Surgical Removal

The day after I returned from the most boring weekend ever wasted in Oregon, I got a phone call from Taylor. He called from his work phone, and woke me up. "Hey," he stuttered, "we need to talk." He paused. "So I think we need to break up."

My heart started to race, was I even awake? Where was I? Who was this? I looked around my room, and situated myself on my bed. Awake, check. My parents' house in my room, check. Taylor, check.

"Are you there?" he asked. "Yes, I'm here," I sneered. "So, I just wanted to call you and let you know..." he stuttered. "You woke me up to break up with me?!" I screeched. "Uh, yes, I guess so" he said. "Ok, great, thanks for the info!" I yelled back and hung up the phone. He didn't call back. I was full of rage, and I had nowhere to put it.

I had seen on a music video a girl get so pissed off that she destroyed her room. She ripped down all of her posters, tore up photos, took a bat to her mirror, and punched in her walls. I knew that was not the right thing to do. I would have to clean all that crap up, so I did better. I flew off and under my bed and grabbed my Taylor box, an old shoe box that I had kept movie tickets, small gifts and mementos that reminded me of Taylor. I stood up and threw it against my mirror closet doors. The box exploded and the door shook, threatening to crack.

Then, I found pictures of us on my bedroom wall and grabbed them all and shredded them. That wasn't nearly cathartic enough, so I put them in my birdcage so my love bird, Dottie, could poop all over them for the next week. "Good for the environment!" I yelled. "Don't want to waste perfectly good shit!" Dottie squawked and jumped around in her cage.

Next, I found the stuffed cow Taylor had barely won me at Great America a month before. "Now, you're gonna get it cow!" I yelled at the cheap stuffed animal. I took him outside to the garbage can with a pair of scissors and chopped his head off. A million tiny beads fell out of him and into the garbage. I left this head at the top of the pile. I headed back into my room and finished cleaning and clearing out any signs of Taylor. It was the craziest I had ever felt about a guy a barely liked.

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Two days later, I was feeling much better. Taylor was gone from my room, and I was keeping him out of my thoughts. I had enough to think about anyway; I was in my doctor's office prepping for sinus surgery. I had had trouble breathing for as long as I could remember, and this surgery was supposed to fix all that. I remember changing into a backless gown, laying down on a hard hospital bed, the nurse sticking me with a needle and telling me to count back from 10. I got to 8. My next memory was when I was coming to.

I tried to sit up in bed, but my body wouldn't do it, so I flopped my head to my right. I made out the shape of a person next to my bed and called out, "Taylor?" My mom answered back, "No honey, Taylor's not here." "Why?" I asked, confused and unsure about where I was. "You two broke up a few days ago, I'm sorry" she responded. "Why?" I asked her. "I don't know, you never told me. Don't you remember?" Then tears started running down my cheeks, and I suddenly had to use the bathroom. The nurse and my mom helped me into the bathroom where I started to remember what had happened over the last few days, the break up and the demolition.

The next day was a blur. I was highly medicated, but I still managed to feel a heartbeat in my head whenever I was awake. Two days later, I got the courage to look at myself in the mirror. I looked like one of those LA bimbos who gets nose jobs on Dr. 90210. My nose was covered with gauze on top, under and all around. Two plastic pieces were shoved up my nose, my face around my nose was bruised, and my body ached. I tried to clean my face a bit, but it just hurt, so I left the bloody gauze around my nose and just cleaned the sleep out of my eyes. I sat back on my parents' couch, and made myself comfortable. Then, I heard a knock at the door. It was Ace.

He came in the door and smiled his perfect smile at me. I grunted and waved. He sat next to me and said, "hey, what are we watching?" I hadn't realized I was watching tv. My mom brought over some yogurt, something she had tried to get me to eat all day. "Please eat something," she said to me. "So good to see you, Ace." He smiled and said, "good to see you too Pattie." She put the yogurt on the table next to me, and Ace took it in his hands, opened the top, stuck a spoon inside and handed it to me. "Here," he said "eat it." I slowly took it, and ate exactly three bites before putting it back on the table. Ace looked at the yogurt and at me with my bloody bandages, half open eyes, greasy hair, dirty clothes and asked"so, are you going to finish that? I'm hungry." I tried to smile, and shook my head no. In typical Ace form, he grabbed it and finished it quickly. He talked to me for a bit longer, hugged me, wished me a quick recovery and left. I smiled, took another vicodin, and fell asleep.