Page 7 of My So-Called Perfect Life

The life I planned with Scott is no more.

There will be no shopping for homes in the suburbs. No children. No traditions of our own to start. No annual vacations. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

The weight of it all crashes down on me as I swing open my front door.

“Holy shit,” Mercy says, pushing her way inside.

“Where have you been?” Amelia asks, hands on her hips as if she were my mom and not my little sister.

Mercy plants her ass in the corner of my couch and crosses her arms over her chest. “We’ve been trying to get in touch with you for hours. You just dropped a fucking bomb like that and skipped out without a word.”

“Daddy said you wanted some time to yourself, but we were still worried. What Scott did was awful, and I just wanted to check on you.”

My sister and I are very close. She’s a year and a half younger than me, and we’ve been best friends for as long as I can remember. My sister has been there for me through everything. I almost feel guilty for shutting her out tonight, but the pain I feel in my chest is something that I don’t know how to share.

“I went for a walk. I needed to be alone,” I sigh as I close the door after Amelia stops glaring at me and comes in, joining Mercy on the couch. “I’m having a hard time figuring out how everything I’m feeling is supposed to be handled, if I’m being honest. I’m so hurt, down to my core. I just wanted some time before I had to accept that the life I had been about to start is no more. Does that make sense?”

Compassion fills Amelia’s eyes.

Mercy’s smile is sympathetic as she nods. “Where did you go?”

“Yeah,” my sister adds. “You’ve been gone for over two hours. We’ve been sitting across the street at Santini’s, waiting for you to come home. We knew you wouldn’t answer the phone, and you really shouldn’t be alone all night.”

It’s then that I notice the brown paper bag that Mercy has sitting on the ground next to her feet. She leans over and pulls out a bottle of wine and a Styrofoam container.

“I knew you wouldn’t have food here,” Mercy explains as she hands me the container.

I instantly smell my favorite thing in the world. Zeppole from Santini’s Pizzeria. I feel the tears starting to take control.

Mercy holds up the bottle of wine and smiles sadly at me. “You can wash it down with this.”

As she pulls out a cheap corkscrew from the liquor store and starts to open my favorite red, the tears win and start streaming down my face.

Amelia is at my side in a heartbeat, and her arms wrap around me. “Let it out, sweetie.”

Her hand rubs along my back as I sob into her shoulder. The sobs just rip from my throat, one after the other, stealing my breath. It feels like those moments of being stuck under the water after being knocked down by a wave in the ocean. I search for air and find nothing but more tears.

My eyes burn, and my lips tingle as I pick my head up and look at my sister and then my best friend standing behind her.

Amelia’s eyes soften, and then she asks the million-dollar question, “What can we do for you? What do you need?”

The thick ball of emotions still clogging my throat has the tears back in seconds, and there’s no stopping them as my pain and sadness fall down my face in twin streams. “I don’t know. How could he do this to me?”

That’s the question burning inside me.What went wrong? How did I not see this coming? Why wasn’t I enough?I feel as though I failed, and I don’t know why. Scott never let on that something was wrong. We were getting married! I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world. Now, I feel like the biggest moron on the planet.

It all pours from my chest as I hang my head. The sadness. The betrayal. The loss. The unknown of what comes next.

“I don’t know,” I squeak out as I put my head in my hands and let go of all I’ve been holding on to since Amelia handed me Scott’s phone.

Mercy pulls me into her arms, and Amelia wraps her arms around the two of us. “It’ll be okay, Dani. We’ll help you figure it out.”

Chapter Three

Danielle

Idrag my butt outof bed this morning at ten o’clock, three hours later than usual. Before I can face my life, I need coffee. Since my coffeepot is packed, and I only have water and leftover food from last night in my fridge, I walk down the block to the coffee shop.

The hot caffeinated goodness soothes my scratchy throat as I head back to my apartment.