Chapter 22
Itold myself from the very start that this was going to happen. Lucy and I were going to part ways and likely never see each other again. I just never expected it to be this hard. Watching her walk away was like taking a knife to the gut. Every instinct in me was screaming to run after her, to make her stay for even a second more, but I’ve been selfish enough. I’m not right for her. I know that. I just wish she didn’t feel so right for me. I wish I still hated her. It would be easier then.
The walk from the airport to the hotel is cold. So cold that my skin goes numb. It’s a refreshing change from the unbearable heat I felt every second that I was with Lucy. Or, at least, that’s what I tell myself. I feel alone. More alone than I have in years. Realistically, I know that can’t be true. My companionship has been lacking for a while now but having Lucy there for even just a few short days made me forget just how agonizing solitude can really be.
Every time I turn a corner, I imagine she’ll be there with a teasing smile. She’ll tell me that only I would forget to bring winter clothes to a snowy state. She’ll call me a dumb boy.
She’s never there, though, and I’m still somehow always disappointed.
Checking into the hotel feels like the universe is teasing me. It’s a tiny room with one tiny bed that still manages to feel so uncomfortably large without Lucy’s presence bringing it to life.
She brought me to life. It’s as if I’ve been a robot for months, moving on auto-pilot. Work, sleep, repeat. There was never time for laughter, or surprise, or pleasure. Lucy gave me all of that in such a short time, and now I don’t think I can live without it anymore.
I dread my interview. I know I’m signing up for an existence of misery, one that seems so much more dull now than it ever did before. I put on my boring suit and my boring shoes and comb my hair so it sits boringly straight. Lucy would laugh at me. I just know it. She’d call me a corporate drone.
I wish she was here. I really wish she was here.
I want to ditch my dumb interview and go find her, just like in the movies. I want to surprise her and sweep her off her feet, and we’ll live happily ever after in a woodland cottage with a bunch of forest animals as our closest companions. The movies aren’t real, though, and that”s not realistic. Lucy’s affections aren’t mine to win, and while I’ve been living in weird purgatory make believe land for the last few days, the storybook is over now, and it’s time to go back to real life. That means going to my depressing interview to get this depressing job so I can live my depressing life.
And as much as I hate it, Lucy Marino just isn’t a part of that life.