Life in a Rut, Love not Included (Love Not Included series Book 1) (2 page)

Our routine.

Before I get too far ahead of myself though, let’s introduce the second most hated person on my list.

Insert former roommate, former best friend, Stacey Gibbs.

After college, I was in deep search of a roommate. Luck had it that after an extensive search on Craigslist, I found Stacey. Turns out we were a friendship match made in heaven. In no time, we were bunking in a gorgeous apartment together, embarking on a new Best Friend’s Forever life. Now, if you thought Steve and I sounded inseparable, then double that with Stacey and me. We had to have been separated at birth. Not that we looked anything alike. Stacey wore the perfect shade of shoulder-length blonde hair, with model thin legs and a killer body, and perfect peaches-and-cream skin that illumined her natural tones. She didn’t have to wear makeup to have men drop dead over her, but she loved makeup so anything she did made her look even more flawless.

Stacey also came from money and had that rich blood in her. No worries for me, because she was a sharer and she wanted her best friend to also indulge in the finer things. Money was never an issue as long as we were together. Enter stage left: my new wardrobes and new appreciation for silk and the word Prada. We were two girls having the time of our lives, with youth and beauty and money to boot.

Things couldn’t have been better. I had to admit that if someone asked me about those years of my life, I would have been able to say that I had everything I had ever wanted. Steve loved me, and I loved him. I had Stacey, the sister I’d always wanted, and I was quickly working my way up the ladder at Hamilton Corp. I was living out my dream of being successful, in love and happy. I looked good, I felt good, and I even had that blissful little skip to my step.

That skip turned into a fumble and then a smack and a pop to my perfect bubble, when my happy little life came to a screeching halt. They don’t lie when they say that your life can change in the blink of an eye. Because literally I blinked, and my life was gone. All’s it took was me coming home early one day to my perfect swanky apartment to find my perfect boyfriend and my perfect best friend in my perfect bed together. I don’t think I have to go too much into what happens next. Pretty much delete the perfect boyfriend, perfect friend, perfect apartment and later, perfect job out of my equation and add three months of solitude, and here I am.

It has been three months since my bubble exploded, and I mean with a Boom! Bam! POW!

As in a
SPLAT!
In my face. If you look closely enough, I think I might still have pieces of bubble stuck to my skin . . . Or my pride, either way. I had to crawl home to my parents, who definitely did not see this coming since they turned my room into one of those storage rooms where Home Shopping Network junk goes to die.

So, to sum up, I am boyfriend-less, jobless, friendless and lifeless. And since we’re being honest here, you can add depression to that long list as well.

“SARAH! This is the last time I am going to call your name, then I am sending your father in there to revive you!”

Oh great, not Dad. Have you ever been fully woken up by a retired Navy commander? I brace my ears with a pillow wrapped around the back of my head.

“I’m up, geez, call off the guards!” I moan. It’s not like I can sit here and stare at my ceiling much longer anyway. My dream man has faded into the abyss of my subconscious, and he was probably about to break up with me anyway. Go figure. I throw my legs off my bed and begin my descent to stand. “Today is going to be a better day,” I tell myself. “Today I will shower. I will brush my hair. I will do something positive . . .”

Humph!

Apparently I am too busy with my “Go get ’em” speech to realize I have my sheet wrapped around my leg and so I end my lecture with a face full of carpet.

Yep, this is my life.

I officially take my speech back.

I start to crawl back into bed, since that’s obviously where I should have stayed to begin with. Of course, I miss my calling, as my door flies open. And here pops in dear old Dad.

“Soldier! You heard your mother! Now, your Aunt Raines is waiting promptly at the airport at eleven hundred hours. You will obey your mother and complete this task. Living here is not your free ride . . .”

“Ugh. I’m up, Dad. Thanks for reminding me of my life success,” I groan.

Apparently he is not done. “I raised you to be a strong individual, Sarah. I worked for this country so you can have a fair life and a strong education. I did not raise you to be thrown around by a man of no dignity and have you run back home to hide,” he continues, standing firmly in my doorway. “And again, I am still waiting on the explanation of why you decided to quit a very lucrative position at that firm. I didn’t raise you to back down, especially because of a man. Use your brain, not your heart. How many times—”

“THANK YOU, Dad! I’m up and this is only going to delay me picking up Aunt Raines!” I not so sweetly belt out while pushing him out of my door gently but in a thirteen-year-old get-out-of-my-room sort of way. I’m thirty-one and living at home being lectured by my parents, so I might as well act like a thirteen-year-old.

Having to explain to my parents that I was dumped by my high-profile boyfriend was one thing. Having to tell them I quit my job abruptly was another. I think it was the “I need to move back home just until I get myself back on my feet” speech that really threw them. I was like any striving teenager right out of high school. I wanted out. I went to college practically running, because it meant getting out of my parents’ house and reach. I was a suffocating “young adult” who needed to live on her own and experience life and create a resume for herself so she could use those credentials to define her ambitions and be huge!

I graduated from the University of Illinois with a 3.9 GPA in Marketing and a hefty hangover. Then again, what was college for, if not to experience boys and binges? I worked nights at a popular bar and saved my money, knowing the second I stepped foot off that campus I was going to start my life. On my own. And I was definitely, most certainly, not going back home.

I set up roommate wanted ads on the Internet before I left school since let’s be honest, I was a bartender, not a pole dancer, so living the life I wanted on my own was a little higher up from where I was on my accomplishment list. But it only took four scary interviews—one who didn’t even speak English, which I actually debated wouldn’t be such a bad thing—before I found Stacey, a.k.a. Boyfriend Stealer. The Stacey who turned out to be a huge game-changer in my life.

As I mentioned earlier, Stacey had come from a wealthy family of high-bred heritage. She was an only child and, like me, she shared the urge to run fast out of her parents’ home and live on her own. As her family wanted her to commute from home, she chose to take her chances and find a place on her own. Stacey was originally from New York; her family moved to Chicago since her father was opening up a new branch of family banks. The life of the rich I guess. When Stacey saw my ad on Craigslist she also admitted to friendship love at first sight. We had clicked immediately and talked for hours before moving in together so it felt like we had known each other for years by the time we actually took the plunge. We found a swanky apartment on the Upper North Side of Chicago, just big enough to fit all of our stuff (well,
her
stuff, since her family insisted she own the best appliances, furniture and electronics possible). I would have had to sell all my organs to afford a week’s worth of rent at our place, but what Stacey wanted, Stacey got. Really.

The apartment was something out of a magazine. Our furniture was all top of the line. Stacey was obsessed with purple so of course she convinced me that the purple velvet set would look fantastic. It was also her money and if she wanted to spend $7,000 on sofas then I wasn’t going to stop her. We had a spacious kitchen that was, again, top of the line. Not sure why we needed two ovens, since I’m pretty sure Stacey had never cooked a meal in her life, but I loved it since I came from a homely background and cooking was a hobby I’d always enjoyed. Skimming over the obviously gigantic flat screen TVs and the expensive framed artwork that hung on the walls, we also both had our own master bed and bath. As a perk of being Stacey Gibbs’ roommate and new best friend, I received a four-poster king sized bed, which she insisted I complement with a purple and gray down comforter duvet. She herself had a similar setup; Stacey insisted that everything match.

Both suites came with a wall of ceiling-to-floor windows looking out on a stunning view of downtown Chicago. At night, the lights from the skyscrapers would illuminate my bedroom. Everything in the apartment was covered in Persian tile or marble. My bathroom itself was draped from counter to shower with pure luxury. I remember thinking if times ever got tough I would just start chipping away at my bathroom sink for cash.

It was surreal. I was twenty-four years old and on my own. It felt like a breath of fresh air—even fresher since it wasn’t a college campus and the smell of puke didn’t permanently linger no matter how hard you scrubbed. Who would have thought that I would be living on my own, in one of the greatest cities in the world?!

I won’t lie, at first I was a bit worried about the financial differences between us. Now, I was not raised from money. Having a naval commander as a father, I was taught strict rules about how far a dollar could be stretched. Living with Stacey, it was a bit unnerving to see her blow money like it was water. Well maybe not water. That’s not so free nowadays either. Let’s just say she liked to spend, and she liked to share.

Suddenly it seemed that everything in my life had started to change. I exchanged my Converse sneakers for Gucci heals and my hoodies for Fendi wrap-around blouses. Now that I look back, it’s sad how easily I let someone—or rather, two people—change me into someone else. You would never have known where I came from, who I once was, by the way I was molded into the person I had slowly become.

I
PEEK OUT MY
bedroom door to make sure it is safe to venture into the hallway, and head towards the bathroom. After taking a whiff of myself and realizing life’s not all it’s cracked up to be, I decide to scratch showering off my list of goals for the day and just stick to the basics, which come in the form of toothpaste and a stick of deodorant. I haven’t bothered unpacking my fancy things that came along with The Stacey Roommate Plan, like my electric toothbrush, so at the moment I am currently using a 1980s normal non-vibrating toothbrush while gagging on my parents’ original, probably first addition ever, Crest toothpaste.

I have yet to take the plunge and unpack my stuff. I figure, why bother? I don’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon anyway.

Now let me be the first one to tell you that wallowing in one’s self-pity is a full time job. It has a tendency to take away from the other semi-more important things in one’s life, such as hygiene and self-awareness. One major step I have been avoiding during my “poor me” parade is looking in the mirror. I have spent so much time self-loathing and crying like a baby that I am not too sure I want to take a look at the loser I have become. The only good thing that came out of this is the weight loss, which we can thank not eating for, due to my pitiful life blowing up in my face. (Please refer back to bubble splatter.) I figure since I knocked off showering, I do have an opening in my appointment book to look up and judge.

I am staring into the eyes of a stranger.
Well . . . I can probably do without the bags under my eyes,
I think while I try to calculate when the last time was that I had an eyebrow wax or a proper hair dye. Some things, whether your life is ending or not, should not be neglected
. I look awesome . . . for a homeless person.
“Well that’s enough for today,” I say to no one in particular, then I spit, rinse, and turn to complete my task for the day.

Behind all the fancy clothes and designer toothbrushes, I was no one special to begin with. Standing at an unimpressive height of 5’4,” I have normal brown hair, sometimes referred to as my “mop,” and fair skin since I’m no longer following Stacey’s daily ritual of self-tanner. I had eyes the shade of the sea, per Steve. Now they are just hazelish green. Who gives such lame compliments and falls for them anyway? Ugh. Shades of the sea. Vomit.

I’ve always had a great metabolism so weight was never really an issue, but Stacey insisted we attend classes together at the gym. If it wasn’t to look fit, it was to meet guys. No complaints about a little sweat if a pack of tanned abs came along with it.

With Stacey being the stereotypical tall, beautiful blonde, I’m not sure anyone would have acknowledged my presence if it wasn’t for my incredible rack. I know. How self-righteous am I? But a girl can’t lie. If she’s got the goods, she knows it. In the end my rack didn’t keep the guy so who cares anyway?

Onward toward my day in Loserville.

My parents live in a small ranch house in Oak Park, Illinois, just outside of Chicago. They bought it once my dad was finally able to settle down after the Navy and they never left. It’s a three bedroom split-level house that makes you feel like you ventured back into the 70s every time you walk in. Ah, the life. I really hope their decorating skills rub off on me. Not.