"Rune!" she gasped, audibly hurt. "I love you. But friends call each other out when it's necessary."
"I have to go. It's a long drive back to LA. Tell Raquel I'll call her later. Bye."
"RUNE!"
I hung up on her. I almost blocked her, but opted to silence her alerts instead. It was a temporary solution to my hurt and anger at my best friend's betrayal.
Fuck this.
I plugged my phone in and turned on a playlist of loud, aggressive, breakup songs—the same ones I'd listened to on repeat after fleeing LA and Hayes's infidelity.
Was that only two and a half months ago? It felt like I'd spent a year in Alaska. Like I’d had a whole, brief life there with Duncan and his family and their bars.
I set my GPS for home and left Sea-Tac.
I drove straight through, stopping only for gas and fast food. I made it home in twenty-three hours flat.
My condo felt weird.
Empty.
Silent.
The last time I was here, I was breaking up with Hayes. Now, I have Duncan on the brain.
Hayes is absent from this place, thank god. His trophies, his clothes, that stupid fucking stuffed beaver he insisted just had to sit on my bookshelf for reasons he never fully articulated. His toiletries were gone from my bathroom, his clothes from my drawers and closet. On the bright side, I have my closet space back.
Why do I feel so flat and empty?
When I left LA all those weeks ago, I had this secret fantasy that I would come home feeling renewed and whole, with a new zest for life and a zeal for singlehood. I'd be ready to take on the world. Find my dream job. Meet the perfect guy at a cute little coffee shop around the block from my corner office that I'd somehow already have at my brand new dream job.
The reality of my homecoming is…slightly different.
I don't feel any better about myself. About life. I have no fucking clue what my dream job even is. That's the reality—I have a degree in business management and no clue what to do with it. I enjoyed the classes, mostly. I liked the theories and concepts, and I excelled in pretty much every aspect of college. I'm a 4.0 student, an achiever.
But…now what?
Business as a concept is one thing. But now I'm out here in the real world with a diploma and a hell of an expensive education and not a fucking clue what to do with it. What business am I supposed to be in? Marketing? Management? How do you get into management? That’s not even a field, that's a rank, a position. Film? Music? Tech?
Do I just scour the want ads? Go on Indeed or whatever? Send out my resume at random?
I'm already in the throes of an existential crisis, and I've been home all of twenty minutes. I haven’t even unpacked.
"Get it the fuck together, Rune," I said, talking to myself out loud for the second time in one day like a real crazy person.
I unpacked. Started laundry. Put new sheets on my bed—and threw away the old ones on which I'd had who knew how much sex with Hayes. Called my parents and spent a good hour on the phone with them, filling them in on the wedding—without mentioning Duncan, of course.
At the end of the conversation, Mom said her goodbye, ending with a strict order to come over for dinner tonight. Dad, however, lingered on the line.
"You need something else, Dad?" I asked.
He sighed, a gruff half-growl. "Hayes was never good enough for you, Sweet-Pea."
"You can say you told me so, I'm a big girl, I can take it," I said.
"I don't need to—you just said it for me. And I’m not trying to, like, rub anything in your face, honey. I just…you deserve a man. Someone who will take care of you."
"I can take care of myself, Dad."
