I spent a fortune just trying to get out of town. I put my cat into the kennel, which is like the cost of 5 star accommodations, plus it cost extra because I didn't know when I'd be back for her. I caught a cab out to the airport, which cost a lot, which I expected because it was a long way from my apartment block right in the centre of Manhattan out to JFK airport. And I booked a plane ticket, one way, to Las Vegas which cost more because it was last minute and around the 4th of July holiday. I even got a second class ticket, because I didn't feel like dealing with the rest of the plane, and I wanted to relax.
On the plane I drank too much champagne, which cost a lot because plane food always does, and watched a stupid murder mystery movie which basically gave the killer away in the first 5 minutes and all the investigation scenes were wrong. I was snobby and ignored the man next to me and used my police badge to get off the plane first; and none of this was like me. I enjoy meeting new people and a new friend on a plane can really make the trip go faster and smoother and I hate using my badge to get what I want. I was a different person, I was angry, I was devastated, when the trip ended I was tipsy and all in all I was a wreck, and not who I wanted to be.
When I landed in Vegas, my phone started buzzing with texts from my co-workers at the lab; I can't even call them my friends right now, I feel so betrayed. I left without telling them, without calling in or arranging something; which was a shitty thing to do to them, but at the time I didn't care. I turned my work phone off and shoved it to the bottom of my bag, and did the same with my personal phone. I caught a cab from the airport to down to the strip, where i booked into a pretty expensive hotel for Las Vegas I and caught my breath.
It wasn't easy, the events from the previous days hit my like a tidal wave, and I was left reeling. I ran a bath, and burnt myself by dealt with the too hot water surrounding my body. I tried to cleanse all the bad things out; but I was just a hot sweaty mess, smelling of lavender and begging for Mac.
Mac was so beautiful, the bond we shared was irreplaceable, but fighting with him the way I had felt like I had been stabbing myself over and over. The next day at the lab was even worse, I called him "Detective Taylor" and he called me "Joanna" and it was formal and disgusting and I hated. I said "excuse me," when I had to talk to him, and he avoided me in favour of the others; and most of our conversations and result sharing were second hand. I snapped at my co-workers and they snapped back; I yelled at suspects and they yelled back. I felt useless, like no one cared because the acted like they didn't. It was all too much, which is why when I got home that day, after a breakdown on the subway caused me to miss my stop, I decided to fly to Vegas.
Mac had cheated on me. He had a short 'working relationship' with a woman from the ER. I was stupid, I should have seen the signs when she was coming to the lab and they were eating pizza together at their favourite places in town and competing over whose place was better. Admittedly, Mac and I weren't officially a couple, and in a way I can't blame him, I was only young, 24 years younger than Mac, but from the amount of times we slept over at each other's houses, made out on the way to work and spoilt each other, we were basically together. Hearing about his indiscretions was like a kick in the stomach, I felt winded, I ached all over, I couldn't function and I was different. Mac told me that he loved me; he sent me cute texts and kissed me when no one was watching. He trusted me, he showed me his emotions and he was different with me then he was with anyone else. But he went behind my back and he spent so much time with her and slept with her on the bed I helped him make not 3 days before. When I found out, maybe I went too far and yelled at him too much and maybe that's why he had been different with me, but the whole time I was yelling all I could think about was him fucking her as I heard his voice say "I love you, Anna Harrison." I was Anna and I was supposed to be with him, not her. The peridot incrusted handcuff bracelet, a 21st present from him sat on my wrist and I couldn't ignore it as I lay in the bath. My locket, also coated in rough peridot stones from him way in the bottom of my suit case, as it burned to wear it. I couldn't open it, see the photo of Mac and me standing together, arms wrapped around each other or see the other two photos tucked in next to each other, of the two of us on our separate first days at the lab, standing outside beaming. Peridot was significant to us; it was the month I started at the lab, and the month Mac and I had our first kiss when I was only 19. Maybe, if I lasted in Vegas that long, I would go back to New York in August, and make that month special for another, more morbid reason. I wondered if he missed me, because I was basically doubled over because of how much I missed him.
My gun and badge were shoved to the bottom of my bag, with the necklace from Mac, and before I went out, the bracelet too. I gambled at various casinos along the strip, order one alcoholic beverage after another and spent my winnings on smokes and more alcohol. I got drunk so I could forget the pain and I smoked to cleanse myself of Mac and fill my body with something else toxic. I wasn't stupid; I wasn't going to do drugs or sleep around, my head was screwed on better than that. I played the tables; different games, poker mostly and I succeeded too, apparently I had a good poker face. I stumbled home late that night, laughing at my own stupidly, a vodka bottle lolling from the hand, my purse jiggling with coins I had won on the machines.
I woke up hopelessly hung over, but my heart ached more than my head. I was ashamed of my behaviour, I knew Mac would disapprove and in the end, no good had come from my night out.
