The Rocky Road Pact

Chapter 6: Nothing Compares 2 U

It's been seven hours and sixteen days since you took your love away. 

There is no heartache like your very first. And no one understood heartache like Sinead O'Connor. 

At first I thought I would die from the pain. I never felt anything like that before. I've been disappointed, sure. Upset. Sad. But this was something totally different. It was the most intense grief I'd ever felt mixed with something else I couldn't explain— like taking one wrong step and falling off a cliff. I played the song over and over again, it was the only thing that conveyed what I was feeling and made me feel less alone.

I replayed our last night together over and over in my mind, trying to find out what I did wrong. But it was a mystery that was frustratingly out of reach. All I knew was that it was my fault. It must have been something I'd done. Or didn't do.

The day he broke up with me, I cried so much I nearly hyperventilated and Mom had to give me half a valium.

"I know, dear. These things happen," she murmured, smoothing my hair back from my head while my sobs quieted. My eyelids grew heavy and just started to droop when she said, "maybe it's because you put on a little weight over the past year. It's only about five pounds, you can get that off in no time! You really need to stop drinking so much soda, or switch to Tab. You can come to Jazzercize with Marjorie and me on Tuesdays and burn those pounds right off! Or," She bit her lip and glanced to the side. "Maybe it was that speech. It really was a terrible idea, dear. His parents were in the audience; they were not impressed."

His dad was the mayor and his mom was a fancy lawyer. They were a really big deal in town. Mom didn't have to tell me what they thought of it, I knew. Her words felt like I stubbed my toe when it was already broken. But the valium was kicking in and I was too tired to say anything. I rolled away from her and buried my head under the covers until I fell down into nothing.

Each day was the same after that. Friends called, but I wouldn't talk to anyone. Dad tried once or twice to give me a pep talk. Uncomfortable with female emotion at the best of times, he ended up ruffling my hair like I was 10 and saying something like "chin up!" before leaving. The last time he paused by the doorway. "I never liked him anyway, Cookie. There was something about him — he was too slick. He didn't deserve my little girl. You can do a lot better." 

It didn't stop my tears, but what he said gave me something to think about. Maybe it wasn't all my fault. But there was something deep inside that said I wasn't good enough for him or anyone, a dark, snarly thing that wouldn't shut up. In my imagination it was like black smoke that emerged from a cauldron deep in my mind; it whispered awful things about me in the middle of the night — things like I was rejected because I'm ugly and unloveable and I'd be alone for the rest of my life.

The emotional devastation nearly wrecked me. But there was also the huge logistical problem. Of course, I wasn't going to the same college as Brandon anymore and withdrew my application.  That was part of our dream future together, now it was torn apart. And I had nowhere to go in the fall; it was summer and all the universities no longer accepted applications.

I had no college to go to. No boyfriend. No plan. No future. 

How could everything go to shit in just one night?

"What?" Creegan said. "I can't hear you."

I was laying flat on my stomach on my bed with my face buried in the pillow. As he had for the past few days, Creegan dropped by with junk food for me, but I couldn't eat anything. Nothing would stay down.  I lifted my head, wiping tears on my already soaked pillow.

"I said, how could everything go to shit in one night?"

"Okay. I'm going to say something and you're not going to like it," he said, moving to the bed. He sat next to me, smoothed my hair out of my face and patted my back. "Sweetie, that's enough."