Picture Perfect

heart and mind, and I’d take that over the torment of having his parting shot repeating on a loop in my head any day.
    I couldn’t allow myself to breakdown, not yet. Gathering strength that I didn’t even know I possessed, I began packing. Since that didn’t take long, I wound up laying on the bed and texting Jess.
    Me: You there?
    Jess: Yep! I stayed in tonight because I’m running a mini-marathon in the morning. What’s up?
    Me: Flynn and I broke up.
    Less than a minute later, my phone was ringing. Sliding my finger across the answer button, I sniffled as I tried to hold back my tears.
    “Honey, what happened?”
    Furiously wiping at my eyes to hold the tears at bay I said, “He got mad at me because he wants to build a house for us and I said no. That was ten days ago and he hasn’t touched me since then. But seriously… a fucking house? What was I supposed to say? Should I have told him that I dream of being with him forever? I can’t let my head float up in the clouds Jess, and I couldn’t expose myself in that way. He’s going to have girls all over him the entire time we’re on the tour! I survived Lee because he was Lee and he sucked . The sex was awful, I wasn’t in love with him and we weren’t going to be together long term. But the truth is, if I saw Flynn doing something like that, I wouldn’t be able to function. He means so much more to me than anyone in the world but I just can’t pretend that we’re going to work out once the tour starts. We haven’t been talking and everything has been awful. I had to photograph each of the band members separately this week and all three of them said something to me about how unhappy he is and now they don’t think what I’m doing to him is right. And then, tonight was his sisters wedding. His Gram asked him to sing a song to me and he did and I lost it. He grabbed me and stormed me out of there soon after, and when we got home… I mean, to his house… he told me to pack my shit because he was moving me into the Mondrian tomorrow morning since we’re over.”
    She was silent for a moment, I guess gathering her thoughts. I was banking on her agreeing with me, and I was flabbergasted when she ripped into me.
    “Let me get this straight Tessa, because at this point it feels like I just sniffed glue. Flynn FUCKING Rand flew out here to make up with you after you changed your cell phone number. He then spent a week living in our two-bedroom apartment, which I imagine is about the size of his living room and has a total of zero amenities, unless you count our beautiful view of the apartment dumpster area. He met your parents, talked them and me into flying out for the first two shows of the tour at his expense. Then he went to work begging and got you to move in with him until the tour started. He hangs on your every fucking word, beams at you as though you just created the wheel and has his grandmother putting up family pictures with you in them on Twitter. You’re living the dream with a man who worships the ground on which you walk and this is your response to that? I love you like a toddler loves bath toys, but I’m not going to sugarcoat this for you. Bitch, you’re tripping. No joke, I saw you with him for seven days and I can say without hesitation, he’s in love with you . But was that enough to calm your crazy ass down? No! You went to DEFCON FOUR and made some shit up in your head about him having a tour harem. Then he had the balls, the fucking heart, to put himself out there and ask you to build a house with him and YOU SHOT HIM DOWN? You ripped his heart out Tessa, I guaran-fucking-tee you that. You made a huge mistake and the worst part is, you’re crazy in love with him but you’re too fucking chicken-shit to take a chance so you’re throwing it all away. Pride goes before a fall, and if you don’t apologize and explain to him why you acted like a straight up asshole, you’ll regret it until the day you die.”
    I started to cry midway through her speech because I was terrified she was right.
    “But Jess, you don’t even know the worst of it. When we got home… no, I mean, back to his house tonight and he told me it was over, he said that it was good because now he’d be single on the tour. He said I wouldn’t have as much opportunity to hook-up as he would so he suggested I look at the road crew because they dealt in groupie cast-offs. He basically just called me a groupie slut while confirming that what I was