Page 2 of Home Brewed (The Perfect Cup #1)

Hazel

E ventually, I pick myself up off the floor.

I pull myself into the bathroom only to be greeted by raccoon eyes staring at me from the mirror.

Waterproof mascara my ass , I think as I try my best to wipe it off.

It ends up mostly smearing, even with makeup remover, but I eventually get to a point where I can see my now splotchy olive-toned skin underneath it all and decide that’s sufficient.

I do my best to untangle my thick, dark hair.

It refuses to cooperate, and frankly, I don’t have the arm strength to fight it.

Even though I don’t have curls to contend with, it’s still a losing battle, so I decide to quit while I’m ahead.

I stare at myself in the mirror. Same sharp nose, rosy cheeks, and dark eyes, which are more than a little puffy.

Somehow, I still don’t recognize the face staring back at me.

I don’t think I have ever looked this frazzled.

I sigh, pulling myself away from the mirror.

Criticizing my appearance isn’t going to get me anywhere right now .

I quickly send an email off to my boss saying I need to take a few personal days starting tomorrow.

I have a week’s worth of them, so I take a week of my vacation days too.

It never occurred to me that I would feel thankful that we could never agree on where we wanted to travel.

Justin hated leaving the city, so the small cache of vacation days I have tucked away grew steadily.

The fact that I’m sending a leave request in the wee hours of the morning should indicate how badly it’s needed.

I’ll probably use the time off to kick Justin off of any accounts that we have together.

Netflix and food delivery apps, anything attached to my credit card.

I’ll have to make sure there’s nothing on the lease regarding him, however I’m pretty positive it’s only me.

His credit score was trash, and they almost didn’t rent to us, so I ended up applying alone and then brought him with me.

Getting rid of the evidence of him in my life needs to be swift and ruthless.

And it all starts by getting rid of anything that belonged to him.

And my bedding. Fuck, probably the mattress and bed frame, too.

There is no way I want to sleep in a bed that he’s screwed who knows how many women in.

A shudder rolls through me at the thought.

I can handle some grossness, but I draw the line at strangers’ bodily fluids.

Oh my god, he never washed the sheets either, that was something I always did. I clearly slept in some questionable sheets.

I muscle down a gag. That’s definitely all getting thrown out.

The question is, how the heck am I going to get it all out of my apartment?

My head hurts so badly. It’s probably dehydration from all the crying, but in a roundabout way, I blame this on Justin, too.

Pulling a throw blanket out of the hall closet, I collapse onto the couch in the living room with the biggest glass of water.

I can’t handle sleeping in the bedroom without having nightmares of the variety of women he was seeing while he told me he loved me.

While he told me half-heartedly how much he cherished me.

While he made me clean up after him, and make his doctor’s appointments and haircuts, and persuade him to get a better job or eat a goddamn vegetable for once .

I’m such a moron.

I try my best to fall asleep, despite the fact that a ball of anxiety has curled its way up into my chest, like an intrusive, overweight cat. No matter how many breathing exercises I try to do, I can’t get the squeezing feeling in my lungs to go away.

I cry periodically through the night, no matter how much I tell myself to stop being a wuss.

I’m silent, holding my breath, tears running down my face as I watch the sun come up.

I lie on the old, lumpy couch as long as I can, knowing how much my back is going to hurt in the morning because of it.

I can’t make myself care enough to move.

I stare dully out the window as the sun rises, dramatically revealing the state of my current situation.

Eventually, sometime in the early morning, I roll my dehydrated husk off the couch, allowing myself to smack onto the cool hardwood floor.

Still wrapped in my blanket, I force myself up and trudge to the kitchen, avoiding the ceramic shards on the floor, to make some coffee.

As it starts percolating, I search the fridge for my caramel coffee creamer.

I need to make a grocery trip, so it doesn’t take long to find it.

When I grab it out of the back, it’s suspiciously light.

Not light, empty.

What the actual fuck? That soggy cornflake of a man insists that only black coffee is appropriate ‘cause ‘he’s a man’ and then drinks all of my favourite creamer?

It occurs to me then that maybe his conquests have been drinking it, and I get so mad that I turn the coffee machine off and decide that I am going to shower, even if it kills me.

It almost does.

I’m in a haze, not paying attention to anything around me, tripping over my blanket while getting undressed, nearly falling into the bathtub, and shrieking when I realize how cold the water is. I stand there miserably while it heats up. Everything else in my life sucks, why not this too ?

I don’t have the energy to wash my hair, so I just wash my body enough to not be disgusting and get out of there as quickly as possible.

I pull on my softest sweats, which are a bright, barbie pink, and a matching sweater, something I never used to allow myself.

It was considered too girly, too frivolous.

The mockery wasn’t worth the comfort they brought.

Now, it feels rebellious putting them on.

Once I’m nice and cozy, I examine my closet, taking in my wide variety of neutral pants and tops, with my classy, patterned blazers.

Barely a smack of colour. They were the only things I was ever complimented on, so I guess I accumulated more of them than I realized.

None of them spark an ounce of joy as I take it all in.

Positive reinforcement is a bitch.

Maybe I’m a stubborn ass, but I suddenly hate all of it.

Every single piece of it reminds me of how much Justin criticized my actual style and how much I had accommodated him.

I look around our room and really take it in.

Beige walls, grey duvet cover and sheets—because they were more ‘adult’ than the blue floral ones I had originally picked out.

I had gone for blue instead of pink, hoping that would be a compromise.

He insisted that was still too frilly for him. I come to a sharp realization.

I. Hate. Everything.

Filled with a sudden fervour, I grab a large garbage bag from under the kitchen sink and run back into the bedroom, stuffing in anything that had belonged to him or that I compromised on.

I’m not going to throw them away, that would be wasteful, but I am going to send it all back to him as a final ‘fuck you.’

Slowly the bags start to fill up with random clothing articles, sheets, pictures from the wall, his framed philosophy degree that he never used, a pair of ‘sensible’ earrings that he bought me which are absolutely the ugliest things I own.

I can’t believe I thought it was sweet of him to buy me something his mother wouldn’t criticize when we went over .

She kind of sucks too. She always made a point of showing me how unworthy of her musty son she thought I was.

She would point out different ways I should be cooking things—everything covered in cheese with not a health food in sight, but get him his vitamins!

—how to dress to make him look better—barf—and how I should be taking better care of myself if I was ever going to give him children—kill me now.

Jokes on her, she can have him all to herself.

The last thing I grab is the signed wooden baseball bat he brought when we moved in. He only got into university because of a baseball scholarship, and he blames his classes getting in the way as the reason he never made it in the big leagues.

Because it couldn’t possibly be all the weed he smokes.

I consider keeping the bat as my new home security system, but I don’t think I can stomach seeing it every day.

Once I have three garbage bags full, I finally feel like I can breathe again.

The space is sparse, but at least the knot behind my sternum has loosened for now.

The space feels so open with two-thirds of my belongings removed from it.

It feels fresh, like a new beginning. One I should never have had to pursue.

I start tearing up again, thinking about it.

Nope, I am a bad bitch, not a sad bitch. He is the one who lost out, not me. I get to go on and have a great life with someone who actually values me. Maybe. Once dating seems a little less scary. And I feel less shitty. And maybe get myself together.

That thought knocks the wind out of me. I never considered diving back into the dating pool. I groan in frustration, the sound echoing off the empty walls. This is a nightmare. I have no desire to be on dating apps, and dating nowadays seems like a recipe for getting killed these days.

Maybe I’ve watched too many true crime documentaries, but the options of how to get murdered as a woman seems to be a booming industry .

Either way, I’m getting this shit out of my house. Figuring out how not to get turned into a skin suit is future Hazel’s problem.

By early afternoon, I’ve acquired several large shipping boxes and stuffed the bags inside of them.

I struggle to drag it all to the courier’s office.

I must look insane based on how the clerk eyes me while I request rush delivery.

She doesn’t ask a single question about the contents of the boxes.

On the side of one of them I write “To: CHEATER” next to his mother’s address.

She only raises one eyebrow and hands me a wrapped chocolate from behind the counter.

I internally give myself a stern pep talk about how I’m a bad bitch now and bad bitches don’t cry in public.

Because I am definitely about to cry in public.

Again. I may have traumatized a barista on the way here.

Instead, I walk out with my head held high, my pride waning, and my determination to move on strong. Justin will have all his things the next day, and I will never have to look at him ever again.

“What do you mean, return to sender?” I wail through the phone at customer service, glaring at the three boxes that have returned to my front door a day and a half later. When they say rush shipping, they really mean it .

“Did she move? When would she have moved? She definitely lives there, this should have been accepted, I don’t get it.

” I know for a fact she didn’t move because we visited her a month ago.

I remember because that was when she made a comment about how I will never be a mother with such a stressful job, which is kind of a birdbrained bone to pick considering I financially supported the both of us.

I make significantly more than him, even with his tips, and she knows it, too.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” says the monotone voice over the phone, “but I have no more details than that. It’s possible that she does live there and declined the delivery.”

Why can’t one thing go my way right now?

I am starting to lose it. I have been staring at my blank walls since I dropped off the boxes, still sleeping on the couch as there is no bedding left in the apartment, and I refuse to get anywhere close to that bed.

I’m so exhausted, the last of my bad bitch energy spent trying to convince myself that eating is, in fact, the key to remaining alive and forcing a prepackaged protein shake down my throat.

“I’m sorry,” the customer service representative interrupts my internal turmoil, “was there anything else I could help you with today?” His tone is clipped, probably dying to wrap up this call.

“No, thank you. Have a great day.” I hang up. I have to get his stuff back somehow… or at least out of this damned apartment.

I send off a text asking him where he is going to be staying so I can drop off his things.

There is no way I want him coming by the apartment again.

I know how mean he gets when he’s angry.

I’m surprised I didn’t see more of it during our blowup, and I have no interest in putting on another show for the neighbours.

Not to mention how desperately I do not want to hear the things he might say to me now that he isn’t caught off guard.

He was never abusive, but he somehow always knew the best way to make me feel small .

God, how can this man still be annoying me when we’re not even together? Not only did I run our entire lives, now I have to manage our fucking breakup? I can’t believe I didn’t see this man for the walking red flag he is.

I send one more text and go to lay down on the couch, hoping to grab a quick nap, thinking nasty thoughts in his direction.

I’ve slept maybe nine hours total in the last few days, and I’m starting to feel it.

I manage to catch a solid hour of sleep, and when I wake up, I still have no response from Justin.

How is it when he’s not even here, I still have to do all the work for him?

Fine. He wants to tuck his tail between his legs, hide, and ignore me? I’m going to put it somewhere he can’t ignore it. I’m going to take it to his workplace.