Tales Of Single Sleeping And Avoiding The World

Day 20 of The Andie Chronicles

It was just past five in the morning, and I was on my couch. I even had my shoes on, something that never happened.

I remember coming home, collapsing on the couch with a tear-soaked face. 

Yet, I didn’t imagine I would pass out here. 

As it turned out, the drive home from Douglas’s place had taken its toll on me. 

It started fine. I was feeling in control, having initiated the breakup. He didn’t have much of a reply to me as I forced his hand to make a decision. 

Or, more to the point, when I made the decision for him.

But as I turned out of his street and onto the highway home, I felt the first tear run down my face. Before I knew it an avalanche of emotions followed.

I couldn’t believe it had happened. The breakup had been building for weeks you would have thought I would’ve felt prepared. 

You would assume I would have done all my crying by now. Nope. 

It was the opposite. I was so fixated on the event itself, surviving it, that I didn’t account for what happened next. The reality that the relationship I cared so much about, treasured, loved even, was now over.

And, no matter what I thought or felt, I couldn’t change that. 

I was now a single woman, at thirty-five, feeling daunted by the future. I would have to get used to this new normal.

I peeled myself off the couch, showered, removed my smudged makeup, and climbed into bed. 

The feeling of new linen sent me into a deep slumber. I had thrown out of the sheets Douglas and I had rolled around in. It felt right to start the cleanse with where I slept.

I stayed asleep until sometime past two, only woken when I heard my doorbell chiming over and again. 

I checked the Ring and discovered it was James. I ignored him. There was no way I could face the public right now. I didn’t have the words yet, or the enthusiasm to explain what had happened last night. 

Fatigue had well and truly taken over my body and it was winning at this moment.

I expected James to let himself in and see if I was home. He had a key after all. But he didn’t, leaving me be instead. 

I wonder if he secretly knew I needed this time. I wonder if my silence said it all.

Another part of me thought he might think I was still with Douglas, that we had spent the night together having breakup sex. 

If only. 

That might have been a consolation, one last bit of pleasure to hold me over in my heartbreak. But alas, that wasn’t meant to be.

When would I have sex next? Gees, that’s a messed up question I have no interest in answering.

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You’re reading The Andie Chronicles, the 2023 romance-fiction series from the 1 Lovelock Drive (1LD) universe.

By the way, this all started when Andie turned thirty-five, and her then-boyfriend didn’t call her.

Or the day after that.

Or the day after that, too. 

Everything started to unravel when her BFFs got into bed with her ex, too… ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️

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