Return to Celio Read Online Free PDF

couldn’t help but smile, wandering back, for a minute, to my memories of my little office, my window with the view of the river, and my coworkers: Sally, with her exaggerated drawl and her flair for the dramatic; Roy, who always acted like such a hard guy, but who was really nothing more than a big soft teddy bear; and Sue, who was positively the nicest person I’d ever known. God, I missed them.
    “Yeah,” I said, “I loved it...but I gave it up. I left my job, my home, my Aunt Gin, and my brother behind. Because that’s what you do when you’re in a relationship with someone. You trust them and you make sacrifices, but Gregg misled me. He said the new job would make our lives perfect and we’d be crazy not to go. He painted a picture that turned out to be very different from what he promised.”
    “How so?”
    “He works all the time. Early in the morning until late into the night, even weekends, and we never see each other. The town is so small, I’ve yet to find a job, and it gets lonely. We haven’t had a meal together in months, not to mention a conversation that didn't end up in a fight.”
    “Why do you stay?”
    “I still don’t understand why Gregg wanted me to come with him in the first place. I could have stayed with my aunt or my brother in St. Louis until he got settled and still have been working. And now...”
    I trailed off. What was I doing whining about my relationship to a perfect stranger when I should be focusing on staying alive? I glanced around at my barren surroundings, which seemed nothing more than a repeating loop of nothingness.
    Darrios turned, regarding me like he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure if he should. “What does he say about it?” he finally asked.
    I shrugged and sighed again. “That I’m being ridiculous. That I’m unreasonable to bother him with these silly feelings when I should be more supportive, and that I better get used to it because he has a career now.”
    “He sounds like he’s a selfish tool to me,” Darrios said, cutting me off.
    “You don’t even know him,” I argued, not wanting to defend him and wondering why I was.
    “I know how he sounds. Like he pressured you to give up your job that you loved, moved you to place that you obviously hate and have no ties to anyone except him, and he sure doesn’t seem too concerned...silly feelings? Sounds like the only feelings that matter to him are his. How am I doing so far?”
    “I...I...it’s not that simple,” I stammered.
    I clamped my mouth shut and bit down on my lip when I heard how lame I sounded.
    “The people I know in relationships have a balance of give and take. Based on what you just told me, it sounds like you give and he takes. That’s all I’m saying.”
    “He gives!”
    Darrios looked right at me. “Really? Give me an example.”
    I hated having to itemize things on the fly. I searched my brain and came up blank. “Oh, I know. He took me on this trip...well the trip to Hollywood...which is how I ended up here.”
    “Why isn’t he with you, then?”
    I recalled the fight we’d had after his assistant, Amanda, showed up in our hotel room, surprised to see me, proving just how thoughtless Gregg actually was. I mean, how did he think that was going to play out? Like some scene in a bad porno film? Seriously?
    Stupidly, I thought he’d planned the trip for the two of us. You know, to reach out to me and try to fix our crumbling relationship. He went along with my assumption and played me like a fiddle. God, how could I have been so stupid?
    I thought about Gregg and tried to feel something besides angry with myself for allowing him to play me like he did, but I couldn’t. Strange. Could I be over him this quickly?
    I mean, if my boyfriend of over a year was screwing his assistant, shouldn’t I have been devastated? Shouldn’t I have been outraged and crushed? I wasn’t. What did that say about me? That I moved across the state with a man I didn’t care that much