No Love Attached

chapter seventeen : how to lose a guy in 10 hours

| No Love Attached |
chapter seventeen : how to lose a guy in 10 hours

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Saying goodbye to 2017 felt like parting with something much more. It was the last year I would be holding onto Josh. 2018 would be the year I became myself again. Not the shell of the person I once was. This new year felt like saying goodbye to a very dear, problematic friend. All of the comfortability I had in using Josh as an excuse, was getting ripped away from me by my own hands.

It was still New Years Day. After a less than comfortable encounter with the TSA and a brutal flight back to London, I was now back at the hotel, curled up in bed with room service.

In a dark moment of curiosity, I had turned on Fifty Shades of Grey. I had read thousands of manuscripts of stories copying the series but had never seen the infamous movie. No matter how bad I was cringing at the phrase "laters, baby", I couldn't bring myself to change the channel.

As soon as the ice cube scene came on (aka, the one I was waiting for), there were repetitive loud bangs on the door. I knew that knock anywhere. It was Penney's drunk pounding. I had been ignoring her constant apology texts all day. In order to avoid her, I even switched to a earlier flight. I guess I didn't account that that would be impossible, being she's staying a few floors below me.

With a loud sigh, I paused the movie to go get the door. When I finally opened it, she was still banging. Her usually done up face was bare besides some mascara smudged tears, blonde hair tied into a ratty bun, and her mouth was slightly ajar ready to let out some wailing.

"What's going on?" I asked with a tinge of annoyance. Just because she had been crying didn't mean I still didn't want to pull her hair for what she said last night.

Her body immediately trampled mine into a hug. It felt like a ton of bricks, while she then started sobbing wet tears into my hair. My hands stayed at my sides no matter how hard she hugged. Or maybe she was strangling.

"I'm so --" she did some inaudible crying, barely able to catch her breath, "horrible. I'm sorry for what I -- I said to you," some more wails, "he dumped me."

Ah, shit. How could I still be cold if Damon just broke up with her? I let my hands wrap around her into my embrace.

"Wait, what? Why? What happened?" I asked.

She pulled away and threw herself on my couch. I didn't have any tissues, so I gave her a few napkins to wipe her face. After a few sounds that resembled an injured walrus, she had calmed down enough to speak.

"Well, yesterday before the party he had proposed and I just couldn't handle it. I wanted to say yes but I felt too guilty --"

My eyes widened, "He proposed? Penney, why did you tell -- wait, why would you feel guilty?"

Suddenly, I wasn't so confused. There was a pit in my stomach forming and Anthony's menacing "I told ya so" playing in my head.

"Penney, tell me you didn't."

"Cheat?" she paused shamefully, but then shook her head urgently. "No, no! Of course not. Guilty was um -- the wrong word, I guess. I just wasn't ready for a proposal, you know? I went AWOL."

She was stalling. Not really giving the real reason. Something was off.

"What did he say exactly?"

"Just that his friends all told him I was bad news. That I was using him for his money and stupid shit like that. It was probably Leo," Her tears of sadness were now tears of anger. "Because I made that stupid joke in front of him last night about Damon buying me a Cartier bracelet. He probably saw me as some gold digger."