A Girl's Guide to Being Jilted | ✓

02 | In Which She Goes Home, Much To Her Disbelief

If any of y’all find yourselves in the sticky situation of your groom not showing up for your wedding — not that it would happen to any of you because I trust y’all are better judges of character — make sure you have more than a grand to your name and most importantly, have enough friends.

I stress number two because if I had enough friends I wouldn’t have had to move all the way from New York to rural Michigan to live with a complete wackadoodle of a mother and a stepfather who would’ve been better off unalive. If that’s even a word. Because one of my friends would’ve found it in his or her heart to offer me a couch for the night.

After the fiasco at the ‘wedding’, I wasn’t going to stay in that cursed apartment any second longer than I had to and I sure as hell couldn’t ask Debra or Hanna if I could sleepover. Oh no. I’d like to keep what’s left of my pride thank you very much.

I was not even considering Nika because she lived with two scary dudes who only spoke Russian and who she claimed were her brothers.

And so there I was, fresh off the plane with puffy eyes, a runny nose and absolutely no dignity. The fat woman who’d sat beside me pushed me out of her way as she raced for the exit.

“I hope you had a nice nap,” I hollered at her knowing fully well I spent the entirety of the trip sobbing quite loudly.

She shot me a glare and kept on her way. I shot my middle finger at her retreating back.

I stopped and fished out my phone from the back pocket of my jean shorts and dialed Antonio’s number. For the fiftieth time it went to voicemail but this time I was composed enough to say something.

After his mechanical voice finished its speech I launched into mine. “Since you love leaving heartbreaking messages through the phone, here’s mine. You are the most conceited, selfish, patronizing bastard I have ever had the unfortunate luck of breathing the same air with. I never thought I’d ever meet someone who’d be described with so many bad adjectives but then again I didn’t expect to be left alone at the altar at the tender age of 27.

“You might hear my voice and delete this message but know that I hate you. I hate you so much I wish I could erase you from Earth! I hope you’re finally happy and this was all worth it, you son of a bitch!”

I angrily cut the call, closed my eyes and ran my fingertips across my temple, over my building headache.

When I opened my eyes I continued my walk out of the airport.

Stepping into the cool October air, I scanned my surroundings for any sign of my mom but I couldn’t spot her anywhere.

Sighing, I took my phone out again and dialed Antonio’s number.

“And don’t even think about asking me for the ring back you worthless piece of trash!” I screamed into the phone earning a few looks from the passers-by.

A little bit calm, I found a bench and took off my backpack to begin waiting.

Fishing out four different amber medicine bottles from my backpack, I took out four different pills from each of them and a bottle of water I’d snagged from the airplane.

Looking at the two red and two white pills in my hand, I was again filled with loathing. They were a continual reminder that even my organs couldn’t do the one job they had right.

Feeling the anger burn its way up my chest, I downed the medicine and took a swig of water.

The sun had started slanting in the sky and my mother had still not shown up.