- - Two Months Later - -
The bus engine rattled as I stood outside waiting for the doors to open. My dorm roommate, Chelsea, was with me outside along with other students wanting to hop onto the charter bus that would take us to the train station. After my Art History lectures ended on Thursday's, I would hop on the bus and go back to our townhouse downtown and stay there on the weekends my cheer squad and I wouldn't have to perform at games, and intern for Cosmopolitan Magazine's Chicago office. Chelsea would go and intern at an architectural firm in the city and she would sometimes stay with me at the townhouse if her roommates couldn't make it to her place in time.
The bus doors open and we step on and take the two front seats. She takes out her MacBook and finishes up on her paper while I took mine out to reply back to a few emails and catch up on watching old episodes of Girls. Sometimes we would just nap as we rode on the bus for forty five minutes out to the train stop. And once we got on the train, we would do whatever we pleased for the hour ride we had.
I arrived downtown at six in the afternoon. Chelsea went to her place and I hailed a taxi to mine. The house was the last house down the block of East Cedar and Rush. Paige occupied the house all by herself while Jack and I would visit on the weekends and our vacations.
Two months went by and he never called. Nor did he text me. His brother managed to get a hold of me once. But that was just to ask me if I had Shawn's new number. He didn't know about the breakup when he called. Their whole family didn't. But that was a month ago and I'm sure they knew by now. When he left me, I couldn't do anything else but cry. I would scream into my pillows or wait until I was alone in the new apartment and scream my head off. The hard crying and the rough screaming caused me to have a brittle voice for a week before losing the ability to talk for a whole three days.
When we broke up there was a long feeling of being numb. I couldn't think or feel straight. Even my parents and brother noticed something different about me. I was like that for a week. I still miss him, and a part of me hopes that he comes back to me. And the other part of me wished he would drop dead.
My phone began to ring in the pocket of my navy blue parka. I reached in and dug out my phone and smiled as I saw my father's contact photo pop up on the screen.
"Hi, daddy." I answer.
"Hello? Jasmine, can you hear me?" He shouts into the line.
"Yes, dad, no need to shout." I reply.
"Sorry, sorry. The neighbors are having construction done and it's just the biggest mess. Hang on, let me find a quieter room." I hear him make noise before he clears his throat. "Can you hear me now?"
"I could hear you the first time. Can you hear me?"
"Yeah." He chuckles. "Happy Birthday, princess."
"Thank you, daddy." I smile.
"Did you get the package your mother and I sent you?"
"Yeah, it's right next to me in the cab. Thank you for the watch and bag, I really loved them."
"Every journalist has to have the staple brown leather watch and the signature brown bag."
"They do. They all have that at the office."
"How they treating you down there? You know I always can pull some strings down in New York for you."
"Dad, I don't want to get a job because of nepotism. And I like it here. Chicago is just, it's for me. It's new. I need new." I sigh. "Especially now."
