The One Who Got Away is Back

Present 13 ♡ The Intervention

After a couple of days of seeing me mope and not do anything else for myself, Poonam had enough and staged an intervention. This she accomplished via texting all my friends spread all over the country with the news. In a matter of minutes, she'd organized a giant conference call with all of them. She set her laptop on my bedside table so they could see what a miserable blankets burrito I'd become.

"She looks even paler than I remember her," Leti said from New York. "Mi amor, what do you think?"

I saw DeAndre's face as he peeked from the corner of the camera. Even though his window was small, it didn't hide his grimace.

"She looks sick, that's what," he said.

"Gee, thanks," I mumbled.

"You need to get out of that bed and grab life by the cojones," the advice came from Ayrton. He Skyped us from the middle of the set of the TV show he was working in.

"Won't you get in trouble for chatting with your friends at work?" I asked him, but he shrugged.

"All anyone does around here is be on some end of a camera, it's no biggie." He snapped his fingers close to the phone so I could see them and hear them. "As for you, this is a biggie but you can't let it take you down."

I was down, alright. Down in spirits and funds. I lived paycheck to paycheck and I didn't know how I was going to survive when the next deposit didn't make it to my account but my bills continued sucking it dry without knowing any better. Even so, that wasn't going to be any worse than the empty chamber my chest was. That, I couldn't fix as easily as finding another job.

"Addy, honey. I'm so sorry," Page said, now back to work in Seattle. "This is all so terrible but you're letting it steamroll you."

"That's right." Vera got all up in the screen. "Where's the Addy who teased and prodded me until I came out of my shell?"

"Hiding in hers," I responded. I rolled around my bed with a groan. "Guys, I appreciate what you're trying to do. But I just can't fix it."

"Bitch, you can," Ayrton said. "All you have to do is go back to that office, tell that moron to fuck all the way off and take back your man. It doesn't matter what anyone says or thinks, you didn't do anything wrong!"

"Well, aside from running from the confrontation," Leti supplied helpfully. "Sorry to say, but that just made you look guiltier."

I knew that. Oh God, I knew that. That was why I couldn't face the world. I'd acted like a dumbass, just running away and letting go without putting up a fight. That was what cowards did, and I was chicken shit. Now regret clawed at my lungs and made me lose my breath every waking moment since.

But I didn't say any of this. I was so tired of myself that I couldn't even cry anymore. The well of tears had finally dried. My friends tried various tactics to encourage me to do something, from pissing me off, to babying me, to comforting me. It irritated me because I couldn't find the energy in me to do any of what they said. Eventually the conversation finished and Poonam came over to retrieve her laptop. She gave me a mean look but she didn't add anything new to what they had already said. Or what she had already shouted at me.

Instead she surprised me by saying, "Rakim and I are going to a party downtown tonight. You're more than invited, but if not I've stocked the freezer full of ice cream to tide you over until I come back Sunday."

I peeked under the blankets. "You staying over at his place?"

"Yeah, I need a break from living with the ghost of you."

I nodded. It didn't even hurt me, her biting honesty was why I loved her. "Okay, have fun."

I heard her around the apartment, getting ready to spend the weekend with her boyfriend. Rakim must have also grown tired of me, because he usually spent most of his time here, to the point we wanted to charge him rent. This reminded me he had his own place and that Poonam had another place to go.