7. A Flight to catch

A knock on the door broke her train of thoughts. She felt sick inside as her head would explode any moment. Her stomach hurt badly. She still wanted to throw up, but she had nothing left in her stomach to do so. She mentally promised herself that she would never drink alcohol again. Not that she drank it, but occasionally she had a glass of white or red wine with dinner, sometimes a glass of excellent cognac. In fact, she also couldn't think of her favourite pancakes, macarons, or any food in general. She loved good food so much. This was not her at all... It was supposed to be a reset from her perfectionism, but it turned out to be a dud.

"Jo, are you ok? You've been in there half an hour now." She heard Matthews' upset voice call out to her from outside.

"Yeah… I'm fine…"

"It doesn't sound like that. Can I come in?" He asked, but came in without waiting for an answer. He was afraid that something bad might have happened to her again.

She was sitting on the floor leaning against the toilet bowl, looking pathetic. Her face was pale. It was extremely rare to see her like this. In this state, she was the exact opposite of the ‘Miss Perfect’ whom everyone knew. He leaned down and touched her forehead.

"Babe, you have a fever!" He said lifting her off the floor.

"Hm… Leave me alone, please. I will puke…" She muttered.

"No problem!" He took her to the living room and put her on the armchair. "Just hold on for a minute…"

Matthew was soon back with a couple things in his hands. He laid out a flat white sheet on the sofa and, then placed a few pillows on it. He lifted her up again and set her down on the sofa, covering her with a grey blanket as he passed on a pink bucket to her.

"Here, you go... puke as much as you want!"

Jo didn't know how to react upon seeing the pink bucket on her lap. She was tired, very tired and she didn't feel like talking to him. She leaned her back against the pile of pillows and closed her eyes clutching it tightly in her hands. A moment later she heard his footsteps fading away...

She thought about the trip home in a few hours. How was she going to survive the three hour long flight? She had to go to work the next morning. There were a few deadlines coming up for her and she still had a few piles of documents to finish. 

Should she take the bucket with her on the plane or just a few empty plastic bags? How was she going to get to the airport? How to return the rented car? She had a training scheduled for the afternoon and then a meeting followed it in the evening for which she didn’t have everything ready yet. She still had to prepare a multimedia presentation too... Many such thoughts swirled in her head.

A familiar voice woke her up. He was talking to someone... He was talking to… eh… Was she back again at the party? She was thinking of some kind of escape. She couldn’t take it anymore. Finally, she opened her heavy eyelids.

"Hi, Mike!" She muttered... "What are you doing here?"

"You look pitiful, Miss Perfect!" Mike laughed as he slowly covered the bruises on her legs with some icy-cold cream.

"Yeah... It's really funny. I feel even worse…" She groaned. Another Mr. Perfect. Do I really need to see that face again? She thought. She saw him yesterday and it was too much to see him again. She would have to listen to his lecture.

"What have you done? You look like a victim of… domestic violence. Who should I beat up?” He was laughing looking at her bruises. "Did you forget your self-defence lessons you received from us?"

"Very funny Mike!"

"What happened? Did you lose a battle against the wall?”

"That's not my fault!" She gritted through clenched teeth. "It's not my fault that Matt has more damn cosmetic products than any woman."

"What are you talking about?" Matthew came in with two cups in his hand.

Matthew looked at Mike, then at Jo. He was busy in the kitchen and didn't hear their conversation. He didn't know what they were debating so fiercely about but judging by the expressions on their faces, they must have raised some very serious topics because they both looked very serious.

"I had a collision with a shelf and tried to save Matt's stuff, at least a few cans of shaving foam, tons of aftershave balms and over a dozen bottles of perfumes."

"Collision with the shelves? An interesting accident." Mike couldn't stop laughing imagining her completely drunk, grabbing the bottles of cosmetics. However, she wasn’t one to care about any material things so it sounded fishy.

"If you came here to laugh at me, you can leave. I'm not in the mood to talk to you."

"You should have a husband and a bunch of children by now. Don't talk nonsense." Mike was still laughing.

"Why don't you have it yourself?" She tried to defend herself.

Mike hesitated for a moment. ‘Why did all his relationships fail?’ He often asked himself this question and he had multiple theories for it. He wanted to shout in her face that it was all because of her, but at the last second, he got a hold of his emotions.

"I am a busy man and I chose to save the world!" He said with a poker face.

She knew that Mike just came back from a field hospital located in a refugee camp in the middle of ‘nowhere’. He worked there for a few months so she didn't want to continue the topic.

"Because we are a bunch of losers, babe!" Matthew added honestly. "You are the only one! One of a kind! We cannot have you, we cannot clone you… Is there a point to look for a poor fake replacement?"

Mike was truly speechless because Matthew put it very aptly; the confession was right to the point. There was a long silence in the living room. Everyone had their own theory, but nobody wanted to argue anymore. Digging up old scarred wounds could be too painful for each of them.

Jo was shocked. She didn’t know if she should laugh or cry. Mike was her ex and her first love, but it didn't work out long ago when they tried for the first time around. On the other hand, Matthew was her best friend since she remembered.

"Don't tell me that I am the cause of your personal failures. Mike, you are a fucking freak!"

He was a freak and he knew that, so he did not even try to defend himself. "After you, nobody is good enough!" With a poker face, he stated emphatically. "Don't move that fucking hand, or you'll pop out another vein!"

He held her hand tightly until she felt pain. At that moment, Jo realised that she had a drip attached to her right hand. Slowly she took a look at it and she was shocked. There was a huge, dark-blue bruise on her left one.

"Mike, stop it. Take it out! I have to go. I have a flight to catch!" She said, trying to get up.

"Shut up! Don't move!" He had already started to lose his patience with her. When she slept for over an hour, he held onto her hand and the drip so that she would not damage her delicate vein. "I have no patience with such patients."

She really wanted to show him the middle finger, if only she could move.