Sweet Consumption

Chapter 25

Sasha has been standing outside the door while Collin and I have been talking and once he leaves and she notices me on the floor, she sits down next to me to hold me while I cry. I’m helpless to stop the fear clogging my throat, because I may lose the one person I consider my other half. I've never believed in soul-mates or people destined to be together, because I have too many examples in my life to refute the idea. My mother is a good example. My parents always seemed perfect together and in my heart I thought they were meant to be together. Their marriage ended so badly and now it was a trial to even get them talking on the phone without their conversation becoming a shouting match.

Maybe everything we see as a child in movies and books is only a way to keep us from being cynical so early in life. If we really knew what love could do, we wouldn't pursue the idea so much and our lives, while lonely, might be a little easier to deal with.

I finally pull myself together about an hour later, but am so exhausted that Sasha immediately commands me to bed. I easily acquiesce, knowing I won't be able to argue with her, even if I wanted to. We decide I should be safe in my apartment since I made it very clear to Collin that I needed my space. I shuffle my feet across the hall and once I change my clothes and crawl into bed, I try to sleep. 

I say try, because thoughts of Collin in this bed keep drifting through my mind. The last time we were here I was telling him about the shop and he quickly told me to go for it. Maybe a part of him still wanted to go back to Mindy and hoped this would be an easy solution to his problem. If I got the store, once he went back to California, I would have to stay here and we could break up without me being suspicious. 

And maybe there’s a part of me, the cynical part, that is coming up with any excuse it can to make what he's saying a lie and what Mindy is saying the truth. She tried so hard to come between us and if what he's saying is true, then she knows that releasing this information is the only thing that will. 

I finally decide, after hours of tossing and turning, the only way I'm going to sleep is with a little help. I have some Melatonin left over from when James and I broke up, so I take one and feel the effects kick in a few minutes later, allowing me to float off to the welcoming darkness.

The next three days are a blur of sleeping, eating and consuming myself with work. I call Chris over as often as I can and accept any job offered to keep myself busy so I don't think about Collin or the article. Chris, of course, read it, but didn't care what they thought of me. He told me most of the stuff they print is crap anyway, so he had no problem believing my word over theirs. That added several points to his favor, making him the best assistant I’d ever had.

Collin tries to call me at least once a day, but I ignore the rings, still too raw to speak to him. While my work does help keep me occupied, the busy work also provides the time and concentration I need to sort out my scattered feelings. I hated that Collin lied to me, but, the bottom line, was that I still loved him. What I felt for him was the kind of love that I know lasts forever because no matter what excuses my mind conjured up, I still come to the same basic conclusion. I can't and don't want to live without him. 

 I also had a strong realization this morning once my thoughts were able to align around the pain, that Mindy was in this to win. She wasn't holding back anything to get Collin and I, sadly, fell for her scheme. The epiphany came to me while I was lying in bed staring at the small crack in the ceiling for what felt like forever. I was thinking about Mindy and the fact that if Collin was telling the truth, this would be the perfect way for her to break us up, if that was all she could do. She would never get Collin back, so why not make him suffer as much as she was.