The Termination Date

Breakups sound like broken glass. Screeching and loud. The filmy sheen peeled off and discarded. All the glittering bits of a shattered relationship sharp and angry spilled across the floor.

This was the exact reason Gigi didn’t normally do relationships. They left her feeling pinched and raw.

She swept up the final dusty layer and discarded it into the garbage bin. There. Out of her home, out of her head, out of her life. It had taken her a full week to clean up from the mess of broken dishes, smashed family heirlooms, and random spots of wet, which was as gross as it sounds.

The doorbell clanged through the apartment. There was nothing anyone could say to entice her to open the door. Probably.

“Go away!”

“Gigi, please!”

“We broke up, Sky. You can’t keep showing up here.” Without permission, her legs had muscled to the door. She could feel Sky’s presence through the flimsy wood.

Voice soft, hopeless. “I promise, this is the last time I’ll ever come here.”

Gigi burst air through her nostrils. “Really?”

“I promise!”

Well, maybe there was one or two things that would change her mind. She depressed the handle and swung it outward. Sky slumped on the doormat, her rainbow sneakers obscuring the W and M. Paint spattered overalls over a purple striped t-shirt. A bucket filled with cleaning supplies in one hand. Broom in the other. A vacuum cleaner leaned against the wall.

“It's about time I cleaned up the mess I left, what do you say?” The smirk and cheeky wink did nothing to sway Gigi’s resolve.

“I’ve been working at it all week. What difference do you expect to make now?”

Sky’s shoulders slumped, her head inclining. “I would’ve been here sooner, but every other time I’ve shown up, you’ve blasted music to drown me out.”

She twisted her arms together across her chest. “So, this is my fault now?”

“Of course not.” She stammered, spine straightened. “I’m simply stating that I would have gladly done this a week ago, so please don’t hold that against me.”

“I will hold whatever I want against you.”

A shimmer of red ascended her cheekbones. “That’s fair.”

It was amazing the difference a singular evening could make. Just the Monday before, she had been wrapped in a blanket with Sky, kissing in the hammock in her backyard. A field of dreams and distant giants swam overhead. It was also amazing how quickly such a happy memory became overshadowed by that night. Clear glass gone cloudy.

Gigi sat on the couch with earbuds in, eyes fixed on the television while Sky flittered about with various cleaning tools. Game paddle in hand. The latest Crash Bandicoot game on the screen. This kept her resolve intact. Sky was not going to weasel her way back into her good graces with coy smiles and magnetic eye contact. Attraction was only one piece of the puzzle and, unfortunately, none of the other pieces were present.

Movement flickered in her periphery and, after ignoring it for nearly 10 minutes, she finally sighed and turned her head. Sky’s feet were spread wide, hands on hips. Power stance. Gigi plucked out a single earbud.

“What?”

“Do you really need earbuds in? Am I that horrendous? We can’t even talk?”

Gigi ran the smooth side of the controller along her calf, digging into the thin stretch of legging. “Yes, I really do need earbuds in precisely because you’re not horrendous.”

“You hate me now?”

“Don’t be so immature. This isn’t middle school.”

“I’m serious.”

She set the paddle aside to compress her hands between her knees. “You really want to do this? Fine, let’s do this.” Her heart scampered over uneven terrain.

Post-breakup talks seemed to lead in two directions. One, the couple decides to get back together. Always a bad idea. There’s a reason you broke up in the first place. If this relationship was worth fighting for now, why wasn’t it then? Two, things turn bitter. I need that obscure pack of colored pencils I got you from my overnight work trip to Las Vegas back. That movie I hated, but you liked. The sweatshirt I leant you and you said you would never sleep without. An exchange of all the sentiments we don’t need to say and the stuff that won’t change the fact we failed.

There’s always somebody seeking closure.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice cracked a little, which Gigi decided it was best to ignore. What did it matter if she got emotional? It didn’t change anything. “I messed everything up.”

Gigi bobbed her head in agreement, hands dipping into her pockets. “You did.”

“If I could take it all back-”

“That isn’t how things work.”

Sky gnawed her lip, eyes boring into her socked feet. “I know.” She returned to a knocked over potted plant in the corner of the dining room, vacuum trailing behind her.

Gigi spent the next hour hiding. Scratch that, she spent the next hour preoccupied with things that kept her locked away in her bedroom. Remaining unavailable and out of sight was simply a treasured side effect.

Her bedroom had been the first to be cleaned up. A chunky spray of puke across the back wall was the decider. Her brother did the job. It was too disgusting for Gigi to approach. Shaving cream, which must have accompanied an attendee to the premises, spread all over the thick carpet she’d had professionally cleaned only 4 days prior. Red, blue, and green food dye mixed in and spread around.

A smell reached her nostrils. The delicious kind. She crept to the bedroom door, silently turned the doorknob, and edged it open a crack. Sky was in the kitchen with her back to her, bending over a pan. Without exiting the room, Gigi already knew what was waiting for her. And she was furious at Sky for such devious trickery.

“How dare you.” Her hands fisted at her sides. “I didn’t say you could come over and bake or cook or do anything but clean.”

Sky turned on her toes, guilty smile firmly in place. In her hands Gigi’s serving dish filled with Nutella chocolate chip cookies. “Are you going to be mad if I tell you about the pot roast with potatoes and carrots and onions in the oven?”

“Yes.”

“Guess I’ll keep that little tidbit to myself then.”

A cookie was in Gigi’s hand before she could acknowledge the resolve not to touch any of the food Sky had prepared. Then in her mouth. A moan escaped as the sweet, gooey, hazelnut chocolatey-ness cascaded over her taste buds and flooded her brain with oxytocin. True love.

“This doesn’t change anything.”

“I didn’t expect it to.”

Gigi grabbed the plate out of her hands and stormed back into her bedroom.

Flames danced above tall white candles on the dining table. The pot roast and accompaniments dished up inside a wide, yellow, porcelain platter. Two plates already served with small, bursting white and red potatoes, translucent pearl onions, chunks of carrots, and slices of tender meat.

The kitchen was spotless from floor to ceiling. Spaghetti sauce stain above the stove even miraculously removed. Gigi’s eyes strayed past to the living room, the entryway. She strode past the table and peaked in the second bedroom. Everything was clean. No more random articles of clothing that didn’t belong to her, broken glass, empty Solo cups, puddles of booze. Her apartment was actually clean. A weight dragging down her shoulders steadily eased.

Sky sat ramrod straight at the table. She’d tied her hair in a knot on top of her head, dropped the top half of her overalls to attend dinner with a less stained and dirty appearance. Unable to decide what she wanted to say, Gigi lowered herself into the seat across.

“I just want to know one thing.” She finally settled on. “Why did you do it? Things were going so well between us. And now…” She raised a hand and let it fall. “I can’t trust you.”

Sky’s head bowed. “I do this to myself over and over. Find someone I really care for, then do everything in my power to make them hate me.”

“You didn’t make me hate you and that doesn’t answer my question.”

Her fork poked at her pot roast, but no food actually made its way into her mouth. “You’re perfect, you know that?”

“What?”

“You are. You work full time at a job you love that provides you enough money to support yourself on.”

“Yes, because I-”

“Went to college and ran yourself ragged to get the best grades you could to graduate early.”

Gigi frowned at her. “Why are you saying these things like they are negatives?”

“Before college, you had a stunning 4 years of high school, in which you had loads of friends and attended every dance and, once again, passed with excellent grades.”

“What is your point?”

“Your parents love you. They are there for you no matter how you mess up. Your sister, too. Even pregnant, she’s willing to drop everything to be there for you.”

Gigi didn’t like having someone else pick apart her life and tell her how she was supposed to feel about it. Sure, her life was pretty grand. But she really had worked harder than she thought possible to make it happen. And while she was aware of her many privileges, her life hadn’t been all daisies and rainbows. The way people pit their bad life experiences against each other and judge who gets to have what feelings about their suffering.

“As much as I’m glad you have all those things and I like and appreciate those things about you-” Her gaze lifted, crashing straight into Gigi’s. “Sometimes, all I can think when I look at you is what’s a babe like that doing with someone like me? Me, no career, just the same job I’ve been working since I was 16. No home, just whatever friend’s couch I can claim for the time being. Nothing to offer.”

From the way her eyes crinkled, Gigi knew the real reason was coming. “My dad called me that night. “Hey, kiddo, I’m back in town.” I spent, I don’t know, ten minutes screaming into my pillow. Smoked a pack of cigarettes and hit the bar.”

“While I sat there drinking, I thought about all the reasons I was upset that he was back. All the nasty things he’s done to me. Always getting so much amusement out of other people’s pain. Using people as he sees fit. Then it occurred to me. Aren’t I just like him? Don’t I use people? I’d probably get amusement out of their pain, too. Just like that sick bastard.”

“You’re nothing like him.”

“Let me finish. There was something in the air at the bar. Or maybe there was something inside me, that night, I don’t know. But, before I knew what was happening, I was buying everyone drinks. Not with my own money, of course, but with money I borrowed from a friend. That I don’t even know if I’ll be able to repay. These people were saying all the right things, you know? Making me feel less like the big waste of stardust I am. So, when the bar was supposed to close, I invited everyone to head out with me.”

“I should never have brought them here. But truthfully, I didn’t know where else to go. When I think of home, I think of you. At first, everything was fine. We put on some music and poured some more drinks. It only took a split second for things to change. Suddenly, dishes were flying around the kitchen. Someone puked in the bedroom. I was laying on the couch watching it happen. It was surreal. I kept thinking, am I real? Is this real?”

“Instead of remembering who I was and where at that point, all I could think about was my dad. Coming home from work, barging into my room, and punching me in the jaw for not being there to greet him at the door. Driving up to my school in just his underwear with a can of beer in his hand just so the other kids could see who owned me. Leaving me there without any way to get home besides walking the 4 miles alone.”

She took several deep breaths, eyes fixed on the clock now. Tracking the steady tick of the seconds hand. “The anger that burned through my soul. I forgot who I was. That this wasn’t me I was hurting, but you. All I wanted in that moment was to watch the world burn. I did nothing. Maybe I tried to give you a reason to despise me that I had control over. And not just you finally realizing how much better you could do.”

Gigi couldn’t respond for a while. Thoughts bombarded her brain, making it hard to focus on one clear path forward. Eventually, Sky returned her eyes to her plate and Gigi’s brain chugged forward once more.

“This is my home.”

Sky nodded, cheeks red.

“The first time I trust someone with a key to my place, I get to come home to that.”

The redness ascended to her eyes, the shine of wet.

“That group of strangers you bonded with at a bar, they destroyed things I can never replace. Family pictures. Photographs of my grandparents that there aren’t copies of. Dish sets that were passed down through generations. My grandfather’s writing desk. And you sat there and watched and laughed.”

Sky’s hands clasped together in her lap, shoulders drawn up to her ears. “How do I make this up to you?”

“I think you’ve done everything you can to make it up to me. The mess is gone. This is a lovely dinner. You made my favorite cookies. If this is the last time we see each other, then we are even.”

Her chair screeched on the floor as she shot to her feet. “There’s no chance for us at all?”

“Having trauma doesn’t rid you of responsibility for your actions.”

She paced away and back, hands on hips. “If I didn’t stand a chance, why did you let me back in?”

“Because I believe in second chances overall, just not when it comes to my heart.”

Sky’s face contorted with anger. But it didn’t last. As quickly as it appeared, the fight drained out of her. She sniffled, rubbed her nose with the back of her arm. Gigi could imagine in that moment what she looked like as a child. Her hands fell loose and open at her sides.

“Then this is goodbye?”

Gigi took a bite of potato, the buttery fluff dissolving on her tongue. “Yes.”

She nodded and lowered back into her seat. “Okay. I will enjoy your pretty smiles for one last evening.”

Gigi gifted her one of those smiles. “I will do the same.”