#26.2 The Book Hunt
Nov 13th, 2010 by Ashley
In the car, Alex finds the address of Gilroy library on his GPS and sets to go. His cell phone rings as he pulls out of the parking lot. His brows twist when he sees the caller ID.
“Mom.” He tries to sound pleasant.
“It’s none of your business, mom.” The effort was apparently futile.
“No, I have errands to run.”
“I know it’s my turn to do the laundry. I’ll do it when I get home, ok?”
“I’m not trying to avoid my responsibility, mom.”
“And I’ve told you it’s gonna be for just a couple of weeks, okay, maybe a month or two until I find another place to live.”
“I gotta run. Mom.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
Alex hits the steering wheel with frustration and turns the radio on. He needs something to distract him during the drive. It was playing the same song that was on TV when Lisa broke up with him.
Alex was crashing on the sofa that evening, doing his usual brain-numbing channel surfing. Everything seemed calm and ordinary until Lisa came home. She dropped her bag and it made a loud thud as it hit the floor like a bag of frozen meat.
“Alex, we need to talk.” Lisa sounded tired.
“Honey, it can wait til morning.” Alex said mindlessly as his finger continued to press the remote in a steady rhythm.
“No, it can’t. And you don’t even know what I wanna talk about.”
“Well, can’t it wait til morning? I’m really exhausted.”
He added a yawn at the end of his sentence to demonstrate credibility.
“Come on. We never talk in the morning.” She paused, “In fact, we haven’t been talking for a long time.”
“Sure we do.” Alex twisted his upper body slightly so that he could see her face. “We’re talking right now.”
Lisa sighed, “You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t.” Alex grew a little bit defensive, “If this isn’t talking, I don’t know what it is.”
Lisa rolled her eyes. Alex noticed there were lines underneath her eyes that he had never noticed before. She looked really tired. Alex softened,
“Listen, we’re both tired. Why don’t we…”
“I’m breaking up with you.”
…tbc