Breaking The Rules

Chapter 2

One year, during my family's annual camping trip, my father forgot the pump for the air mattress. He spent three hours trying to manually inflate it like a balloon before my mom made him stop. For the next week we roughed it. Sleeping on the floor of our tent with nothing but a deflated mattress and our sleeping bags cushioning us from the forest floor. I thought for certain there wouldn't be a more horrible sleeping arrangement than that.

I was wrong. Sleeping in a dusty athletic closet was worse.

The wailing of my alarm jolted me awake. I groaned. Why couldn't I press snooze on time?

I rolled over to silence my phone. The mat beneath me crunched under my weight. It was the same noise that had me frozen in one position throughout the night. Something I definitely wasn't accustomed to. My eyes adjusted to the darkness as I squinted at my phone screen. The time hovered over Oliver's head.

5:00 a.m..

With a huff I sat myself up, ignoring the onslaught of text messages that had been sent by Miles while I was asleep. I was not a self-proclaimed morning person. Actually, I was the furthest thing from it. But over the years, and through early morning dance classes, I had learned to tolerate being up before the sun. A small amount of light filtered in through the tiny windows that butted up against the drop tile ceiling. It was enough to help me maneuver through the cramped space and towards the two overflowing duffle bags I had hidden in the corner.

A dust bunny rolled away as I bent down to sift through the random articles of clothing I brought with me. Peering down into the mismatched socks I came to realize just how rushed my exit had been. Most of what I brought with me didn't make much sense. The silky material of the little black dress I had worn to Filomena's was stuffed in the corner of the bag.

Like I'll be needing that anytime soon.

The night of my birthday dinner fiasco I had made the decision to leave the basement apartment I shared with Miles and Sean.

I'll admit, it was a rash decision but I knew that if I waited until he got home he would be able to convince me not to leave. His sweet words would lick my wounds until I forgot why I'd been so upset in the first place.

I refused to give him the opportunity.

The entire cab ride home I had worked up the courage to leave. To prioritize myself like every motivational social media post had told me to. The truth was that I had been unhappy for a long time. I had been mourning my relationship for months at this point.

Miles and I had been inseparable since we met at a comedy night on campus back in freshman year. Our relationship developed rapidly after that. We spent every waking moment that we weren't in class together. There was even a period of time that he lived in my dorm room until my roommate got annoyed and reported him to our residence assistant.

I had put him at the center of my universe. He had coerced me with sweet words and promises of our future together during nights we stayed up until sunrise–one where we moved to LA. He would be an A-list actor and I would become the renown choreographer that I dreamt of being since I was a little girl. We were both in the entertainment world and I believed–believed like it was my religion–that deep down he understood me better than anyone else. Hell, we adopted Oliver together and hid him at Miles' dorm.

It didn't even matter that the group of friends I had cultivated while at Fenton soon stopped inviting us to things. I had my person. Someone who loved me more than anyone else on this earth. He convinced me that they were jealous. That our love burned too bright for them.

But just like all flames, his eventually burnt out.

Everything that had hooked me into him came to a screeching halt. The impromptu dates. The words of affirmation. Even sex became less about us and more about getting himself off.