No Tomorrow, Part 55

6:00 pm

She had just enough time to have dinner before she had to go pick up her two best friends, girls who had been by her side for most of her life, girls she knew like the back of her hand and knew her like the back of theirs’, girls who had always been there for her. The three of them were determined to spend their last hours alive together, enjoying life and not worrying about regrets. This was no time for regrets.

Her biggest regret, though, was staying with Brant for three years when he really never had any intention of marrying her. He had proved that when he’d dumped her, saying she wasn’t the girl he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, the girl he hadn’t wanted with him at midnight tonight. Stacie couldn’t help but spitefully wish he wouldn’t find someone and that he would die thinking he should have stayed with Stacie, the best girl in the world for him. 

For a time she had thought he had wanted to marry her. After all, she had found the engagement ring. And then she had found the receipt under the nightstand. The date had been well over a year before. He had been holding onto it for over a year and had never once mentioned marriage. The thought of it all now made her want to cry all over again, but she forced herself to be strong. She wasn’t going to waste another tear on that man during the last hours left of her life. No, sir, she wasn’t going to.

Instead, Stacie paced around her one bedroom apartment, glancing around at the memorabilia she still kept from that relationship, a glass of wine in one hand. She wasn’t sure why she had kept everything. She figured it must have been because she thought Brant would eventually come crawling back to her. But now they were down to the last hours left of the world’s life and she still hadn’t seen a hair of him or smelled a whiff of that weird expensive cologne he wore.

She made her way to the little kitchen and set her glass down on the counter. Even if Brant came crawling back, would she take him back? Did she still want him with her at midnight? He’d left her with barely an explanation. He didn’t deserve her and she certainly didn’t want him anymore. Even if he came crawling back, begging for her to forgive him, just as she had dreamed of for the past week.

A smile spread over her face and she rolled up the sleeves of her baggy, cream colored sweater. She deftly tied her hair up into a high, messy ponytail, making sure her hair, at least, would stay out of her face. It was time to get rid of everything that reminded her of Brant. It was maybe a little late, considering it was six in the evening on the last day of Earth, but she didn’t care. She was finally eradicating him from her life, opening herself up to someone new if he were to present himself that night at the party. She was through waiting for Brant to come running back, if he was even going to.

“Better late than never,” she muttered to herself as she leaned down and reached for some trash bags under her sink. “This is going to feel so good.”

She grabbed a couple of large, black trash bags and dragged them into the middle of the living room. She would start out here first, where they had spent most of their time together. It held more memories than any other room in the apartment, including the bedroom. 

After taking a turn around the room to take stock of it, Stacie made her way over to her stereo and turned it on to a station playing upbeat popular songs. It was a station Brant wouldn’t have been caught dead listening to. She hadn’t realized until now how tired she was of jazz and how much she had missed the day’s pop songs. 

Humming along with the music, she danced her way from point to point, shoving everything that reminded her of Brant into the bags. By the time she was done with the living room and the kitchen, she had two full bags and no accent pillows left. Her stained glass lamp was also sadly smashed at the bottom of one bag, having been a birthday gift two years before from the bastard. A third full bag was the result of her cleaning out her bedroom, and throwing out half of her stuffed animals.

Standing again in her living room, she propped her hands on her hips and stared at the three, full black bags, crammed full of stuff from the years with Brant. The years that she had wasted on a man who apparently didn’t want any kind of a future with her. A man who, when she really thought about it, didn’t know her very well and who was barely compatible with her. She hadn’t realized before now that Brant had never asked her for her opinions or thoughts or even where she wanted to go to dinner on any given Saturday night. She had loved how confident he was and how he always took charge, and how she thought he knew her well enough that he didn’t have to ask her for her opinion. Now she realized just how blind she had been.

She shook her head and brushed loose strands of hair from her forehead. Looking around at the nearly bare living room, “Wow,” was all she could say. “That’s a lot of junk.”

Abruptly, she started laughing to herself, giggling almost uncontrollably as she gathered the bags and lugged them to her door. She managed to open the door and wrestle the bags out into the hallway before she realized she lived on the fourth floor, four stories above where the dumpsters sat, and one long hallway away from the elevator.

Stacie sighed to herself and blew some stray wisps of hair from her forehead with an exasperated breath, wondering just how she was going to do this. Most of the weight was pillows and stuffed animals, dozens of smaller paper mementos, and that blasted lamp, but it was awkward to drag three bags of junk around.

“Well,” she muttered to herself as she hoisted up one awkwardly shaped bag. “Looks like I’m going to get in a little exercise at the end of my life after all.”