Boy meets girl, girl falls in love, blah-blah-blah.
Let me be clear with you from the beginning. This is not that kind of story.
My name is Cait, and I live in the great city of New York. Okay, so maybe I've only lived here for a week and a half...
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Work sucked the next day, thanks to the holiday rush. Everyone flooded Starbucks for their seasonal drinks around the holidays, and I swear I made more eggnog lattes today than I thought were humanly possible to consume. Not being a fan of eggnog, I definitely didn't understand the appeal, so I snagged a venti peppermint latte on my way out of work instead.
The peppermint cheered me up, as did the full ten hours of sleep I got last night. Val didn't hit me with questions when I walked in the apartment, face red from the cold and from tears, and I was grateful for that. I would tell her what I could when I was ready, and - for the time being - I needed to process everything. I'd just made the decision to do what I needed to get my life together, which meant I didn't want to rush it by pushing too hard too fast.
Instead, I threw out all of the half-empty bottles of alcohol I was hoarding in the kitchen, took a long shower, and curled up in bed with a mug of chamomile tea before 8PM. My earbuds popped into my ears, I spent the evening reintroducing myself to the best form of therapy I'd ever discovered: music.
I fell asleep listening to Ludovico Einaudi's I Giorni, which I considered to be one of the most beautiful albums in human history, so I woke up feeling refreshed and rejuvenated. Yesterday's run-in with Andrew had been insanely difficult, especially tell him goodbye and walking away, but I knew that I had done the right thing. For both of us.
Truthfully, I was in no condition to spill all of my problems to Andrew. I needed to save myself, because - quite frankly - he couldn't do it for me.
Even if we never ended up together, I wanted Andrew to be happy, and that meant he needed to let me go. He was in a relationship with Danielle, a happy one - if the magazines were telling the truth - which meant he needed to focus on her. We both needed a clean break so we could heal.
After all, who knows what the future holds?
Sipping on my latte, I gladly took the empty seat I scored on the subway home. My earbuds were already in my ears with another Ludovico Einaudi album on repeat, so I relaxed and leaned my head back on the cushion.
I had a lot of work to do over the next few months, but I was ready to do what was necessary to fix the holes in this sinking ship before it sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic. I asked Peter for a meeting at work, explaining to him that I had some personal problems interfere with my work, but I was determined to turn over a new leaf. I apologized profusely for being a shitty employee, but he laughed and reassured me that everything would be okay.
With that over, my next step involved finding enough scholarships to go back to school in January. I'd already been accepted into the program at CUNY, but I needed to have the funds to start once the semester rolled around. The Starbucks tuition reimbursement helped, as did my savings, but it wasn't enough. I needed $6000 a year for tuition, but I only had half that. I needed a scholarship, or several, if I was going to make it work - especially since I had two and a half years left of my undergraduate studies.
