the conditioner sit in the ends of my hair and take my loofah and wash my body scrubbing away all the stress of the last week. I wish I could take this loofah and scrub my brain. The last 5 minutes I switched the water to a colder temperature to wake myself up. It’s about time I wake up and rejoin the world. Once I get out of the shower I stand in front of the mirror staring at my sunk in eyes and my chubby cheeks. I had blueish gray eyes, the left slightly larger than the right. My nose is big but not too big for my face like it used to be when I was younger; I’ve really grown into it since my childhood. My hair is wavy and blonde with natural brown lowlights. My hair is so long now, when Adrian and I met I was bald and dressed like a boy. He bumped into me at work quite literally and thought I was a dude. We actually got into it a little bit.  I was standing there in my baggy sweats and oversized t-shirt in the middle of the aisle at the furniture factory I worked at. Someone tall just bumped into me hard and almost knocked me over,” hey dude watch where the hell you're going!!!” the person who nearly knocked me over yelled at me.  “ you bumped into me what’s your problem asshole!” I turned around and locked eyes with a man who had chocolate brown hair. He had distinguished… completely alluring chestnut and umber swirled eyes. Precisely the most deep gorgeous eyes I’d ever seen. I immediately felt self-conscious when he looked at me. I was thin, too thin, my eyes sunk into my face and my cheek bones were standing out further than the rest of my face. “Can I help you with something???” he questioned annoyed  “No sorry i gotta go,” I walked away in a hurry.  I came back to focus pulling myself out of the memory sighing. It feels like a lifetime ago meeting him... The beginning is always so sweet... not for us though when I think about it it was kinda sour. I laughed to myself bitterly. But enough of that for now I don’t want to sit here and be sad. I’m 28 years old, I'm still young. I need to do something else, something productive. Another week had passed and the only thing I had done was think about how Adrian and I hadn’t spoken. Think about how much I missed him. So in other words nothing particularly productive.  I’d gone out with Jesse a few times and I stopped by my moms'. She was overjoyed and a little overzealous but her heart is always in the right place. My mother is a short woman with the spunk and attitude of someone thrice her size. I don’t know where I got my blonde hair from, my mother has coffee brown hair, maybe my birth father? I have never met him or seen pictures of him and she doesn’t speak of him. It’s never bothered me, my stepdad Robbie is enough he’s always been my dad and I don’t need anything else. I live in downtown Tampa in a 3 bedroom loft. Since Adrian moved out it had been a little hard to keep up on bills by myself. He moved out 2 months before the breakup for a job in New Port Richey managing a cleaning company. The job was too good to turn down however the drive was too much gas and time, 50 minutes and that’s without traffic. The move was supposed to be temporary till they opened up the office in tampa which we were okay with. I don’t think either of us thought we’d actually end up apart. We moved into this loft 5 years ago at the very beginning of our second year together. We got a 3 bedroom rent to own, we were choosing to invest in each other and the relationship. If we stayed together it would’ve been a great place to have kids. It was right down the street from my job and also his at the time. I ended up becoming an accountant at a construction consulting firm that was a little further, only a 10 minute drive compared to the 3 minute walk to my favorite bar. I was a bartender at Around the Block for about 2 years while I was going to school for accounting. I only went to school for 2 and a half years after finding a great accredited program online and I found a job right after graduation which is pretty lucky compared to most people after college. Although the last thing I wanted after a serious breakup was to find roommates, that was really my only option if I didn't wanna lose my place to live on top of having my heart broken.  So I wrote an ad.  Two rooms for rent: Loft in downtown Tampa Pets welcome within reason Pull a tab and give me a call!  There will be a background check and credit check. Another week passed, no calls about the rooms and still no contact with Adrian. I did have lunch with Lynn and the kids though. She assured me that no one in the family had any hard feelings for me and they still expected me at family gatherings once some time had passed of course and both Adrain and I were ready. After that we didn’t talk about him and me anymore. Over the years we had formed our own friendship outside of my relationship with her brother. We had talked about work, how the kids were doing at school, how I was looking for roommates and then we took the kids to the park. After about 4 hours I went home and that’s when I got my first call from the ad.  Throughout the week I got more calls, I did a dozen interviews and I narrowed it down to 3 people.  Ezra James  32  great credit  no pets  librarian  Jackie Greeden   29  decent credit  small dog  web designer  Will Hudson  28  great credit  no pets  factory supervisor (Dog food factory) I had to decide between these 3 people who were all pretty great; they all had good credit and passed the background check. Ultimately I was 100% picking Ezra. Ezra and I definitely agreed on everything personal space wise, picking up after yourself and he had a great vibe so I called him and let him get the first pick of which room he wanted. He picked the room next to mine which had a huge bay window with a reading nook. I obviously had the master with the attached bath but he got the second best room. Honestly the entire loft was very modern and sleek and just all together nice even the smaller room that was a decent size.  I figured the best course of action for picking the 3rd roomie would be to have Ezra and I interview the other two people together and we could decide as a team. He’s not a big dog fan so when it came between someone who worked at a dog food factory and someone who owned an actual dog we decided it best to go with the former.  There we were on week number 4 post breakup and I had two people moving into my loft. It was such a surreal feeling my life was completely different, a month ago Adrian and I were still together and happy and life was just all together different. At least I still had my job.  Having people in my house all the time was crazy and I was truly not used to it. We really didn’t spend a whole lot of time together at first it was still all so new.  At least my favorite bar is within walking distance of the house because I definitely needed a drink after helping Ezra and Will move. They both had girlfriends so I got to watch cute coupley stuff up close and personal which is just what I needed after having my heart shattered.