The Opposite of Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

regular basis and hook up on late-night booty calls and drag shit out longer than is necessary and way longer than is healthy. Baby, can’t you see that the contact you’re having with him only makes things worse?”
    Mel had always called her older sister “Sis”—short for Big Sis, which was how her father had referred to her—and her younger sister “Baby,” as her birth order had determined she be referred to as “the baby” since conception. Melanie was referred to as Mel by everyone in the family, except her mother of course, who abhorred the idea of calling a female child by a man’s name.
    “What am I supposed to do?”
    Melanie was protective of her younger sister due to the fact that Jen had an exasperating habit of almost dying. When she was an infant, Jen forgot to breathe for a while, turned blue and had to be rushed to the hospital. When she was six a German Shepherd bit into her scalp and Jen bled like she was doing it on purpose. When she was eight she consumed fistfuls of poisonous pods from a golden chain laburnum tree and had to have her stomach pumped. Realizing early on Jen was prone to wandering into life-threatening situations, Melanie had taken it upon herself to watch out for her, much to their mother’s relief.
    Under normal circumstances, Melanie would have already done everything in her power to prevent Jen from getting to her current state, but her sister hadn’t been honest. Melanie felt she could gently dislodge herself from the hook because, until tonight, Jen hadn’t disclosed the full extent of her recent contact with her ex, Justin.
    “Do you really want to know how to get over this now? Or do you want to suffer just a little bit more first?”
    Jen coughed and sniffed, stalling for time. She finally choked out, “Over.”
    “Ok, good. Here’s what you need to do.”
    She laid out the plan in careful steps, making notes in a notebook to send home with Jen in the morning. Jen followed along, sniffling gently and nodding, but when Melanie got to the part about throwing out his things—cards, letters, emails, clothing, toothbrush and all—Jen got wide-eyed, threw her head back on the couch and started wailing again. Melanie expected this and sat quietly until it passed. She was consistently bewildered by her sister’s capacity for tears.
    Jen opened her puffy eyes again.
    “You’ve been reading them, haven’t you?”
    Jen stared at the ceiling and nodded.
    “Can you throw them out? Or do you need me to do it?”
    “I can do it.” Then, nodding with conviction, “I can. Really.”
    Jen sat up straight as though she’d found her resolve again, so Melanie continued.
    Between Melanie’s three-page prescription for the expulsion of Justin, and Jen’s promise to meet her twice a week for kickboxing class, Melanie felt she’d done all she could to put her back on track.
    “Can I just cry now?” Jen asked.
    “Fine. But no snot on the sofa.”
     
     
    When Jen dragged herself out of the guest room in the morning, Melanie was in the kitchen pushing eggs around a pan, the bacon already frying on the stove. She grabbed bread from the fridge and filled the toaster with four pieces. Jen sat at the breakfast bar, holding her head in her hands and inhaling the pungent smell of pork fat.
    “I feel like shit,” she said. “I’m not used to drinking wine.”
    “What do you normally drink?” Melanie asked.
    “Beer. Vodka and cranberry. Jager. That kind of thing.”
    "Geez, Jen. You’re thirty-three not twenty-three. And doesn’t Jager make you feel like shit?”
    “Sometimes, but it’s worth it.”
    Melanie poured a cup of coffee and slid it across the breakfast bar. “Drink this, it’ll help.”
    Jen grunted. She shuffled out of the kitchen and then returned with the notebook they’d been working on the night before. She sipped her coffee and studied her assignment.
    “Mel, tell me something. How do you know so much about breaking up with guys?”
    “Practice.