Chapter 11

• Monday mornings, definitely my hump day. Hard to get out of bed, harder to go to the gym before work, a healthy breakfast tastes more like cat food than All Bran and its damn near impossible to get motivated for the week at work. It’s freezing cold too to add salt to my wounds. It’s windy as hell. God I’m whinging today. Normally I have the excuse of too big a weekend, still silently suffering a hangover, carb overload, no exercise. Not today. I know the reason. It’s like the frigging day before Armageddon, like I’m walking to the gallows. I’m so nervous I feel sick to my stomach. I thought I would be excited. Though I’m looking forward to seeing him this weekend, I know that after Saturday night the beautiful man in my memories will be dead to me. He has long been dead. It’s just that damn movie screen inside my head keeping him alive, hero worshipping him. I know this is probably going to be the last week I can dream about him from afar, but reality is a bitch. A bitch that’s going to bite me hard on the ass on Sunday morning. I’m dreading it. It’s like I’ve already started to mourn the loss of him, even though he’s not even mine to lose. I am on the train, it’s an hour trip to work as I purposely looked for a job well out of my zip code. Don’t want to bump into any of my sexual psychotics at the coffee shop or grocery store. It’s a hassle getting to and from work but I feel safer having that bit of anonymity away from my patients. In the line of work I do my patients don’t want to bump into me either so it’s a win, win both ways. I shuffle up the aisle and take a window seat. I lean my head on the window, close my eyes and start to doze. I just need to get through the week. My mind wanders back to the man who haunts me, even in my sleep.
• Finally this week is over—it’s been a marathon just getting through it. I am sitting on the plane waiting to exit at Melbourne airport.
• “Why do they take so long to open the doors?” Bridget yawns as she stretches in her seat.