Shena felt heat rising through her body, but she plastered a smiled on her face knowing that Ashley and the other girls were watching her.
“Isn’t it great that they finally worked through all their issues?” one of the other girls asked.
“Right, and to think they’ve been planning this wedding all along and he hasn’t said a word about it,” Ashley said.
Shena re-read Derek’s name on the invitation several times. Just as she was about to hand it back over, Ashley said, “And I love how they used the traditional style invitation. You know like the parents of the bride cordially invite you to the wedding of their daughter….”
Shena stopped listening and looked over the invitation again. Not only were the bride’s parents listed. Derek’s parents were listed too. Both parents. She excused herself to go clock in. The realization of the extent that she had been lied to washed over Shena like a wave of heat. She made it three steps outside of the office before she fainted.
She came to a few minutes later with every manager in the building, and several coworkers, standing over her. She was so embarrassed. She was able to convince them that she was dehydrated and didn’t need the paramedics called. She couldn’t convince to let her leave on her own though, so she called her best friend and sat in the back until she arrived. She stared at the pile of lilac-colored envelopes on the manager’s table for a full 30 minutes until Erica called to say she was pulling up.
Erica started fussing over Shena as soon as she got in the car.
“Are you sure we don’t need to go by urgent care? You’ve never fainted before. I think we need to get you checked out.”
Shena had not been able to tell Erica the real reason she passed out when she called and asked for a ride. She hadn’t been sure she was going to tell her at all, but she when she opened her mouth to deny needing to go to urgent care she started sobbing. During the short drive to her apartment, Shena managed to get most of the story out.
Understandably, Erica was in shock after having heard nothing but good things about Derek recently. Erica stayed with Shena for the rest of the day. They didn’t talk much, and when they did it was mostly Shena debating about whether to confront Derek or not. In the end, she agreed with Erica that it wasn’t worth asking for an explanation. Besides, as Erica had so eloquently put it, “He even lied about his father dying. What kind of asshole does that? Would could he say at this point that you would even believe?”
Shena was relieved when Erica finally left later that night. She appreciated her friend’s concern, but she didn’t want to talk anymore and she didn’t want to cry anymore. Despite what she and Erica had discussed, she wanted to speak to Derek. She couldn’t think of anything that he could say that would make this any better, but she wanted to hear something. She took a deep breath and dialed his number, bracing herself for what she might hear.
“You have reached a number that is no longer in service…”
Shena slid down off her couch until she was lying flat on her back on the living room floor. She had been feeling raw and exposed all day. Now she just felt broken. She stared at the ceiling for hours, until she slipped into a deep sleep.
Being excused from work for the next week or so due to fainting turned out to be a blessing and a curse for Shena. She didn’t want to go back to work at all. She didn’t want to listen to the gossip and the excitement about Derek’s upcoming wedding. The hard part though, was that she didn’t really want to be anywhere at all. She took refuge in her apartment and binge-watched Netflix series. It was her way of zoning out and not having to think. She ordered takeout every other day, telling herself that she needed to eat, and then watched it pile up in her fridge because she had no appetite. She knew enough to know that she was slipping into a depressed state, but she didn’t have the energy to pull herself out of it.
Eventually Shena returned to work, and to her surprise it wasn’t as bad as she had been imagining. Apparently, two of her coworkers had gotten into a fight a few days before Shena returned to work so her fainting episode was old news. Weeks went by, and she continued to find refuge in Netflix, and occasionally the gym. She got tired of pretending to be okay when she was around her friends, so she stopped hanging out with them. Her life became an endless loop of work, Netflix, gym, and sleep. Derek’s wedding date, and the whole invitation, was imprinted in her mind. Time seemed to rush forward until seemingly she looked up one day and it was already November 1st.
That Friday, as Shena got dressed and ready for work, she had mixed emotions. She had reached her self-imposed limit for wallowing. While it was true that she was still hurting (on the days that she didn’t feel numb), she knew that she had to get out of this rut. She had a little while before she actually had to leave, so she decided to get started. Moving across town seemed like a great way to start over, so she started pulling up apartment listings. She halfway completed three applications then saved them so that she could give herself time to think about it during her shift and come back to them later. She also typed up her two-week notice and saved that to her desktop. She had a few leads on some jobs on the other side of town too and she intended to follow-up on them very soon.
While November 1st was a crucial date for Shena, there was nothing special about her work day. She had enough down time to go over the pros and cons of moving and quitting several times. In the end, she decided it was a smart move. It may seem as though she were running away from her feelings and problems, but there really was no resolution to how she felt other than to pick herself up and move on. This was not an argument that could be worked through, or a miscommunication that could be explained. Derek had intentionally deceived her for months, and she was humiliated and heartbroken. Worse than that, she had gone against her better judgment to date him in the first place, so she was now questioning herself and every little decision that she made. “I’m broken,” she whispered out loud to herself for what had to be the millionth time as she walked to her car that night to go home. And if you stay here there will be no fixing it, she thought to herself as pulled out of the parking lot to head home.
Shena felt a chill run down her spine as she pulled up to her apartment. Nothing looked out-of-place, and she didn’t know where this sudden feeling of anxiety was coming from so she tried to shake it off as she walked up the stairs. She froze when she reached her front door. There was an envelope taped to the door with her name across the front written in Derek’s handwriting. She stood there for several seconds, her heart pounding as she stared at the envelope. Finally, she snatched it off the door and quickly went inside locking the door behind her.
Once inside, the anxiety she was initially feeling turned to anger. Weeks of silence, and then he sticks a letter on my door? He couldn’t even talk to me face to face, Shena thought to herself. Before she did anything else, Shena went to her laptop and completed the applications for the apartments across town. She was determined to follow-up on those job leads also. Something told her that letter wasn’t going to be a “goodbye” letter and she was not going to allow Derek to slip in and out of her life as he pleased. One way to make sure of that was to make herself physically inaccessible.
Several hours later, Shena finally decided to open the letter. Bracing herself for a long, and probably dishonest, explanation she settled into bed and opened the envelope:
I miss you. I want to see you.
That was it. No apology, no explanation. Shena ripped the note to shreds and the put it all back in the envelope. She tried to go to sleep, but her anger wouldn’t let her. She thought back to the wedding invitation. Every time she closed her eyes she saw Vanessa James and Derek Granger…November 12, 2017. Shena got up and went to her laptop. Well, maybe Vanessa James would like to know exactly what Derek’s been up all these months, she thought as she logged onto to Facebook.
To Be Continued…
Written By: SM Grady
© 2018 SM Grady
