Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
On Sunday morning, Sonja texted Derek as instructed, and they had an enjoyable back and forth for almost an hour while Snuggles glued himself to her side. She eventually ended the texting by pleading that she had chores to do.
She spent the day cleaning her apartment. In addition to standard things like vacuuming, she took down all her curtains and the canopy and flounces from her bed to wash. She cleaned her kitchen and emptied her cabinets, washing them and their contents before replacing them. By the time she finished, it was after 6:00 PM, and she was exhausted. She was also starving, as she’d worked straight through lunch. Her fridge was practically empty because she’d been bringing home food from the café all week and hadn’t planned for the weekend. There was an easy solution, though—pizza.
As she had straightened her miscellaneous drawer that afternoon, the menu from the closest pizza place that delivered was right at hand. Her call made, she settled down to wait for her small pizza with pepperoni and every vegetable they offered except olives, which she couldn’t abide.
After pouring herself a glass of red wine, she sat down on her couch and put her feet up on her glass-topped coffee table to wait for the food to arrive. She congratulated herself on all she had accomplished during the day. It was amazing how avoiding unpleasant thoughts could help her get so much done.
Now, the events of the night before and the day to come returned. She was still trying to process the notion that Derek intended to be with her even if she had cancer. What kind of man did that? Of course, her experience with men’s behavior in relationships was almost non-existent. She’d have to abandon that subject for now and think about something else, or she would find a way to turn it into something negative. She was left with the biopsy to consider. She wasn’t sure what to expect. They’d told her it shouldn’t take more than half an hour and she would only need a local anesthetic. That much, she remembered. There had been paperwork with details, but she had buried that on her desk at the office, hoping it would disappear.
In the middle of her ruminations, the buzzer rang, indicating her pizza’s arrival. The trip to the lobby broke her train of thought and she decided to find something on television when she got back upstairs. She brought a plate and a knife from the kitchen and served herself in the living room. She channel-surfed for a bit before landing on an old movie she had always enjoyed—Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in The Barkleys of Broadway . The interplay between the leads, especially when Fred was pretending to be her French director, giving Ginger advice over the phone, was delightful, and the dancing was outstanding.
She finished the pizza right before the last dance of the movie. Was it was worth the effort to get up and go to bed or was crashing on the couch a viable option? Then she remembered how she’d felt the last time she’d spent the night there and got up before she let her exhaustion change her mind. Sonja gave Snuggles his nightly medicine, brushed her teeth, and was about to turn out the light when she remembered that Derek had asked her to text him again at bedtime.
She sent him a quick message about her day’s cleaning and made sure her alarm was set. Snuggles was in his usual spot on the pillow next to her, and she was ready for sleep once she turned off her bedside lamp. Unfortunately, sleep wasn’t ready for her. After tossing and turning for what seemed like the entire night, Sonja woke to an empty bed. Snuggles didn’t like sharing with a human who wouldn’t stay still.
Sonja opened her curtains to find dark skies and steady rain, which matched her mood all too well. Today was the day of the biopsy, and she wanted to hide under the covers rather than get up. Nevertheless, she made it to work then operated on autopilot with the mantra ‘just get me through this’ playing in her head at work and on her way to the hospital. She didn’t have to wait at all, and before she knew it, she was on her way out with a miniature ice pack in her bra to keep the area where the needle had gone in numb once the anesthetic wore off. She had a bowl of minestrone from the café for dinner and had another early night. Now, all she had to do was wait for the results. Easier said than done.