300 Days of January

1. Day 300: The Break Up

1.    Day 300: The Break-Up

January knew what was coming the moment she saw the harsh letters scroll across her blackberry phone. She almost thought or rather wished she had imagined the words go across her screen.

Henry: Meet me at Central Park in 5.

With a gulp, she took her red trench coat from her coatrack, quickly put it on, and turned to look around her sullen apartment one last time before heading out the door. For the first time in months, she realized how grimy it had become. Piles and piles of books lay in complete disorder and pizza boxes and soda cans were all over the coffee table. It was a wonder she could even find her apartment keys in all the filth.

When she got back, she promised herself cleaning her apartment would be the first thing she would do---well the second thing seeing as the first was going to be going through a gallon of rocky road ice cream, her number one pain reliever. She knew after everything they had been through there was only one reason Henry wanted to meet with her and it definitely wasn’t for what she wanted. Not after what she saw.

As she walked out unto the city, all of the memories they shared came rushing back to her and the tears instinctively came next. Henry’s blue-green eyes that shimmered in the sunlight, his perfectly ripped six-pack that he worked hard for in high school, the pearly white smile he earned from his mother being a dentist, those silly little winks he gave her when he gave his occasional sexual innuendos, and that ridiculous little hula dance he did to make her feel better, was all she could think about. It was making it harder for her to push through the pain.

Be strong, she told herself. Sucking it up, she walked slowly into the park and braced herself for the inevitable.

It didn’t take her long to spot him. There he was standing by the pond, in their spot. The spot where they had shared their very first kiss. The spot where he had said that she could be the one. The spot where she had told him she loved him.

She noticed he was wearing the long gray coat she gave him for Valentine’s Day and almost couldn’t bare to walk on but she took in another long breath and proceeded to his side. She must have caught him off guard, for he jumped back a little when she approached him.

After a moment he said, “Hi.”

“Hi,” she said back and then turned toward the pond, not knowing what else to say. She didn’t want to say how have you been. She knew how he had been---happy with his perfect new bimbo girlfriend who looked like one of those airbrushed anorexic models on the cover of Elle.

He turned his attention towards the pond as well and a long awkward silence arose. Usually she wouldn’t care so much because she liked being silent but this was unbearable and the longer she stood in his presence, the more she knew it would hurt when she left it.

Taking another deep breath, she turned back towards him with cavernous annoyance. “Just say what you came to say Henry.”

He sighed before turning her way. His eyes looked so apologetic at her that she almost forgot why she was angry with him. She forgot how powerful his blue-green eyes were especially when he wanted his way. His eyes are part of his charm and one of the main reasons she fell for him.

“I’m sorry Jan, for everything. I didn’t want things to end this way. I didn’t want things to end at all but then I met Melissa and things just kind of happened,” he explained with a shrug.

She hated that he called her by the pet name he gave her after the first time they made love. January snapped out of her trance and became once again angry, remembering everything he had done to her. Now it was extremely hard to even look at him without the pain soaring up her chest. She could feel the tears coming but tried desperately to keep them from falling. Her tears were the last thing she wanted him to see.

“I thought things were great between us,” she muttered.

He nodded. “They were, believe me Jan, they were but I live in Seattle now and you’re here in New York. I got lonely.”

“So you just decided to ruin our relationship to pursue some bimbo,” she shrieked not caring that there were several people gawking at them.

Before all of this, she probably would have freaked if she raised her voice but now she had nothing left to lose. She lost her scholarship because of him, her friends because of him, and now the love of her life because he was the love of her life.

“No it wasn’t like that and she’s not a bimbo. We met in med school and at first we were just texting each other about the daily things that went on at school then one thing lead to another and before I knew it, I was falling in love with her. It happened out of nowhere Jan,” he told her and tried to comfort her by caressing her cheek but she smacked it away. A sharp pain shot through her for he had never professed his love for her and all of a sudden he was in love with this Melissa girl. It was as if he never even cared for her.

“Please stop calling me that.” She yelled. Jan was a term of endearment and endearment is the last thing she wanted from him.

He moved closer to her. “Look January, I care about you a lot and I wish for us to still be friends.”

“Friends?” She barked. Shaking her head, she continued on, “I can’t be your friend, I can barely stand to look at you right now.”

It was quiet for a while and she looked away, feeling like she would break any minute now. She needed to get away. This was just too much. He had been everything to her and now he would be nothing.  After she regained her composure, she said, “So this is it?”

“I guess it is.”

“Goodbye Henry,” she said feeling the tears coming on harder.

“Goodbye January.” He said with a sad smile upon his face.

She watched as he walked away, out of the park and out of her life for good. She could no longer contain the tears. They were tumbling down in a bundle full now and she felt like her heart had been taken from her and shot fifty million times. She felt like she would never find a love as great as him. He was her first and was probably going to be her last. She never believed in true love before him and now she would never believe in it again.

Eventually she found her way back to her apartment and instead of going straight to the kitchen to the rocky road ice cream; she went straight to her living room mirror and took a nice good look at herself.

She looked like a complete mess. Her hair was pinned up in a messy bun, her eyes had dark linings around them, and she had more wrinkles around her forehead than usual. She wondered how long she had been looking like this. Looking down at her clothes, she saw that there were several stains on them and she reeked of pizza and anchovies.

Turning around, she looked at her living room, which resembled something from a Hoarders episode and started taking the boxes of pizza off the coffee table and to the garbage. By noon, her living room was back to normal and smelled of pine-sol and peppermints. Next, she went into the bathroom and jumped in the shower, something she hadn’t done in a few days.

When she was done, she wiped the steam from the bathroom mirror and took another look at herself. With a smile, she knew then that although it was going to be a while before she would get over Henry, she would eventually get over him or die trying.