A Life Guide To Prolonging the Inevitable

Chapter 1

 Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

To anyone else in that coffee establishment, I’m pretty sure I looked normal. Exceptionally, unworriedly normal. Professional, even—pinstriped skirt pulled over my crossed legs, and chin resting casually in the palm of my hand.

            Under the surface, though? My insides must’ve resembled scrambled eggs, and I don’t think there’s an emotion in the English language that could’ve accurately portrayed just how unpleasant that resemblance felt. Still, just to give you a vague idea, the thesaurus futilely suggests: anxious, apprehensive, nervous, petrified, rattled, timorous, and scared shitless.

            There was something horrifying about being back in this town. Maybe it was the fact that everyone here looked like a sewing machine had eaten a plaid factory and then thrown up on them. Or maybe it was the fact that, five years ago, this town had taken whatever was left of my self-esteem and had beaten it into submission with an iron mallet.

What’s even worse, this place had barely changed, suggesting that it was more than capable of doing the same thing all over again. The faces and the street signs and the porched houses were exactly as I’d left them—like they’d all been preserved in Carbonite, Han Solo style—and this month old Starbucks was seemingly the only improvement to this middle-of-nowhere hellhole. The mixed scent of new paint, coffee beans, and fresh linoleum was making me sick to my stomach.

            A lump rose up in my throat, and I was dangerously close to losing both my outward composure and the Cocoa Pebbles I’d ingested earlier this morning. Then I stopped, caught, and steadied myself. When I let my tongue run over my teeth, I didn’t feel any metal or rubber. When I dragged my fingers through my hair, they didn’t snag on the smooth, knotless strands, and when I blinked, my world wasn’t outlined in thick paisley rims. Screw that, I thought. This town might not have changed, but I sure as hell had.

One: I anchored my shoulders to the chair behind me. Two: I let my chest swell with air. Three: I held my breath for several seconds. Four: I opened my mouth and let the tension leave with the carbon dioxide. Five: I adjusted my posture, set my jaw, raised my chin, and reclaimed the title of “Coolest son of a bitch to ever walk this earth.”

It was a breathing technique my therapist had taught me (except that last step there—that one was all mine) and it worked miracles. It made me remember the differences between then and now, specifically that I was no one’s doormat anymore, and just like that, I was good. I was prepared for anything. I was a brick wall—no, a lead wall—and a talking one, at that. I was capable of verbally ripping someone to shreds, and I wouldn’t hesitate to do so if anyone crossed me this summer.

The door swung open, and my eyes jumped to the front of the coffee house. There was a girl standing there in a smock and hyde boots. Her dress would’ve been shapeless had a belt not gathered the fabric around her tiny waist, and her brown hair would’ve been all over the place if it hadn’t been twisted carelessly in a hair tie. She looked right at me, held her stare for a few seconds, and then turned her back so she could search the rest of the shop.

“Jordan!” I called.

The girl whipped around again, and her eyes narrowed. She pushed her glasses up so they were at the very peak of her nose. They were bright red, and matched absolutely nothing else she wore. “Charlotte?” She gaped.

I grinned at her. “Holy hell, Jordan. Don’t you know people are supposed to gain weight in college? You’re as skinny as you were when we were thirteen.”

Jordan wasn’t listening, though. She was inching towards me, her mouth still hanging open. She let her small body drop into the chair across from me, but her eyes never left my face. “Oh my God, Charlie,” she murmured. “There’s no way. There’s absolutely no way.”