I somehow manage to make it home, even though I have no recollection of how I got here.
“Mila? Is that you?” Taylor yells from the bathroom.
My eyes have gone dry and the dizziness is still persistent. I sit my bag down on the floor of our tiny apartment, unable to form the words to answer her question.
“Okay if it's not you, Mila, and it’s a robber, just know that the clothes by the door are covered in dog shit. I had a very sick pup whose owner didn’t want to cancel their grooming service today. Also, all my jewelry is fake,” she continues to yell from the bathroom.
I walk like the tin man up to the bathroom door, “I quit.”
“Fuck yeah!” Taylor sits up from the bath covered in bubbles, splashing water everywhere.
“No. Taylor, how did I do this? What have I done?” Immediately the shock starts to wear off and panic begins to set in.
“Camila, look at me.” Her voice is stern.
“I love you, but you're in the bath, I think I can wait to look at you until you're out and in your robe,” I say, rubbing at my chest.
“Okay don't look at me, but listen. That job was tearing you down, and every day when you left for work I manifested it would be the day you quit. This is a good thing, a great thing. You will figure something else out, we’ll figure it out together, okay?”
I don’t know what else to say so I just nod my head in agreement.
“Great. Let me dry off and then we’ll pack.”
I finally look at her, because I can’t tell if the shock has completely scrambled my brain or not. “Pack for what?”
“Are you serious? Don’t you remember the end of your first week of work when you came home crying and I told you that you could quit and we could go Vegas and forget about it?”
Yes, my brain is definitely not keeping up with her anymore. “Are you talking about a conversation from five years ago?”
“Is that how long you've been at that shit hole job?” Her eyes go wide.
“Yes.”
“Okay then yes. Look, it doesn't matter how old the conversation is. The fact is, we’re celebrating. Go pack.”
“Tay, I can’t celebrate this.”
“Okay...” She bites her lip and nods her head. “Then we’ll go to get our minds off it and come back refreshed and ready to make a new plan. I know the world stops turning when you don't know the next move.”
Taylor, my optimistic best friend.
“I think you're the only person to ever use the words Vegas and refresh in the same sentence,” I say with a small smile.
“Go pack. We leave first thing in the morning.” A wiggle of her eyebrows is her only response.
“Thank you, Taylor,”I say. “You were right.”
“About stopping for the breakfast burritos this morning?” she asks, leaning across the center console.
“All of it. The breakfast burritos and an eight-hour drive to Sin City are exactly what I needed.”
“Damn right!” She slaps my thigh. “You’re going to come home from this weekend a whole new woman.”
My only plans are to enjoy a weekend with my best friend and not think about the colossal mess that will be waiting for me back home. I look back out the window, and promise myself that for the next two days I won’t think about any of it.
“Okay wait. Did you really break up with Josh because he had bad breath?”
“That and he still used a flip phone.”
