Back to You

A Possible Hope

"Hey, ladybug! This is your old man calling. I'm not done at the lab just yet, but if you'd like to swing by and check in to make sure I'm not using a colostomy bag now, feel free! Love you!" My father's voice rang out through the voice messages I was listening to.

I usually chatted with him everyday. With everything falling apart at the seams in my life, I had spoken to him a couple of days before the wedding. He had to work late again and couldn't attend, but told me to give the happy couple his love.

He probably thought I was living under a rock now if anything.

For the past three torturous days, I was socially distanced away from the world and everyone in it—sulking away in my studio apartment.

As luck would have it, Ryder already tried making contact with me twice, along with Jasmine who had been texting me triple that.

I was starting to feel like an even more lousy person for not reaching back out to her. Sure life had continued for many, but I had been at a stand still.

I hardly could stomach breakfast. I ordered pizzas for lunch and dinner to the point of knowing the delivery guy by name, and how he was doing the job just to save up for college. We even developed our own secret handshake. He was a great conversationalist. If it wasn't for him, I barely would've left my bed unless it was to pee.

It was just myself in a deep pit of loneliness, promising myself to not scroll through all the old messages and silly videos we had made together, without losing all my cool. But I even did that anyway and ended up devouring two tubs of mint chocolate chip ice cream in the process.

Everything just felt so different.

Losing the love of your life was horrible. Losing one of your best friends felt even worse. Though, when you lost both of those things at the same time...your heart weighed heavy. I couldn't hold my emotions in check. I'd had my few shares of breakup before, but this was something sizably bigger than ever.

There was no one to karaoke with whenever. No one to mindlessly sketch for practice at random hours, while working together to help my online art business market my work to sell and thrive. No one to tell stories at night because the other wanted to be entertained before going to bed. And no one to have weekly game and movie nights till 3 A.M.

Although Jasmine was a great contender for all those things too and was there sometimes with us. But between working as an online magazine editor mixed with Devin and their family schedule—it wasn't going to be as easy as it would be calling the one guy who surprisingly and happily without rare exceptions, found a way to hang out together no matter what.

I was definitely going to beg for her to attend a few karaoke nights, however. No questions about it. She was an outstanding performer. Back in school, she has been the caption on the cheer squad who always brought in more school spirit to the student body than the actual basketball team. As for the team itself aside from Ryder's star studded placement, they just had the consistency to lose every game.

As the time passed, I continued to stare aimlessly at the clock on my phone, pondering over my Dad's request to appear back to civilization. My legs were becoming restless like they wanted to go.

Life for me had to go on eventually at some point too. Why couldn't it have been now?

I couldn't just sit here and do nothing but wallow in regret for weeks. Him and his new wife were currently on their honeymoon in Cancun—probably soaking up the sun. I loved the dang sun too.

On second thought, decision made. I was going.

Besides, it would be nice to pay my Dad a visit. Hopefully today would be the first of a new, nice, and pleasant change.