So. The fuck. What.
I hated that job. I hated my boss. And now I was liberated, right?
It was all how you chose to look at it. And my glass, right now, was a truly decent quarter-full. I’d deal with refilling the rest of it after Christmas, when the suckfest of searching for a new job began.
“Eight maids a-milking! Seven swans a-swimming! Six geese a-laying…!”
Also. I was seriously looking forward to not being at the beck and call of an abusive employer over the holidays. My Christmas shopping was officially done. I’d treated myself to a new lipstick: Soulcrushing Red. And I was going to a hot Christmas party tonight with my best friend, Danica.
My boyfriend was coming with us, and I felt truly optimistic that the Big Talk he and I had over beers last night was really gonna improve things between us.
“Five! Golden! Riiiings!”
I dug my keys out of my purse and unlocked my door as an entire orchestra of Christmas bells and an angelic choir accompanied me in my head.
“Four calling birds! Three french hens! Two turtle doves! And a partridge in a peeaaaarrr—”
OH SWEET BABY JESUS.
There was a naked lady in my bed.
My naked boyfriend was stumbling away from the bed, backwards, his legs tangled in sheets as he gaped at me. He fell on his ass on the floor in the middle of my crappy-yet-cozy studio apartment.
What the fuck did I just walk into?
I looked at the woman in my bed as she looked at me. Our faces were like a warped mirror in some insane funhouse, her features stretched in the same maw of horrified realization as mine must’ve been.
He. Was. Fucking. Her. In. My. Bed.
I dropped my shopping bags. I dropped my keys and felt the terrible metallic clunk on the hardwood. It made my teeth hurt. Or maybe they hurt because I was clenching my jaw so hard it felt like my molars might crack.
Dominic sprang to his feet. He was barely managing to cover his junk with the corner of my bedsheet.
He was still hard.
I stared at him, my eyeballs so hot they felt like they might pop.
“I thought you were getting ready for the party at Danica’s!” he semi-shouted at me.
Like that made it okay?
Like that explained why it was okay for him to be fucking another woman in my bed?
The single word crept up from my intestines, clawed its way up my throat and ground its way out through my teeth in an unholy, ungodly version of my voice that vaguely reminded me of that girl from The Exorcist.
“OUT.”
That was all I said, or was conscious of saying, before I picked up his boot, just one single boot, and stalked across the room.
This was the last straw, and fuck did it break me.
I shoved the old, creaking window up and hurled his boot out into the crisp night air.
Merry Christmas motherfucker.
I had his Christmas gift in my purse. I remembered that, with a terrible burning feeling in my chest. I’d picked it up on my way home. It was a watch. Not a super expensive one, but still.
I’d use my rage to fuel past this. I’d use the receipt to return the watch. And I was definitely not going to cry.
I picked up his other boot and threw it out the window. His jeans went next, then his stupid fucking manly shirt, the one that lied.
This was no man.
All I heard him say was, “Jesus, Taylor! It’s snowing out.”
At that point, I threw his jacket out the window and he got with the program. He snatched up his underwear before I could get to it and started yanking it on. He also snatched up his socks.
I was dimly aware that at some point, very early in this whole fucked-up scene, the naked woman in my bed had picked up her clothes, screeched something in Dominic’s direction, and scurried her ass out the door.
He was still here, though. He was still talking, so I went and threw open the door. “Nothing!” I shouted. “There is nothing you can say! Now GET. THE FUCK. OUT!”
I shut my eyes and heard nothing but blood as it raged through my ears in molten surges of pain.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
When I eventually opened my eyes, he was gone.
I shut the door and locked it.
Then I made sure he was gone, checking the bathroom, the closets, under the bed, just to be certain he hadn’t slithered into some dark crevasse to hide like the spawn of Satan he evidently was.
I slammed the window shut without looking to see if he was fumbling around half-naked in the snow below, trying to find his boots.
I hoped his toes froze and snapped right off.
Then I tore all the bedding off my bed, stuffed it in a garbage bag and grabbed my keys. I slogged down to the first floor, to the garbage room. I stuffed my ruined bedding into a bin.
And I thought about the stupidest shit.
Like how sweet I thought it was when he asked if I wanted to “experiment with living together.” And how he’d ended up staying at my place all the time, even though his place was nicer, because he had a roommate, I didn’t, and he wanted “more alone time” with me.
… And with the other women he fucked in my bed while I was working my ass off for a crazy, hateful boss, apparently.
I will not cry.
I ran back upstairs. To add insult to injury, the elevator was broken again and I had to take all five flights on foot. By the time I got back to my apartment I was panting and short of breath, lightheaded. Maybe I was having a mild panic attack.
Or maybe this was just what exorcising a demon felt like.
My only solace was in knowing that my now-ex-boyfriend had to
