I pull the blanket up over my head, because I just can’t handle the world anymore today.

Annabelle

I have no memory of getting out of bed at any point during the night and getting my chicken parm out of the oven, let alone turning the oven off and putting the untouched chicken parm in a container and into my fridge. I spend about ten minutes walking through my kitchen, head cloudy, trying to figure out how this could have happened. I consider that Paul could’ve done it, but that’s ridiculous. I know he left; he wouldn’t have come back to do that, wouldn’t have even known I didn’t take it out myself. And if he would’ve, he would’ve eaten some.

I take the container out of the fridge and lift the lid. Actually, it does look like someone ripped off a bottom piece, but it probably just stuck to the pan and my drunken, apparently sleepwalking self didn’t care.

I toss the bowl on the counter, because I’m starving, and now I have lunch.

When I grab a plate for my lunch, I realize the sink is empty.

I mean, I had it empty when I put the chicken in the oven, but the pan I’d cooked it in should be in there, courtesy of Drunk Annabelle.

It’s not. It’s clean and dry in the strainer beside my sink. I washed it?

Since I went to bed so early last night, I’m up a little earlier than I planned to be. I’m not hungover, but I’m definitely foggy. I look for my wine where I’d left it on the counter, but I find it with the top back on in the refrigerator.

Did I really drink enough to black out?

God.

I shudder, thankful—hoping—that Paul didn’t come back last night. He could’ve done anything to me and I wouldn’t even know.

“Maybe we’ll cut you off at two glasses next time,” I tell the wine as I slide the remaining portion of chicken parm back in the fridge for later.

I wish I could change the locks, but it’s his house. He might actually combust if he came back to changed locks. A girl can dream.

I feel a little on the gross side though, so after lunch I shower and spend the day doing laundry. I clean all the bedding so it doesn’t smell like a wine factory and vacuum all the carpeted floors. I don’t feel like cleaning the wood floors, so I don’t.

This house was such a wreck when we first got it. Paul hadn’t believed me when I assured him we could make it nice without spending a fortune, but I saw the potential.

In the house, not in him. I’m not crazy.

And I did make it nice, piece by piece, room by room. But it was still his, so it could never be mine, so I couldn’t really even find any pride in the accomplishment.

One more task off the to-do list. Sometimes my whole life feels like a to-do list, and I’m just waiting until I finish it all so I can take that final dirt nap.

The phone rings, pulling me from my delightfully morbid thoughts.

It’s my mother on the other end. “What are you doing?”

“Fixing to wash the lunch dishes. Why?”

“I need you to come with me to pick up my dress for the party.”

“No.”

She pauses, like she didn’t hear me. “Huh?”

“No.”

The 10 year anniversary of my father’s death has barely passed, and she’s buying a dress for her 10 year wedding anniversary. Because my mother remarried with her husband’s body barely cool in the ground.

To the bastard responsible for killing him, but let’s not even go there right now, because wine fog.

“I can’t.”

Not entirely accurate. More like “I won’t,” but in that, my foot was going down.

Tags: Sam Mariano Romance
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