Counting Down Read Free

can’t be homeless Abbs. I mean, I could sleep at the gallery, but where would I shower and stuff? I could n’t make it as a cardboard box guy who smells like cheese and wears stained clothes. I’m not going to sell much art from the walls working the hobo look. And with Christmas just around the corner…”
    Damn him, Abby thought. She couldn’t turn him out on the streets. Though part of her really, really wanted to. In fact she imagined she’d get some sort of pleasure out of knowing he was camped out on the concrete -like couch of his gallery office with no TV and no beer stocked fridge. She sighed and closed her eyes for a second.
    Abby let out a heavy, frustrated breath. “Fine, you can stay here until you find a place. But you sleep on the couch Alexander Peterson. Got it?”
    “Yes Ma’am.” He looked up with a wide grin. “It’s a nice couch. I always liked it. Very cozy, you know.” He patted the sofa like it was his favorite pet, kicked his feet up and clicked the remote to turn on the TV.
    “Yeah, this won’t be awkward at all,” Abby mumbled. “Are you still going to sell my work at the gallery?”
    “Of course, Ba by. You know you’re my favorite artist.” Abby held back the urge to roll her eyes.
    “Great. I apprec iate it. Oh, and one more thing.”
    “Yeah, what is it Gorgeous?”
    “No more pet names. No more Baby, Sweetie, Honeyass, or whatever weird combination of bizarre sentiments you feel like using this week. We’re not a couple so we don’t do terms of endearment. Okay?”
    “Yeah, okay.” His eyes were wounded as he took another sip of his beer. “I understand.”
    “Great. I’m going to bed then. See you in the morning Roomie.” She emphasized the last word on purpose, hoping to get it through his head that they shared an apartment now and nothing more.
    Once in her room the determination Abby had felt in the living room started to fade fast. The bed looked too big and cold to sleep in alone. She hated sleeping by herself with no one to throw an arm over in the middle of the night. And how would she dose off without hearing Alex’s rhythmic breathing and subtle nose whistling?
    She walked into the connected bathroom to brush her teeth and take her anti-depressants like she did every night. She opened the medicine cabinet, screwed the cap from the orange bottle and took a pill from top . With the little white capsule sitting in her palm she began to wonder. Why wasn’t she more upset? She had lived with Alex for over a year, had even thought she might be able to love him at one point. Why wasn’t she crying in agony and reaching for the nearest pint of chocolate ice cream?
    Had she ever really cared for him the way she was supposed to, the way he wanted her to? No, Abby had let Alex into her life because he could make her feel something, if only for a time. She realized then that since she had started taking the pills five years before, she hadn’t felt anything really, no true emotion. Her life had become little more than one big apathetic blur.
    The only upside had been her work. She was able to paint without being governed by her moods or emotions. And surprisingly people liked to buy art that was dead and unfeeling. In the last three years alone she had sold enough to make a nice life for herself a nd for the most part she had been happy. At least, that’s what she thought it could be called.
    Life should have meaning, she thought. She wanted to know what it was like to feel again, to really experience the gamut of human emotion. There was more to life than a career and decent sex. She wanted to laugh sincerely and cry at the end of sappy movies. She wanted to know what it was like to love someone and really love them; love them so hard that you couldn’t imagine life without them.
    With a mix of determination and uncertainty, Abby walked to the toilet and dumped every last pill into the water. As the little capsules swirled around the porcelain and finally