Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
JANIE
PRESENT DAY
My hands shake. I thought I’d be a mess when he walked out the door, but I’m just so hollow.
When I started dating Shane, I didn’t necessarily think it was forever, but I did think it was for a little bit longer than it lasted.
We got an apartment together, close enough to walk to our jobs.
He's at the accounting firm while mine is at a marketing startup.
I didn’t say forever, but I thought it was the next step to having it all.
Everything was fine—at least, I thought it was.
Then, he came back Wednesday night and got ready to head out to the gym.
I was making roast chicken with couscous and playing music, a glass of wine in hand.
The bag of trash I’d wrestled out of the can earlier sat by the door.
He told me he’d be back in an hour and walked right by it.
My blood boiled.
It wasn’t about the bag or the trash. No, it was that last month, I sat down and told him how important it was to me that I didn’t have to nag him to do the bare minimum when it came to household chores.
He agreed, said he’d do better. Rinse. Repeat.
For days, weeks, and into the months after we moved in together.
I ate before he got back and chucked the bag out on the curb on my own.
When he returned, standing in the bathroom with my toothbrush in hand, I told him he’d forgotten the trash and I had to go out in the dark to toss it.
He shot back that it wasn’t important. It was just trash.
The problem was, it wasn’t about the trash.
It was about it being fucking humiliating to have to beg him for anything.
We argued from the bathroom to the bedroom to the kitchen. Our voices rose until I shut down, unable to listen to him yell. Finally, he grabbed his keys and walked out.
“I’m staying with Kevin,” he shouted, slamming the door.
God, I fucking hate Kevin, his best friend. He’s a misogynistic asshole who never talks about anything but his high paying job, his zippy car, and his investment in some kind of stock I don’t understand. Every time he walks into my house, I cringe and disappear into my office until he’s gone.
The next morning, Shane drags in, sheepish. I let him have it. We argue.
We break up—or rather, I break up with him.
He’s relieved, I can tell. His face is arranged in sober lines, and we’re being plastic and cordial with each other, but there’s a lightness in his step as he gathers up his things, throwing them into garbage bags.
I walk him to the door, and he does this stupid gesture, like he’s going to hug me or something.
I hold up a hand, backing off with an inferno in my eyes.
He says he’ll text me about figuring out the lease and slinks out.
Then, it’s over, and I’m hollow inside. Half of our apartment is cleaned out, just like that.
The company I work for is pretty understanding about taking days off and needing to work remotely.
I text my manager and let her know I’m not feeling well, that I need a day to work from home.
She tells me to just take off and come back stronger on Monday.
That makes me cry in the shower for at least forty-five minutes before I get it together, put on a cozy sweatsuit, and brew myself some coffee.
I thought this was it—the beginning of the white picket fence.
We were supposed to start out in an apartment, get a dog a few years in, and somewhere along the way, I’d fall in love with Shane enough to marry him when he popped the question.
We’d live in a house on the edge of the city and go back to my parents’ for weekends here and there, a little more often once I got pregnant.
That’s done.
I pop a latte Keurig cup into the machine and hit the button. It drizzles out into the Christmas mug I never put away, despite Shane pointing out that it wasn’t in season anymore. One handed, I grab my phone and scroll to my mom’s number. It rings twice then picks up.
“Hey, sweetie,” she chirrups.
“We broke up,” I burst out.
There’s no point in delaying. She’ll hear the tremor in my voice.
“Oh, honey,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”
Deep down, I know she ain’t sorry. My dad is probably flipping off Shane in the background, elated that he’s gone.
They never liked each other, and my father saw it as a fatal flaw that Shane rarely went out to the ranch to visit.
He wasn’t much of a country person and found every excuse not to go.
Nobody liked him anyway, so it was probably for the best.
God, what was I thinking, dating him in the first place?
I feel like I’m wearing clown shoes right now.
“I know you weren’t a fan,” I sniff, taking up my coffee and padding into the living area to sink down on the charcoal gray couch.
“Whatever makes you happy.”
“Well, I guess he didn’t,” I say, scowling at the empty wall where the TV used to hang. “We broke up over a bag of trash.”
“Well, it takes one to know one.”
“Mom.”
“Baby, he really wasn’t shit.” Her voice is gentle, maternal.
I set the phone down and hit the speaker button. “Too soon.”
“Alright, well, why don’t you come home for a bit?”
My eyes flutter shut. My parents are the managers of an enormous horse breeding and training operation in rural Montana, just a few hours from the city.
My father runs the horsemanship part alongside the owner, Deacon Ryder, and my mother takes care of the household and manages the cooks who feed the wranglers.
They’ve done that most of my life. I grew up in the wild, beneath the mountains hovering over the ranch.
It’s my home, and the thought of going back is a balm to my sore heart.
It also feels like defeat.
I was so sure this life was what I wanted. I put hours of schooling, internships, and determination into it. Now that I’m here, living it, I keep having these moments where I doubt myself.
Breaking up with Shane isn’t helping.
“I’ll be fine, Mom,” I say. “I just need a day or two to recover and clean up the apartment. It’s pretty empty. He took all his stuff, chucked it in the back of his car in trash bags. There are nails hanging out of the wall where he took down the TV.”
“You want me to send your father up this weekend to move stuff around for you?”
“No, I’m really fine. I just need time.”
She doesn’t believe me, but she knows I won’t do anything until I’m good and ready. I stare down at my latte, foam already depleting. Maybe I’ll put this in the fridge and have it iced later. Right now, I just want to go back to bed.
So, I do. Bidding goodbye to Mom, I set the coffee aside and head to the bedroom. The sheets still kind of smell like Shane, a distinct bodywash scent, even though I washed them the day before yesterday. Luckily, we hadn’t had sex for at least a week, so the bedding still feels unsoiled.
Sniffling, I crawl under the covers.
It wasn’t like Shane was all that good in bed either.
He was pretty okay, with little drive to improve.
I’m open to trying all kinds of things, and I’m fine with doing it a little rough, but with the proper buildup.
Shane just sort of went at it, jackhammering towards the inevitable result.
That would have been fine if he had other qualities to recommend him, but in retrospect, he didn’t.
Now that I’m looking back, he was the human equivalent of buying mini wheats and thinking they’re frosted, only to find out the entire box is just plain and tastes like a hay bale.
And here I was, like a fucking clown, pretending it was good.
I’ve got nobody to blame but myself for that.