lucid dreaming

chapter two

I walk back to the single queen sized bed in the middle of my bedroom and sit on it. It doesn't sink down like James's nice couch. It stays hard and stiff like cardboard.I have felt nothing at all for the last two days. Not angry, not upset. All my emotions have been drained and the plug has been put in. My only glimpse into feeling is during my sleep. As I drift off, I go to places where people never hurt me, where no one ever cheats. I relinquish whatever control I feign having to the Universe and let it take me to wherever it decides. On the nights when I go to sleep with a clean head and no intentions, I am capable of beautiful dreams. I try to make myself comfortable on the cardboard mattress that I once shared with Todd and curl into a ball. The tears come and my mascara has probably formed a pool on the bedsheet underneath my face but I think that's the least of this bed's problems.

The crying lasts for longer than I'd like to admit, but my head is pounding and I decide to get myself off the bed. Not only does my head hurt, I Realize, but my back hurts as well, from being curled up on a mattress as stiff as this one. I call my losses and go to the bathroom. I dig through my makeup bag on the counter until I find my makeup remover and begin swiping off the

streaks from my cheeks. I look like I clean chimneys for a living with all the gray-black residue on my cheeks. When I finally look in the mirror and see a clean (albeit, puffy face).

I remember I haven't eaten a single thing tonight in all my stress, so I decide to order takeout. I find a bar that delivers until 12:00am and look through their menu quickly. I see they have a small selection of miniature champagne and wine coolers. Right then and there I make a very questionable impulse decision.

After I get off the phone with a very cranky woman, who tells me the mozzarella sticks only come in sets of six or twelve when I asked her for four, I doom scroll. Doom scrolling is when you scroll on social media with no intent to find anything useful to consume. I know nothing I find on social media right now will benefit me, so I end my scrolling. Instead, I find myself looking for James's profile on Instagram. He isn't a man of social media. He has four pictures on his account and two of them are from when he was 19. His most recent picture is from the camping trip. I click the post and begin scrolling through the pictures. Todd and James, standing side by side, arms over each others shoulders. Todd, James, and I smiling in front of a campfire. I click the picture to see the tags. Only my username appears on the photograph. Todd's username is gone.

I leave James's account and go back to the search bar. I

type in Todds handle and hit the magnifying glass search button.

"No results for that username. Try again."

I double check my spelling of his first and last name and try again.

No results.

I type in Cassie's handle.

No results.

Just as I feel the urge to throw my phone at a wall, there's a knock at my door.

"Delivery," I hear a masculine voice say from the other side of the door.

Perfect timing.

I grab the food from the man, and give him a kind tip for coming out at this ungodly hour. When I close the door behind him, I set the food down on my kitchen island. I look at the twelve mozzarella sticks I bartered with myself on getting, convincing myself I could eat them tomorrow. Beside the foil container is two mini bottles of Champagne, the cheapest they had. Todd never let me drink after the incident so I had just begun to think of myself as sober.

I grab the bottle by its neck and pop open the top with my hand. A hard chill runs from the top of my head to the bottom of

my toes when I take the first sip. I run my tongue over my teeth. They're smooth, sterilized from the alcohol I just drank. I swallow another mouth-full of the slightly carbonated drink and my face contorts at a memory I jogged with the familiar motions.