Chapter 2 – Janelle Norris #2
My friend Rana just moved out here for the summer to do her law school internship at a firm in the city.
She’s still enrolled, but her law school offers her the opportunity to do summer jobs all across the country.
We met last year when she worked in Boston and this year, she got rehired by the same law firm for ten weeks of grinding before heading back to her campus.
Rana shows up at my apartment wearing a work outfit that skirts the edge of work appropriate attire and something you might see in an “office siren” TikTok video.
She doesn’t even give me a chance to say anything and thank goodness because I’m on the verge of tears.
She wraps her arms around me and lets me cry on her shoulder.
“I know,” she says. “He sucks. He doesn’t deserve you.”
It’s cliched, but I appreciate the sentiment. I barely believe this is happening enough to let it register completely. And I want to believe that he doesn’t deserve me, but right now, I'm still too numb to do anything other than nod and avoid prolonged eye contact.
“Thanks. Do you want to come in?” My voice trembles with hurt that I am desperate to bury. We might know that our friends are there for us, but wearing your emotions on your sleeve isn’t exactly rewarded in today’s world.
“Sure. But just so you know, we’re going out tonight,” Rana says.
My stomach lurches. I haven’t gone out without my boyfriend since before my relationship.
I wouldn’t even know what to order at a bar.
Cranberry juice and vodka? Rakeem ordered my drinks for me every time we went out.
I bite my lip, trying to stop the cynicism from jumping out, which it does without me.
“Why? So I can jump in front of the T and end my pain?”
Rana laughs. “No. So you can shake your ass and remember who the fuck you are.”
Rana’s that friend who will open up your fridge and help herself, but she will also be there at 2 a.m. if you need to bury a body.
I know that because of a misunderstanding regarding the Buffalo Bills during the playoffs last season.
It takes the burden off me that she makes herself at home, jumping off the couch to rifle through my cupboards for some pregame material.
What do people even wear to go out anymore? I think I have a bandage dress in the storage bin beneath my winter jackets and skinny jeans.
“I see an unopened bottle of white wine in there. I think it’s a sign,” Rana says in a sing-songy voice.
“To drink before I kill myself?”
“You are not going to kill yourself over some guy.” Her inner lawyer kicks in and I sit up a little straighter, even if I’m not convinced I’ll survive the night.
He’s not some guy. Rakeem was my everything.
He even tattooed my name on his ring finger.
But she’s right. This isn’t worth my intrusive, suicidal thoughts.
For all I know, he had that ring finger inside somebody else.
I have the first wave of nausea that alcohol might actually cure.
If I can wipe out the memories of all the closeness I had with a lying asshole, maybe I’ll feel better.
Maybe my stomach won’t feel like… somebody died.
It’s more about the shame I feel than anything.
I trusted him. I trusted him and… Oh God.
That big knot in my stomach gets tight again and spreads to my chest. I won’t be able to breathe if I don’t do something.
Rana makes the wine bottle do a sexy dance in the air, hovering over the empty glass she procured from my kitchen cupboard. I succumb to the siren song.
“You’re right. I need wine,” I admit, as if Rana were going to wait on me to open it up.
She already has two glasses on the counter and her glass poured all the way to the top.
Once she pours my glass, I drink some of it to loosen up the tightness in my chest. The first burn makes me feel something other than total dismay.
“We store trauma in our hips.”
Who knows what STDs my hips are storing from that stupid asshole.
“Where did you read that?” I ask Rana, taking another bitter sip.
“It’s true,” she says. “Trust me. I’m looking for places that will have a dive bar vibe. Yelp will save us a night of boredom.”
“A dive bar?”
“In case you want to ugly cry and dance on tables. Duh,” Rana says. “We can’t go anywhere that you might run into Rakeem.”
Rakeem apparently doesn’t have to leave the house to find another girlfriend. I doubt I would run into him anywhere. Tears prickle at the corners of my eyes and I practically chug the rest of my glass.
“Why are you so ready for this?” I ask, smacking my lips together from the tingling burn of alcohol and fighting back more tears because my voice is getting hoarse and I have cried in public enough for my tastes.
“Believe it or not, I’ve been in this situation before.”
“Cheated on?”
“No. But my best friend back in Buffalo is one of the most successful people I’ve ever met and her husband had an affair with his secretary.”
“Yikes.” And cliched. I guess that’s one thing cheaters have in common. They’re not original at all.
Rana nods. “She bounced back better than ever. We are not going to let him win.”
“How? By screwing an even bigger asshole?”
“No,” Rana says. “By remembering who the fuck you are.”
I look at her pathetically, because I can feel the question forming on my lips and even if it’s coming from a place of shock and sadness so I don’t want to judge myself for thinking it.
“Who? A dumbass who didn’t realize her boyfriend had another girlfriend.”
Rana gets her serious lawyer face on again. “No. You’re a person who matters with or without a boyfriend.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Rana says. “Trust me. My mom never learned that lesson and it sucked my entire life watching her chase the affections of a man who only wanted to use her.”
“Your dad?”
Rana sighs and nods. Clearly, she doesn’t want to bring up her childhood trauma and I don’t want to dig deeper into the fact that I feel totally lost about who I am, and this stupid break up just exposed something that I’m not at all ready to face. I’ve been standing still with Rakeem, haven’t I?
“We’re going out and we’re going to forget about him,” Rana says, clearing up her voice from its own choking. “Just… promise me you won’t get pregnant.”
“What?”
“It’s a long story. Just promise.”
“Rakeem and I just broke up, Rana. I won’t be having a baby any time soon.”
Thankfully, we live in Massachusetts where my rights in that regard are guaranteed.
“Okay. Sorry. Just being paranoid. I’ll call us a rideshare. All drinks are on me tonight, okay?” Rana says.
“Deal.”
So off I go – to shake my ass on a dive bar table and forget that the man I’ve been telling everyone is the love of my life is a lustful loser who let his second girlfriend try to beat my ass in the barbershop.