Sunflower

Chapter 18

Lucy

I'm about to go hysterical. Off the deep end. Marbles lost. Outside my mind. Nutty. Bat shit crazy. I can feel it in every fiber of my being. This isn't how it was supposed to be. Chris and I were supposed to live happily ever after. We were supposed to grow old together. We even made plans to sit on our front porch rocking chairs and yell at the kids in our neighborhood to keep the noise down. We were supposed to go to Paris, to climb the Eiffel Tower. We were going to swim with dolphins in Hawaii.

We had all these plans, all these dreams we wanted to chase together. And now that's just over. We're over. After so long...

And it's all my fault.

I lost my best friend.

I squeal out when I hear a tap on my window. I sigh in relief when I see it's just the hostess from Yanni's. She's probably back to give me a hard time.

I roll my window halfway down and give her a board look. "What do you want now?"

"Here," she says, handing me a slice of pie.

I take it from her, furrowing my brows in confusion. "Thank you?"

"I feel like you could use this, sweetie," she says, reaching through the opened window and patting my head like I dog before walking away.

I stare at the pie long after she's gone, wondering what kind of sad mess I've become that people are giving me pie.

"Lucy?"

"Chris?"

He jogs over to my car and while I want drive away and pretend the past twenty minutes of my life never happened, I decide it's probably better to face him. I just acted totally crazy, after all.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, stopping next to my window.

"Pie," I shrug, holding up my slice and suddenly grateful I now have a reason to have been at Yanni's.

"But...you hate lemon meringue," he says.

"Oh...yeah...it's...not for me," I answer.

"Who is it for?"

"For...my...friend. Justin. He...used to live in the same apartment complex as me back in college. Huge lemon meringue fan."

"Justin? You mean the guy that lived across the hall from you?" he asks.

I nod apprehensively, digging this hole deeper and deeper when I should just be going and putting some distance between me and this nightmare.

"So you've moved on too..."

"Too?" I shoot back, cursing under my breath for sounding so pathetic.

"I didn't move on, if that's what you think. I told you, Jenny is here because of the internship. But if I wanted to move on, what business is it of yours? You broke up with me. It shouldn't matter what I'm doing anymore."

"No reason to be rude-"

"Rude?! Lucy, you caused a scene in front of a total stranger! In a crowded restaurant! What the hell is wrong with you?!" he snaps.

"Nothing," I say, pressing the button to roll my window up.

Chris bangs on it, begging me to talk to him, but as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing left to say. I've got to do what I set out to do- take some time off and take care of myself.

I drive away, forcing my eyes to stay on the road in front of me and not wander up to the rear view mirror to see if Chris is still standing there.