There’s a phase after a breakup that nobody talks about. It’s not the crying-in-the-rain phase. It’s the rotting-in-bed phase.
Three days after Dave picked me up from the hotel and dropped me home, I hadn’t left my room. The curtains were drawn tight, blocking out the world. A tower of delivery boxes—most of their contents untouched—piled up on the corner of my desk. My laptop lay dead on the floor, containing a draft of Chapter 3 of my thesis that I hadn’t touched in two weeks.
The room smelled bad. Dirty laundry. Old food. The diffuser had run out days ago. I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, counting the water stains. In my head, Lucas’s toxic words were still looping on loop. "Family like yours... damaged goods... mistress..."
The suffocating feeling came back, squeezing my th
