Page 9 of Unstoppable You (Sapph in the City #6)

Chapter Nine

Delaney

“What was that ?” Larison asked me after Delaney left, weighed down with enough books to crush a small car.

There was a lull in customer traffic, so we had a moment to take a breather before the last rush of the evening. I wondered if James had come in to see me on purpose or if she had just come in on a whim. I didn’t like to consider that she knew my schedule, but she might have. James was detail-oriented like that. She’d always been that way, even when we were kids. If you ever got assigned to do a group project with her, she’d automatically grab a pen and start delegating. I was actually surprised she wasn’t in a field where she could be in control. Where she could have dozens of underlings doing her bidding at her beck and call.

“That was nothing,” I said to Larison, giving her a look that made her smirk.

“Didn’t look like nothing,” she said, replacing the tape in the receipt printer.

“Well, it was,” I told her, moving from behind the register to rearrange one of the new release displays that had gotten jumbled up.

“Hmmm,” Larison said, loud enough for me to hear. I couldn’t give her anything or else she was going to think it was a thing. And it wasn’t. Just my former bully who had recently apologized to me buying some books at the shop that I worked at. No big. Sure, I’d wanted to throw the books in her face when I’d first seen her, but we got through it with minimal animosity on my side.

She probably thought I’d softened to her after the impromptu brunch, but that had only been pity on my part. Just being nice to her in that moment. One brunch didn’t change everything. I wasn’t letting her off that easy.

No doubt my parents would say I was being petty, but they were always too nice, and that had gotten them into trouble before. There were lots of awful people out there who would take advantage of kindness, and I’d seen it firsthand. There was a time and a place to be kind, and there was a time and a place to be smart and protect yourself.

Fine, let James come into the bookshop and buy a few things, let her come to book club, but I wasn’t inviting her to my birthday party.

Larison kept acting like she wanted to bring up the James situation again while we finished out the day and closed down.

“Thanks for covering for Holiday. I know we both appreciate it.” The other part-time employee, Holiday, was on a little trip with her girlfriend Danny this weekend.

Everywhere I looked, I was surrounded by happy couples and it was hard not to let it get to me. Even when I’d been with Connor, though, I’d still felt like things were different for me. Not once in four years of being together had he ever brought me flowers or showed up at my work to say hello, or anything like that. He’d never once planned anything for our anniversary, and I’d had to constantly remind him when it was so he wouldn’t forget.

And even then, he still forgot. But it “shouldn’t matter” and “anniversaries are bullshit made up by card companies.”

“You okay?” Larison asked.

“Yeah, great. Ready to start my weekend.” I gave her my sunniest smile.

“Doing anything fun?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely. I’m going to be a wreck on Monday,” I lied. I didn’t have any plans. Well, any plans that didn’t involve myself in my comfiest clothes and my couch and eating my weight in delivery tacos and reading a lot of books. But that sounded sad when you said it out loud.

“It’s nothing but work for me and Jo this weekend.” Since Jo had her classes during the week, she usually filled in and helped on weekends when she could.

“Juniper is going to an animal sanctuary with her grandparents and I’m so jealous,” she said with a sigh.

“Me too.” I wanted to go to the animal sanctuary. That sounded more fun than whatever I was going to come up with to do this weekend.

Why couldn’t I do something other than books and tacos? There was nothing stopping me. Sure, I’d be out by myself, but that was fine. Other people did things on their own all the time. Did I need a partner or friend to do something fun? Hell no.

Feeling empowered, I was walking home when I got a message from Connor. Fucking Connor.

Instead of ignoring and blocking, I did the wrong thing and opened the message.

Dick. Right there on my phone. Blurry Connor dick.

I screamed and dropped my phone, watching in slow motion as it slammed to the sidewalk in front of my apartment with a terrifying crack.

Fucking mother fucking HELL. I surveyed the damage and made sure it still functioned. Sort of. The pic was followed up by two more messages.

my bad

that wasn 4 u

I managed to hold in a scream. BARELY.

This fucking fucker busted my heart and then he busted my phone with his mediocre limp dick.

His dick that had never satisfied me, by the way. Not once. Shaking with rage, I managed to type out a response and send it, even with my messed-up screen.

I faked all my orgasms

I could have sent more than that, but that sent a pretty clear message. I stormed up the stairs to my apartment, still trembling with anger at this man who had stolen so much of my time.

My phone chimed with further responses from Connor, but I just turned off my notifications and tore off my clothes, stomping my way to the shower.

I was going out tonight and I was going to look hot as fuck and I was going to get smashed.

Fuck Connor and his fucking dick.

* * *

Two hours later, I didn’t care so much about my broken phone and had made several new friends at the bar I’d just kind of wandered into. It was a grungier place than I’d normally patronize, but tonight I was all about doing shit that I wouldn’t normally do. Like going to a bar alone.

So far, several dudes who looked like they might be in a motorcycle gang had listened to me tell them all about my cheating boyfriend, had done shots with me, and were now giving me their best life advice. Not that I was going to remember it tomorrow. I’d also become besties with the elder lady bartender who had a smoker’s voice and so many blurry tattoos that I couldn’t even begin to tell what they were.

“You doing okay, hon?” she came over and asked as I swayed on my stool. God, I hadn’t felt this good in a long time. Warm and floaty and like I had no fucks left to give. I couldn’t really feel my face, but feeling your face was overrated.

This was fun . I wanted to have more fun. Not that staying up all night reading a really good romance wasn’t a good time, or having wings with Larison and Jo wasn’t a blast. I wanted different fun. New fun. The kind of fun I’d always held myself back from participating in because I didn’t want to get into imaginary trouble.

Whenever other people told stories of goofy things they’d done when they were kids, I always had to hope they weren’t going to ask me for any of mine. Because I didn’t have any. I had never stolen a piece of candy, never cheated on a test, never skipped school, never stepped one tiny toe out of line. Ever. Not once.

People always called me a “good girl” in a derisive way, and that had hurt, but I had been. I’d been a quintessential good girl. My parents had zero complaints. I cleaned my room and did my homework and never gave them any trouble. Never snuck out, never drank underage, never lied to them.

They’d bragged about me to anyone who would listen, how they wished they’d had another child, but they were worried they wouldn’t get one as perfect as me.

Perfect .

Look at where perfect had gotten me! I’d been the perfect girlfriend too, and Connor had screwed me over. Being good hadn’t made him love me. Hadn’t made him treat me well. Hadn’t given me anything but a broken heart.

“Fuck being good!” I yelled, though all of my words sort of mushed together, but everyone cheered me anyway.

“Fuck being good,” I yelled again, more clearly.

The bartender laughed.

“Hon, I think you’re done for the night. Let’s get you home.”

Somehow, a very nice bouncer at the bar who was built like a teddy bear on steroids got me into a car that took me to my apartment. Digging into my reserves of sobriety, I managed to crawl my way up the stairs and get my door unlocked. Couldn’t make it to my bedroom, but I flopped my way to the couch and managed to get most of my body onto it.

Close enough.

* * *

I wasn’t feeling so good the next morning, though. There was a price for my night of recklessness, and I moaned myself awake as the sun streamed in through the curtains as if it had a vendetta against me.

“Nooo,” I moaned, throwing my arm over my eyes to try and block out the light. A moment later my stomach heaved, and I had to bolt to the bathroom where my body tried to turn itself inside out. Violently.

Once I had everything out, I slumped on the bathroom floor and rested my cheek on the bathtub. Ohhhh. That was nice.

My stomach was empty, but still unsettled. I definitely had to wait a while before I could attempt to move. Gingerly, I made my way back into the living room and found my phone on the floor. Yup, screen was still cracked. I’d need to get that fixed as soon as possible. Great.

I managed to get myself onto the couch again and flipped through the pictures I’d taken at the dive bar. They’d gotten worse as the night wore on, and the last few were just shots of the floor. At least I had some evidence of my reckless evening.

I ordered a breakfast sandwich, hash browns, and a giant iced latte that would hopefully restore me. Until it got here, I tossed back a few painkillers and a glass of water that almost made me gag, but I got it down.

I sort of drifted until the food arrived, throwing on a sweatshirt before I went downstairs to retrieve my sustenance.

“This could be really good or really bad,” I muttered to myself as I opened the still-steaming sandwich.

It ended up being good, and I managed to keep all of it down. By noon I had perked up and was feeling less like I’d been peeled off the sidewalk after being run over by a garbage truck.

I had a million notifications, many of them from Connor. I ignored those and then realized that I’d sent a few messages to Larison and Jo last night.

Seems like someone’s having a good time Larison had said after I’d sent her a ton of terrible pictures. I typed out a belated response.

I’m paying for it today. Connor “accidentally” sent me a dick pic and I kind of lost my mind.

Her answer was quick. Oh shit. You really need to block his number. Don’t let him take any more of your time or energy.

She was right, and I couldn’t keep thinking about nightmare scenarios where he was in a car accident or something and was only able to call or message me. Or if he was arrested or something.

It wasn’t like he didn’t have parents who babied him and a sister who, in spite of how he treated her, answered his calls.

He also had plenty of extended family that would drop anything to help him. And friends, somehow. He had plenty of guy friends who put up with his shit until they got tired of him again.

I pulled up his contact and sat there with my thumb hovering over the block option until I actually did it. There. I blocked him. Now he couldn’t use my number to contact me. He could still find me on social media, but that took a little more effort and Connor didn’t like making much of an effort.

I hadn’t read his messages. No doubt he was pissed at what I’d said. As if I was the one who had wrecked our relationship. As if I was the one who had flushed four years down the toilet.

He was never going to take responsibility for anything he did. Ever.

But blocking him was the next step in breaking his hold on my life. I’d gotten him out of my apartment, but now I needed to completely evict him from my life.

I wanted to be a different kind of woman than I’d been when I dated Connor.

The rest of my Saturday was spent looking up other people’s youthful rebellious stories online and trying to decide what I wanted to do for myself. Obviously now that I was older, some things were out the window. Underage drinking, sneaking out of the house, etc.

But there were plenty of other things that I’d wanted to do, or thought about doing, or wished I could do. I pulled up a blank note on my phone and started adding things to my list.

My Fuckit List. No more Bucket List. It was time for the Fuckit List.

Throughout the night I kept adding things as I thought of them.

Among the things like “dance on a bar” and “go skinny-dipping” and “crash a wedding.” I also added “kiss a girl.” Because why not? Most of my friends had gotten drunk and kissed a friend or played Spin the Bottle and gave another girl a peck at a party.

I needed to rack up my rebellious points and that seemed exactly like the kind of thing that would help. Maybe I could accomplish the dancing on the bar and the girl kiss on the same night. I’d definitely have to have a few drinks in me for the girl kiss. It wasn’t like I wanted to kiss a girl or anything. Anytime I’d ever seen something like that, I’d always thought I should look away and my stomach had twisted in an uncomfortable way. I wasn’t homophobic or anything, but it just made me feel…strange.

As long as I had enough shots beforehand, I might not even remember the girl kiss. It would be quick, and then I could check it off my list.

Now I had a mission.

One thing I hadn’t thought of was how much time I now had to myself. Being Connor’s girlfriend had sucked up a lot of my day. Doing all of my chores on top of his had been utterly exhausting.

Now I had to figure out some better ways to fill my time. Mine. It was all mine now.