work and only let men close enough to satisfy my sexual needs. That was all I could commit to anymore.
The next few hours I spent having a pity party and letting my losses from the past flood out in tears. My heart wondered why I wasn’t enough and where I’d gone wrong. How had I continued to let all those disasters into my life and yet never had enough strength to walk away? Now there I sat, a broken woman; left as an empty shell, numb to regular emotions—thanks to the selfish pricks I’d once encountered.
By noon I was dried off from my bath and curled up in my favorite oversized chair. The TV was on some Style network show that droned on in the background. My phone rested on the armrest and buzzed incessantly with the many messages from Corey. Ranging from ‘hey, what’s up?’ to ‘I’m sorry about what happened last night. It wasn’t my place and maybe it isn’t my place to say this either, but I’m worried about you.’ All his messages went unanswered; I was too busy self-loathing to respond to anything he had to say.
I considered sending Corey a text saying: the person you are trying to reach is emotionally unavailable at the moment. She promises to call you later, when she’s done feeling sorry for herself. But something like that made me think Corey would end up coming to console me. Which was the last thing I wanted—right?
The TV continued on and the tears fell without regret, for hours. When my phone rang I was sure it was Corey calling to check in again. I nearly broke my phone trying to answer it fast enough when I saw it was Gabriella calling.
Gabby had come into my life towards the end of my prison sentence with Isaac. She was the only person that helped me see things a different way than anyone else in my life. Day-after-day she loaded me with inspirational sayings to help me see the light again. While I thought it was normal to cry constantly when in love with someone she informed me that it indeed was not. She made me see I wasn’t forced to stay in any relationship and then of course was the ever-classic: you deserve better.
Just thinking about that brought around another round of tears. All my life, I’ve heard the saying and even used it for myself and for others. Sometimes it just seemed the easiest thing to say. It was a default setting—not a reality.
You deserved better; I deserved better.
After years of being caught up in shitty relationships; I’d wondered if that was true. Had I really deserved better? When people knew about my family life growing up and would tell me ‘you didn’t deserve that,’ I’d wanted to know why. What had I done in my life that made me not deserve a father that broke promises like they were going out of style? Why did I deserve better than a mother that loved her drugs more than me? What if all along I was the sole reason my parents became the way they had? What if my appearance into their lives was why my dad walked out on us; which was then the cause of my mom using and abusing.
In that case I’d gotten what I deserved. Simple as that.
At least that was the way I used to think about things before Gabriella came into my life. She was full of spirit and handed out hugs the way some handed out coupons to draw in a crowd. With her help I was able to get out from under the suffocating rock otherwise known as Isaac and “find myself.” Well, at least until the next jackass came along and messed things up.
Gabby had done so much more than just show me a better life, she had given me a place to live and set me up with a job at the growing woman’s magazine where she’d worked. Ever since then we became inseparable; she was my rock and my reason. By some crazy twist of fate, I was those things to her as well. During all my brokenheartedness, I greatly needed her by my side. She’d cry with me and laugh with me; that girl truly knew how to turn my frown upside down. I’d simply have to make do with a phone call to get myself out of my funk.
“Hey you,” I said into the phone in the most upbeat tone I