Lizzy the pessimist is back and better than ever. Be ready to be cynical.
Tell It Like It Is
Chapter 14
Lizzy heard the door to her apartment close behind her and fell back against it. She didn't know what to feel, so she chose to feel cold, and wrapped her light jacket tighter around her body. She didn't move, she didn't make a noise and she tried with all her might not to think.
"Anya?" she heard Corey yell from the corner of their apartment where her room was.
Lizzy didn't say a word. She was too numb.
"Ahn? Is that you?" Corey's voice was getting closer and it was only a matter of seconds before she rounded the corner, clad in boxer shorts and a tank top, and discovered a frozen Lizzy. "Lizzy? I didn't expect you back yet."
Lizzy didn't move. Her face merely paled. Corey waddled over to her, her bare heels thumping against their wooden floors. "What's the matter babe?" she asked simply as she wrapped her arm over Lizzy's shoulder and led her to the couch. "Why are you so cold?"
Lizzy continued to hold the edges of her jacket around her. "Is it not cold in here?" she asked as she looked up at her. In the depths of her mind she knew it was September and that her apartment was a balmy 81 degrees and yet she felt so frigid that her breath should have been visible.
"No Hon," Corey said calmly. She may have warned her, she may have seen it coming but Corey still ached to find herself to be correct. "It's pretty hot in here."
Lizzy shivered. "Then why am I so cold?"
Corey rubbed her arms in the way a person rubs their hands together to warm them up. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"
Lizzy looked at her and Corey lay a blanket over her lap. "He kissed me."
Corey paused mid-wrap and looked at her. "Is that all?"
Lizzy nodded once.
"So he didn't even say anything?" she asked sinking into the sofa.
Lizzy shook her head slowly. "Only that his cheating was my fault."
Corey scowled for a second then shot her a stern look. "Don't you ever think that was your fault."
"He didn't even care. He pretended like he didn't even know about what happened with Dad and he just brushed it aside," she looked back at Corey, her face still frozen. "Then he kissed me and- and I just ran." She suddenly felt her first emotion: panic. "Oh god Corey, he's ENGAGED! I let him kiss me, and he's engaged."
Corey nodded. "That wasn't your fault either. Will's a complete ass."
"Why?" She was now molding into her second emotion, anger. "Why was I not good enough for him then, but now that he can't have me he wants me again?" she spat with a burning passion.
"He probably has no fucking clue what he wants."
"No!" she yelled standing from the sofa and throwing her blanket off her. "No, Melanie he wants. Me he just wants to torture."
Corey stared at her with wide eyes.
"You know he's the only guy I ever wanted to spend time with. The only one I would have regretted if I'd lost and you know what? He's the only one that didn't want me back!" Her face was turning purple now. Emotion number three, grief, was taking over and she was soon to be sobbing into a pillow if she kept that up. "He made me think I loved him. He did it and then he left! Just tossed me aside for a new girl." That's when the waterworks started. "Why does he only want me when he can't have me?"
Corey stood up and once again wrapped her arm over Lizzy's shoulders. "They're all in it for the chase."
Lizzy pulled away from her touch. "You're right," she growled as she wiped her eyes. "They're all pigs. And love- love was just an allusion they created to bend us impressionable women to their whims. To enslave. It doesn't really exist."
Corey walked over and picked up the blanket and starting folding it as Lizzy stormed into the kitchen, clattering through every drawer and cabinet in search of something. As Corey laid the blanket back onto the arm of the sofa Lizzy stomped back into the room and shoved a spoon at Corey then dug into her carton of ice cream.
"It's all bullshit you know. Men. Relationships," she spoke with her spoon in her left hand, her ice cream in her right, and a funny accent from the ice cream stuck to the roof of her mouth. "Just some fucking distractions so we don't have to think about how incredibly insignificant our lives are."
Only Lizzy could make it through the entire array of emotions that accompany a broken heart in a matter of minutes and settle into bitter. Record timing.
"So I've finally come to the decision. Love does not exist." She swallowed her spoonful and spoke in a normal voice again. "It didn't exist in Christian the coke-addict. Nor One-Night-Stand Charlie. Nor 'I'm Gonna Be A Doctor' Allen. And definitely not Will 'Fucking-Break-My-Heart-Then-Come-Back-To-Stomp-On-It' Darcy." She took another spoonful and her funny accent returned. "It doesn't fucking happen does it? I was right all along- Do we have any Girl Scout Cookies?- There is no knight in shining armor. Prince Charming? Doesn't exist!"
"Lizzy. Slow down," Corey replied calmly as she squeezed the ice cream carton out of her hands and set it on their coffee table. "There's love. Just because Will wasn't it, doesn't mean-"
"No it means a lot!" She threw her arms in the air and fell back into her seat on the sofa. "It means I was a fucking idiot. It means that men are our only weaknesses and most of all it means there're no happy endings."
Corey shot her a doubtful look. "What is Shakespeare writing about? What is Van Morrison singing about? What are the Trojans fighting for, if love doesn't exist?"
Lizzy looked back up at her with her eyes burning. "Obviously something I can never have."
Corey handed her back her carton and Lizzy immediately dug her spoon right back into it.
"God!" she swallowed a particularly big spoonful. "I'm such an idiot. I mean I honestly let myself get expectations about him."
"Everyone has expectations Lizzy," Corey replied as she sat beside her with her legs tucked under herself.
Lizzy pulled off her jacket and fanned herself. She wasn't numb anymore but she was still impervious. "No I don't. Promises you can build on. Expectations can be ignored. Promises can't." She threw her jacket across the room, just as she'd done with the blanket. "I should have reminded myself that Will's already made his promises, and he made them to someone else."
"What exactly happened?" Corey asked quickly before Lizzy could go off on another tirade.
"I don't even know. One minute he's telling me how perfect his life is, then something stupid about a video, then the next thing I know he's kissing me."
"Like a real kiss?"
Lizzy shrugged. "I don't know. It seemed passionate enough."
"Did it seem like there was trouble in paradise?"
Lizzy shook her head. "He's always talking about how perfect they are. Which she always seems to do too so I suppose that really does make them perfect for each other, that ass hole, fucking, man-like-"
"Lizzy. Breathe." Corey yelled suddenly interrupting her before she could start again. "I know you're confused and all, but were there any hints from him about leaving her. For all you know he could just be waiting for you."
"I don't want him to wait for me." She yelled back, quickly becoming frustrated. "I just want him to go away."
"You're being an extremist," Corey warned.
"No." Lizzy stood from the couch and glared again. "I'm just telling it like it is."
Yeah she's a bit upset. I though this chapter was much more Lizzy than what came before. I like to think that the whole being around Will thing had thrown her a bit off balance and now she's back to her full Lizzy-ness.
Anyway. Did you like it?
Im on break next week so Im hoping that I can possibly get this story all the way written and then just post it. There are only 12 chapters left and an epilogue. So... cross your fingers.
I really want to get some work done for my Emma story but I'd like to get this one finished and I have to get a new laptop (once I can manage to keep a paycheck for more than 3 days before spending it on clothes... really cute clothes but still.) Once I get that, this will be mucho easier.
Reviews are equivalent to love. Love is equivalent to updates.