Page 2 of Vitamin Sea

"You are NOT the father!”

“YES! I called it!” Chloe pumped her first triumphantly and put down the tub of vanilla frosting just long enough to take a swig from a bottle of red wine.

“Ahem.”

She glanced at the redhead occupying the seat beside her. Lala raised her eyebrows and split a glance between the T.V., frosting, wine, and Chloe.

Through her half-a-bottle haze, Chloe interpreted her friend’s raised eyebrows and pointed stare as a sign that she wanted in on the pity party.

“Sorry, Lala,” Chloe took another swig from the bottle and then held it out to her in offering. “That was rude of me.”

A look of disgust crossed Lala’s face, and she shook her head.

“Look, Chloe,” she took a deep breath. “I don’t mean to be a bitch and all but fucking pull yourself together.” She sounded exasperated. “It’s been three months. Are you really

going to let him ruin your life?”

Chloe clutched the wine bottle a little tighter and averted her eyes. She looked back on unlocking the condo door and letting Lala in with regret. Nobody likes a killjoy. Not that Chloe had much joy left in her to kill. But still.

“Seriously, Chloe,” Lala continued. “When you’re not crying your eyes out and doing the bare minimum to scrape by at work, you spend most of your time shit-faced, stuffing your face, and watching trash T.V.”

A grimace crossed Chloe’s face, and she turned back to the T.V. Not that she was all that interested in Maury at that moment. It was just a way for her to avoid the conversation that she knew was coming.

Because, of course, Lala was right.

“Hey!”

She tore her eyes away from the T.V. and looked again at her friend, which immediately caused Chloe to cower.

The steely-eyed glare Lala was fixing her gave new meaning to the term ‘fiery redhead’.

She sunk farther into the couch under her friend’s withering stare as cheers from Maur y’s studio audience reverberated in the background.

“But . . .” Chloe looked around helplessly. “He . . . I . . .” Her defiance faltered and her voice began to wobble.

A look of sympathy crossed Lala’s face and Chloe crumpled on the couch in a mess of tears. The bottle of wine hung precariously in her hand, threatening to smash to the floor in an imitation of her broken heart.

Lala was suddenly there beside her—she took the bottle out of Chloe’s hand and consoled her while she cried. After a few minutes, the sobs petered out into sniffles and the fountain of tears slowed to a trickle.

Lala patted her friend’s hand affectionately.

“I know you’re upset,” she sounded calm and measured. “I know you’re heartbroken and I know you think you will feel like this for the rest of your life. But you won’t. You’re better than that. You are a great person, and most importantly—you are my best friend.”

She paused.

“I know this is hard for you, but you need to get out and start living your life and stop letting that good-for-nothing bastard rule it. I love you. Your friends and family love you. The goddamned barista at the Starbucks on King loves you.” She paused.

“I saw him yesterday. He told me he was thinking of calling in a wellness check for you, but he doesn’t know your number, address, or last name,” she paused again.

“But I digress. The point is, we love you and we are here for you, but this has gone on for long enough.”

Chloe sniffled as Lala stood up, grabbed the frosting off the coffee table and headed over to the kitchen. The spoon clunked in the sink and the frosting landed in the garbage with a thunk.

She watched Lala head for the door.

“I’m coming to pick you up at noon tomorrow,” she said. “You’re going with me to yoga.”

Chloe opened her mouth to protest, but Lala cut her off.

“No,” her voice was sharp. “You are coming with me. No ifs ands or buts about it. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said before strolling out the door and shutting down any opportunity for a retort.

Chloe sat there for a minute, staring at the door and cursing the indignity of it all. If she wanted to spend the rest of her life wallowing in self-pity, wine, and trash television, who was Lala to stop her?

Liam, the love of Chloe’s life, was gone. He’d broken up with her, shattered her heart. Their relationship was finished. Finito. La fin. And she was supposed to just suck it up and soldier on?

It was the kind of strategy that might work for some people, but it wouldn’t work for her.

Soldiers were stoic and disciplined. Chloe was .

. . a mess. Compost was, if not how she actually looked, exactly how she felt—like decaying matter.

The discarded bits that end up in the bin.

And you can’t turn compost into the statue of David.

If only I could recycle my feelings , she thought wistfully and let out a sigh.

She had been in this sorry state for three months. Three months and five days, to be exact. Not that Chloe was keeping track or anything.

Her friends and family had rallied around her initially, but as the days had dragged on and the world kept on turning, one by one their sympathy began to wane.

Lala had been the longest-lasting outpost of support and was just the latest in a long line of people in Chloe’s life who had had enough of her moping.

The results of Maury ’s lie detector test sounded off in the background, but she was no longer paying attention.

The poorly concealed elephant in the room, which seemed to be a permanent houseguest, reared its ugly head and forced Chloe to confront the problem.

A grimace washed over her at the prospect of attempting to process her feelings.

The worst part of her and Liam’s breakup hadn’t been the sadness—although that was pretty bad.

It was the conflux of emotions. There was misery, heartache, despair, and depression.

But there was also yearning, anxiety, desperation, and regret.

One minute she was crying her eyes out in bed, the next minute she was staring listlessly at the ceiling.

Once or twice, she had even caught herself staring at Liam’s number, the ‘call’ icon tempting her like a half-off sale at Saks.

Maybe she could pretend she had accidentally called him.

Pocket dialed him. He would text her to see why she called, she daydreamed, and somehow they would end up back together.

Fortunately, she was led not into temptation. But only because she knew Liam would see right through the high-school ruse. And if there was any hope of the two of them getting back together, coming across as desperate would be a one-way ticket to Single-ville, population: her.

A fresh surge of sobs bubbled up inside of her as her mind flashed back to the night Liam had taken a meat tenderizer to her heart. She took a deep breath to quell the emotion and Maury’s voice suddenly cut through her thoughts: “Sometimes the hardest truths are the ones we need to hear the most.”

She looked at the T.V.

The daytime talk-show host was giving a pep talk to a woman who, according to the short description on the screen, had just found out her husband was sleeping with her sister.

Chloe sat back for a moment.

Obviously, she wasn’t in the same situation, but there was a large grain of truth in Maury’s pearl of wisdom.

The hardest truths are the ones we need to hear the most.

Maury was right.

Lala was right.

Was she really going to let Liam ruin her life?

She didn’t want to. He was a good-for-nothing bastard. But that didn’t stop some part of her from hoping that he would change his mind. Even though she knew that wasn’t going to happen. Which was yet another unpleasant emotion she had to contend with.

A wave of resolve suddenly washed over her and Chloe sat up a little straighter. She narrowed her eyes and scrunched up her nose.

Screw Liam.

She wasn’t going to let him rule her life. She was going to get over him. She was going to walk the walk, talk the talk, and put him in her past.

Her features softened as her determination faltered, and her back slouched as thoughts of doubt started to creep in.

She sat back on the couch.

She would work on getting over Liam, yes.

Starting tomorrow.

As for today?

She headed for her fridge and rummaged around for the chocolate cake she had hidden in the crisper.

◆◆◆

Bees. Everywhere. Angrily swarming her body. Panic engulfed Chloe as the buzzing got louder and a bee headed right for her face.

“No!”

Chloe awoke with a start, her heart pounding like Tommy Lee on a drum set.

She looked around wildly, her heart still racing.

It was a relief for her to find that the buzzing sound was not a swarm of bees but, in fact, her phone.

She had fallen into a wine-and-cake coma the previous evening and passed out in bed a little after 9 p.m. Which was where she had stayed until ten minutes to noon according to the clock on her phone that hovered just above Lala’s name on the screen.

Chloe winced and pressed the green button.

“I swear to Christ, Chloe, you’d better be ready to go,” Lala’s voice came from the speaker.

She sounded deadly.

“If I have to hog-tie you and drag you from your building, you’re coming to hot yoga,” she threatened.

A moan of displeasure escaped Chloe’s mouth: “I don’t want to,” she whined. “But I’m coming. Give me ten minutes.”

One hot-yoga class later and Chloe had sweat out her cake-and-liquor sins from the previous evening. Her tank top was drenched, her thighs stuck to the yoga mat, and her arms had nearly given out during downward dog. But she did it.

It had been disappointing but not entirely surprising to find that her workout clothes had somehow shrunk two sizes.

She wanted to put it down to her poor skills as a laundress instead of the sad ‘fuck my life’ diet she’d resigned herself to for the past few months, but denial was a state she had been living in for far too long.