#FreakshowFriday

Chapter 17: New Year's Resolutions

January 2, 2020

Jamie once got talking to a stranger in a gas station convenience store—a middle-aged Floridian woman who claimed that, if you were to throw your car's door open while racing down a highway, the resulting force and pressure would make the door come clean out of its hinges. Jamie is ninety-nine percent certain this is a myth, but she still wishes the theory had never been shared with her. She hasn't been able to sit in a car without fighting the urge to test it ever since.

Social media are a much healthier distraction on a boring car ride in the passenger's seat. That's why Jamie just sits there typing replies to friends' Instagram posts.

"Got any new year's resolutions?"

New distraction it is. Jamie looks up from her phone and at Travis, who is dividing his attention between her and the road. One moment his bright blue eyes are on her, the next they're on the near-empty highway again. Whenever Travis drives back to Morales after visiting his friends in Palmvale, he picks the route through Morales National Forest, the natural beauty of which he loves. Narrow, twisting canyon roads, steep inclines and hairpin bends don't scare him—not even in crisp two A.M. darkness.

Jamie told one of Travis' friends at the New Year's party they've just left that she hasn't done new year's resolutions in ages. What she didn't tell is that 2020 is the year in which she does actually have a resolution at the ready.

That resolution is break things off with Travis.

Seriously.

The relationship is more trouble than it's worth. Too many squabbles over nothing, and even when she and Travis are getting along fairly well, Jamie finds herself far too annoyed with him to be happy in his presence. Things she didn't really notice—or didn't want to notice—at the start irk her now. Travis never made a big deal out of her running a successful YouTube channel and the demands that come with the side hustle, but if she racks her brain, she can count the amount of interest he has ever shown in anything related to what she does on one hand. Yet, he has no trouble suggesting innovative ways to spend her money, or showing off her fame and achievements to his friends as if they were his own. Tonight has more than proved that once again.

Jamie didn't sign up to be anybody's Manic Pixie Trophy Girl. And that's just one part of a constellation of reasons to throw this relationship out with the rest of the trash.

She just needs to be patient, that's all. She understands now why people say you shouldn't ever date your coworkers. Her income from Witchcraft Wednesday finally seems to be becoming sustainable, and Jamie was so over waiting tables that she quietly handed in a resignation notice a little before last year ended. She'd like her last days at work to be free of drama, so breaking up with Travis when she's already gone will spare herself and many others a whole lot of unpleasant awkwardness.

"Double my channel's subscriber count before the new year is over." She makes this resolution up on the spot, though she thinks it's a pretty good one. Witchcraft Wednesday is already well on its way to becoming a little more than Fun Fact Famous, having amassed over a million subscribers.

(A million. That's so many people watching Jamie's videos. With that amount, Jamie could create her own army and overthrow the government of San Marino or something.

Not that Jamie would do that, as she'd feel terrible uprooting the lives of the Sammarinese like that. But still.)

"That doesn't count." Travis rolls his window down, a chilly wind entering and further messing up his already wild brown hair. "You'd be aiming for that irrespective of the new year starting. Nothing special about it."