Chapter 33 Rip Me
[Rikki Romona: Single woman past thirty dies with ass in small trash can after shitting self in ex’s office. Failed to digest both her espresso and her shame. Couldn’t afford her own apartment.]
My pants are around my ankles.
I need to strip. I need to burn this office down. Burn the trash can. Set everything on fire. Pull the alarm. Disappear in the chaos. Come back Monday and pretend this never happened. No one can ever know! No one!
Does Ted have spare pants in his office?
I’m going to need to get off his trash can to find out. And I can’t get off this trash can. I’m stuck here. I think I’ve frozen over. Embarrassment has taken my joints and soldered them into place.
I startle as the door rattles.
Is this actually a fucking horror movie?
The lock is moving.
“Don’t come in!” I screech.
Motor functions come back online, and I shimmy the best I can behind the desk on the trash can. I can’t get off yet. I haven’t cleaned up. I need time!
My eyes bulge as my blond, Justin Timberlake–haired, mustached ex appears in the doorway dressed in tan slacks and a white button-up.
“I said don’t come in!”
Why did I ever decide it was okay to date a twenty-something with a mustache? Red flag.
“Rikki?” he croaks.
“Close the door!”
Ted slams the door behind him, craning his head to see me better. “Oh my god,” he breathes.
“Ted, so help me god, get the fuck out of here and don’t come back without toilet paper, Febreze, and a garbage bag.”
He stares at me for an extensively mortifying moment. I scowl back.
This is not how I imagined our confrontation would start.
I heave in a breath, mentally flipping through the weeks of confidence-building exercises I went through with my therapist after our breakup. Don’t shrink!
You are a strong, confident woman—they have body incidents just like everyone else!
“Ted,” I repeat. “Toilet paper, Febreze, garbage bag. Run. Please, Ted.”
He remains frozen. Ted was never good at following directions. I did everything in our relationship. “Ted. Goooo!”
He scrambles out of his office, door flopping closed behind him.
I jump into action, peeling off my pants. I toss them in the trash.
There are tissues on the desk that I utilize. And there’s a decent-size hand sanitizer with a pump.
I bathe in it.
I tie up the clear mini garbage bag. Then I proceed to comb through all Ted’s drawers, searching for anything helpful in this moment of crisis.
There’s a can of Axe deodorant. I douse myself and spray the scene of the crime.
When Ted bursts back in, I’m naked from the waist down. I drop into a crouch behind his desk. He’s clutching toilet paper and a bigger clear garbage bag half filled with trash.
Ted pushes the door shut behind him. “You found my emergency deodorant.”
“Thank god, because you’ve returned Febreze-less.”
He rolls his eyes. “I don’t know where you thought I was just going to run into a thing of Febreze. What happened?”
“What do you think happened? I had an unplanned, out-of-control situation because the triple espresso I downed clearly made me ill, and I ran to the stupid bathrooms, and they were both occupied, and if I didn’t want to shut down this entire floor with a biohazard, my only evacuation option was your desk trash! ”
“Oh yes, that. Should have been obvious,” he replies in monotone.
“You’re hilarious, Ted. Do more sarcasm.”
Ted drops his head. “I was in the bathroom.”
“Of course you were. Do you have spare pants?”
“No.”
“Give me your pants.”
His brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
I hold his eyes for an extended beat. “I mean, give me your pants. I have to go back into an important meeting with Maya. She’s already been waiting on me for eight minutes!”
“You’re going to go back into Maya’s office after this?”
“Of course I am.”
“You’re insane. How am I supposed to sterilize this area?”
“Open and buy a steamer. Pants, Ted.”
He stiffens, his jaw set uncomfortably. “Pretty demanding for someone stranded naked in my office.”
I level my eyes at him over the desk. “At the very least, Ted, you owe me the courtesy of your pants.”
He gawks at me for a full ten seconds.
Welp, I guess we’re doing this.
“Ted. You woke up one day, decided to throw a grenade into my self-esteem, and walked away as it exploded. You didn’t even give me the space for a rebuttal.”
He flinches.
“I don’t want to be with someone who’s so fucked up they don’t even talk to their parents.”
“Inaccurate, and you’d never even met my parents!”
“You were tired of ‘defending my weird-ass coven shit’ to your family and friends? I run a fucking witch-themed book club, Ted. Coven shit?
“And let’s not forget the kill shot: ‘You’re too much of a hassle to love.’”
“Rick—”
“That shit was on a constant loop in the back of my head for months. It wasn’t okay, and you’ve never uttered even the stirrings of an apology.
I had to go back to weekly therapy for six months to believe I was capable of existing in a romantic partnership without ruining their life with my own weird quirks and baggage. Give me. Your goddamn pants.”
Ted looks like he’s about to cry. I watch as his eyes well up. He unbuckles his belt, unbuttons his pants, slides them off, and holds them out. “I’m sorry,” he breathes without looking at me.
“Over here, please.”
He stumbles forward in his white boxers. I pull the pants from his grip and slide them on. They get stuck around my thighs, below my butt. The man is a stick figure.
I suck in my ass, wiggle around, and manage to struggle them up to my waist. They’re weirdly tight in the butt and loose around the calves, but they will do.
I glare at Ted as I zip up the fly.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles again.
I shake my head and snatch the larger garbage bag off the floor. I toss his entire office garbage can into it and power walk past him to the door.
“Sorry I took a shit in your office, Ted.”