Second time is a Charm

Chapter 40

Crystal Brown

The constant ringing of the bell woke me from the hazy state I was in. It took me a little time to understand what was going on. The bell continued to ring and that had me, slowly getting up to open the door.

Abby burst through the door as soon as I opened it. "My God, Cris... look at you what happened?" She asked.

I didn't answer but left her at the door to walk back to the couch and flop on it. The house was a mess and so was I. I hadn't showered in two days, let alone eat or drink.

"Cris.... Are you ok? You didn't come into work and when you didn't answer any of my calls, I panicked and rushed here. Are you unwell?" she asked feeling my forehead.

I just sat there looking into space, as my eyes tear up again and flowed through my face.

It was 3 weeks since Brett had walked out from here, leaving me to figure things out. I cried my eyes out that night, but I didn't know why? Was it because, I had hurt him, or because he left me or for the stupid thing I did. But by the next morning I had calmed myself, by stubbornly believing that I did nothing wrong, and that Brett was over reacting to it. With that thought in mind, I went to work and kept myself going for the rest of the days.

A few days later, Thomas and Jimmy came to visit me, and were shocked to see I was as normal as ever after what had happened. When I had gone to them with my plan initially, they warned me against it, but I very stubbornly, stuck to it and emotionally blackmailed them into helping me.

They begged me to just apologize to Brett and get back with him, but I very sternly refused. They tried to make me see the seriousness of the situation, but I stubbornly refused to budge. I was surviving, with the belief that this was just a fight and Brett would be coming back to me, and apologizing. I saw this whole situation as a brats tantrum.

But as the days went by, Brett hadn't called nor reached out to me, and I started doubting my theory. I was missing him, but refused to accept it. My anger towards him, for leaving me and for accusing me of being childish, was slowly diminishing. My anxiety grew and the façade I was carrying for days was slipping.

Last week, at work Amanda came into my cubicle with, a copies of gossip magazines. She spread them on my desk, for me to look at the cover pages.

"I guess you were the flavor of the month. Your man moved on. How pathetic to believe that you were engaged to him. " she scoffed walking away, with a smirk on her face.

My hands trembled as I picked up one of those cheap magazine, which had pictures of the latest Hollywood craze Scarlet's smiling face as she looked onto Brett, who had his signature half smile looking at her. He looked amazing as usual, and my heart cleanched looking at them like that. The caption said "New man for Scarlet?".

I felt like someone punched me in my stomach, the pain I felt in my chest was unbearable. I shuffled through the other magazines on my table and they all had similar captions with the couple laughing, grabbing lunch and a particular one with Brett and Scarlet walking into his office building, he had his hand on her back as he led her in, and was whispering something in her ear, which had Scarlet laughing. They looked like they were so happy together, a couple made for each other.

I felt dizzy, weak and ran into the ladies room to empty my lunch, into the toilet. The burning feeling starting in my chest wasn't going away, and my vision got blurry with the tearing rolling down my face. I took deep breaths, before pulling myself together. I washed my face and walked out, running into my boss.

"Ms.Brown are you fine? You don't look so good." He asked holding onto my arm, as I swayed from the weakness. I hadn't been eating well for a couple days now, I was burning the midnight oil everyday since Brett left, so that I didn't have time to even think about him. I went home only to crash and sleep and then leave for work as soon as I woke up. All the exhaustion and this new development must have caught up, leaving me weak.