Juilliard or Else

by Reese, Nichele

  I checked my mailbox before heading up the stairs to my door. Even before I reached my floor, I heard my sweet boy whimpering for me behind my red painted door to let him out so he can do his business. Still hanging on the hook is a very colorful Christmas wreath on the outside. Making a mental note to take that down, but I'm still within the timeframe to have Christmas decorations up, after all it's only January. So I'm good.

  "I'm coming boy, just a second." I called out as I dug into my purse for my keys. Is it sad that I think of him as my child? Well, my four legged child, who is covered in fur, but he's still my child nonetheless. Putting my key in the lock and turned it to open up my door, I'm immediately greeted with happy barks and a wagging tail. If you listened really carefully you could almost make out a 'hi'. Yes, I think my dog talks to me, don't judge, okay. Tossing my keys and mail on the entry way table and bending down to let him give me wet kisses across my nose and cheeks, making me a slobbery mess.

  "Hey boy, did you hold down the fort today?" After scratching behind his ears for a while and giving him kisses back, I straightened my tired spine to head into my living room.

  Being the type of person that can't stand the quiet I flipped on the TV to the Rock music channel, so I could have it as background music. Listening to Rock music helps drown out all the little voices floating around my head screaming, "You're single." "You're all alone."

  Walking into my dream kitchen while bobbing my head to Whore by In This Moment, I contemplate about making me something to eat. Rummaging through my double door stainless steel refrigerator to see that I had everything to make a good ole healthy salad, but putting that off since a glorious hot shower was calling out to me first.

  Heading down the hallway to my 'suite' as I like to refer to it, I pass by all my photos my lovely best friend, Becky put up. I'm not very good at decorating, so I let her OCD ass have free reign with my townhouse when I bought it.

  Of course, I had to pay for all the decorations, but I'll admit that she did a kick ass job with it, way beyond what I would have done, which would have been nothing. Plain ole boring. She told me before, "Rach, you have to have some color in your life since you have nothing else."

  Dang, she really knew how to throw a low blow.

  Finally giving in, I let her have her way. She was like a little kid in a candy store, running in and out of my house during the first few weeks with different paint swatches trying to find the perfect color palate. She highlighted the hallway with a beautiful cream color, which accented the red she painted the living room. She then added some of my favorite family portraits that I cherished so much.

  Walking into my room, I kicked off my shoes and headed towards my bathroom to turn on my shower so it could start warming up. I love my shower. That's my place to relax and let all the stresses of the world, plus work go right down the drain. When I first bought this townhouse, there wasn't much that needed to be renovated, but the shower was the one place I splurged on by going all out and it's beautiful.

  It's big enough to fit at least four people. Of course, I haven't tested that theory out, but it would fit six of me, and since I'm averaged size at five four and one hundred and twenty pounds, we'll just say four.

  Any who, back to my amazing shower.

  I chose eight by eight with dark mocha travertine tiles to line the walls with those little bitty light brown squares going around the middle to pull the nice warm look together. There's also a bench, you know to shave your legs and what not. What did you think the bench was in there for? Dirty mind. The designer had three cubbies built into the wall to hold all my shampoo, conditioner, sponges, face wash, body wash, you get the picture, to hold all my girly shower stuff. But my real love in the shower had to be all the shower heads. The first one; is a huge round silver rain shower head that comes out of the ceiling, and then there's a handheld one on the wall along with full body jets that aligned either side.

  Honestly to say I love my shower would be an understatement. If I could find a legal way to work from my shower, I would do it in a heartbeat. But I can't so that's why I work at the hospital in the labor and delivery wing as a nurse. I've always loved babies, so to be a part of someone's family at that special moment is heartbreakingly beautiful. Well let's say nothing gets better than that, except my shower.

  Stripping off my scrubs and tossing them in the hamper that's right outside my bathroom, I see that Clyde was already sprawled out on the bed calling it a night. He was so sweet to wait up for me and then crash. Like a typical man would do. Turning back into the bathroom that was now all nice and steamy, filled with smoldering mist so that I couldn't even make out my own reflection in the mirror as I stepped into the shower.

  I lingered under the shower heads as the beating streams of hot water relaxed my aching muscles, clearing my mind of everything. Thirty minutes later I was putting on my favorite Aggie shirt that hits right in the middle of my thighs, perfect nighty shirt length. Glancing at the bed one more time to see Clyde was still lying there on his stomach sprawled out on his side snoring away. I know, strange for a dog to snore but he does, I've told y'all before he's like a kid.

  Padding into the living room and grabbed the stack of mail from the entry way as I made my way to my couch. Pulling out my cell from my purse as I started sorting through my mail, it's usually a bunch of junk, since I pay all my bills online anyways. There's a formal looking envelope in the stack, so I fished it out first and slid my finger under the sticky flap. But what's inside was oh so very shocking! It felt as if my breath was stuck in my throat while my stomach dropped out of my ass as I scanned the lines over and over.

  "What the hell? Why would he send this to me?!" I yelled while jumping to my feet, causing my wet auburn hair to curtain around my face, along with little droplets of water hitting the fancy cardstock. Continuing to inspect the ivory wedding invitation with intricate calligraphy written on it, I read it aloud.

  Mr. and Mrs. Michael Jones

  Request the Honor of your presence

  With the marriage of their daughter

  Stacey Lynn Jones

  to

  Kyle Wayne Smith

  Saturday, the Twenty Fourth of May

  at two o'clock in the Afternoon at

  St. Margarets Catholic Church

  "You have got to be fucking kidding me." Quickly grabbing my cell and dialed my girlfriend, Becky. She answered on the second ring. "Damn it Rach, there better be a damn good reason you're call me at…two o'clock in the fucking morning. Geez two o'clock really?" Becky hissed at me through the phone. She's a girl that loves her sleep.

  "Becky, you will never believe what I just got in the damn mail?"

  She breathed a tired breath into the phone. "It better be a damn letter letting you know your death is near, because I'll kill you if this isn't a good enough reason."

  I just loved how snappy she gets when I wake her up, "Beck, Kyle sent me a wedding invite to his and Stacey's wedding in May."

  Hearing what sounded like Becky jumping up in bed, flinging the covers off of her, "Are you fucking kidding? Why the hell would he send you of all people an invite?"

  Rolling my eyes, "Gee thanks for that, damn."

  "Oh don't you roll your eyes at my missy, you know what I mean." How does she know when I'm rolling my eyes? "Yeah, y'all were hot and heavy for months, and then you dumped him and he immediately met Stacey right after. Now just six months later he's engaged, getting married in five and to top it off he sends you an invite. What is he trying to do rub it in your face or something? You know I never really cared for him and this just proves I was right."

  I started pacing back and forth in front of my couch. "No this just proves I'm right, I'm nothing but a good luck charm for them. I'm the one they date before they meet 'The One'. It's like I train them, and then send them off like a teacher into the real dating world. Ready to fall in love and marry the one right after me." I stomped my foot in frustration.

  Becky started rambling o
n about something, but I stopped paying attention. Trying to remember what happened to all the men that have come and gone in my life. See this is why number eight isn't my lucky number, that's the number of men I have dated that have gone on to find 'The One'. There's nothing against finding 'The One', I just hate that it was after they dated me. To make things worse they all have dubbed me their 'Lucky Charm'.

  Yup, that's right. Just because they dated me and then the next girl (or guy) they dated, fell in love, then up and married them. Then to top it off they even had the nerve to send me their stupid wedding invites as a thank you for dumping their ass. Ugh, Kyle's wasn't even the first one I received.

  "Rachel! Are you even listening to me?" Becky's rambling snapped me out of my thoughts.

  "Oh… um… no not really, sorry." I admit "Hey I think I'm going to go ahead and call it a night, I just want to forget this whole day." Becky tells me bye and made me promise her that I will call her tomorrow before I go in to work.

  I laid my head back on the couch and welcomed the cool feeling of the leather against my wet hair. Reaching for the remote I flipped through the TV guide until I saw my all-time favorite romantic movie, The Notebook. Selecting it in hopes it will keep my mind off everything crazy going on in my life.

  The last scene I remembered before drifting off was Noah and Allie on the docks and he was telling her, it wasn't over. Before I knew it I'm waking up from the strangest dream, I dreamt about my very first ex.

  I dubbed him, 'The Athlete'. He stood about six foot, great build, broad shoulders, the whole nine yards. See, he played football back in the day and worked out every chance he had after he finished his contract. His eye's where a pretty brown, pretty in a manly way, had slight stubble on his cheeks, which made the attraction to him even greater. I guess that's what first attracted me to him was his looks, I mean because honestly that's the first thing we see when we meet someone. Next, you get to know them and then you fall in love with what's on the inside, but looks are the first thing you notice. You know it's true.

  Second thing I noticed; was that he was very sensitive and in touch with his feminine side. Now don't get me wrong, every woman loves a guy that can sympathize with them about things, but damn. Sometimes you want a manly man, a shoulder to cry and lean on, not have it be the other way around.

  I remembered when I first started noticing 'the signs'. We were watching The Notebook one night over at his house. Okay that should have been the very first sign, because he picked that movie out in the first place. At the time I just figured he was being sweet because he knew how much I loved that movie. Noticing out the corner of my eye, that he was quoting each and every line from the characters, and then he cried at the end. Yeah, he totally cried. That's when the red flags started waving, with the loud blare horns going off frantically in my head.

  I called it off the next day. To me I just didn't see us going anywhere, especially with his very feminine side. Sometimes I just couldn't take it.

  Turns out I put him off women for good, because I heard through a friend of a friend that after I broke up with him, he had an epiphany and fell in love with a lovely man. No really, I heard he's rather lovely. They truly make the perfect couple; I've seen a few pictures of them together on Facebook after he sent me a friend request. What nerve.

  First, I was kind of put off that I might have turned him gay, but then again you don't just wake up one morning and decide to be gay. I truly believe you are born that way. So that leads me to feel he was hiding himself all along, but we didn't sleep together so that was good. I think that would have been awkward anyways.

  Hearing very odd sounds, I woke up to realize I had fallen asleep on the couch with some very awful amateur porn playing on my TV.

  Gotta love HBO during the early morning hours. I thought to myself.

  Squinting at the receiver with dry and tired eyes, blinking a couple of times to focus on the glowing blue numbers to make out that it was well after four in the morning. Untangling my body from my plum fuzzy blanket while picking up the remote to turn off the TV and dragging my tired ass down the hall and into my bed with my fluffy down comforter. Double checking my phone to make sure it was plugged in, along with my alarm set to go off in five dreadful hours so I could go back to work. I chanted in my head, 'I love my job, I love my job'

  "Night Clyde," I mumbled while patting his head. He's still snoring away on his side. I rolled over to turn my bedside lamp off and fall into a peaceful dream that isn't filled with any of my ex's.