the sun always rises || dybala

21: love is a losing game

mercoledì 18:37

The amount of times she's called into work so far is ridiculous. She probably actually, physically goes to work twice a week. But it doesn't really matter anyways, she does the work at home.

At this point, she regrets ever getting a job for Juventus. English tutor her fucking ass.

In the end, it didn't matter if she did—it would always end in the same way. She's reverted back to her old miserable state, worthlessness and trying not to cry during moments when she relives good memories.

In the end, she's just her.

She's sitting on the couch this time having dragged her ass out if bed three hours ago. She ate a bag of potato chips, and now she's drinking white wine from the bottle while watching Fresh Off the Boat.

"Ugh," she groans when she takes a swig. It burns, but she likes it.

This was the ordinary life of Charlene Hrnjkaš before Paulo, post shitty ex-boyfriend John. Not really an alcoholic, eats from time to time, gets out of bed at three in the afternoon, spends an hour watching some dumb show on on her sister's Netflix.

It's no different this time around—she's probably drunk, crying while looking mindlessly at the white ceiling—but Paulo won't stop calling her.

She hadn't had the heart to block his number—what reason did she have to? But it hurt to see his face pop up on her screen every time he called and she always let it ring out the past twenty-three times. She doesn't want to think about him, she just wants everything to pass. She accepts the fact that she was maybe in love with him, but she doesn't believe he was in love with her for all the right reasons.

The twenty-fourth time he calls her, she's heavily intoxicated. She's tired of hearing the damn phone vibrate, so she quickly answers it and ends it not even half a second later.

"Fuck you," she mumbles, rolling to her side on the couch and starts to cry. "Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. I thought you were going to be good for me."

Well he was, for a short while. That was all the unicorns and rainbows before the storm came and scooped her off the ground, rattling everything she ever had. She wants to think it's for the good. You know—it really wasn't meant to be at all. Maybe I was just ahead of myself, or he got way too into it.

After all, he does deserve something who can make him happy without doing anything.

Charlene's happiness? Nonexistent.

Not even the knock at her front door can make her happy. She's drunk, her eyes are red and swollen from crying, and her chest physically hurts from all the emotional pain, but she still finds the motivation to walk over and yank the door open to find Paulo on the other end.

She holds herself up by grabbing into the doorframe, leaning on it as looking at him with a scum look. "You again."

It's so obvious that she's drunk, she's staggering from simply standing up against the wall. "I—we need to talk. Please?"

"Fine," she huffs out a little too loud for the neighbors to hear. "You go first."

He sighs. The one time he actually get to talk with her, she's drunk as hell. "Look, I don't know what Anto even told you, but at least give me a sign. I can't go around with you avoiding me for something I don't know I did."

"Really?" The Croat laughed, crossing her arms. "That's so fucking funny. You know what Anto said? She said you were only dating me because you pitied me for being like—" she gestured toward herself, "this. And the more I think about it, the more that I believe it—"