I Regret to Inform You I Made These Plans When I Gave a Shit and Things Have Changed

Willow doesn’t even get the satisfaction of saying Brandon broke up with her. They were never a couple, not officially, their relationship undefined after six months of perfunctory orgasm-less sex (for her at least). Her friends constantly pointed out she was way more into him than he was into her, all of which became obvious when Brandon ended things by saying “we should just chill for a while,”

so…

Willow calls in sick to her shift at the bank

unwraps mini-Twix

scrolls Netflix for The Vampire Diaries

wanting nothing more than to lose herself in fangs and Damon Salvatore’s blue eyes

but

The Vampire Diaries isn’t on Netflix anymore

it’s on HBO Max

fuck you Netflix

there are too many streaming services

and

whatever service Willow subscribes to never has anything good on, so the only rerun she gets is replaying the final argument she had with Brandon when she told him she wasn’t ready to get on a plane to Japan with him on the dream vacation she’s talked about her entire life

too many coughing people packed together in a metal tube

too much turbulence

crashing of course

into the ocean

sharks

all issues dealing with her anxiety she talked with Brandon about openly, and how crazy is it Brandon knows her better than anybody, which is why she thinks she loves him, and yet he still doesn’t give a shit about her, and if he can’t love her, then no one will, because seriously, he’s not even that fucking great

“finding himself” after getting fired from another parking valet gig

his absolutely ridiculous handlebar mustache

how rude he is to cashiers, waitresses, people walking dogs

which only makes it worse, how lame she must be for a loser like him to break up with her, and she’ll gladly stay in bed, Twix chocolate and caramel congealing on her tongue, miserable, alone, except her friends are concerned, and they text about painting and wine at the local art studio, and Willow’s depression is hijacked by her social anxiety, and she texts her friends hinting she can’t make it, but her friends refuse to abandon her, and they show up to drag her out of her apartment the same way they used to drag her out of the library to frat parties in their college days, and she relents, cleaning the Twix off her teeth, putting a bra on, melting into sympathetic hugs, and the whole drive over to the art studio her friends confess how much they despise Brandon, how he’s a fuckboy, how she deserves better, and Willow confesses

she’s too boring

scared of everything

owns a passport she’ll never use

the same things Brandon said to her when she backed out of going to Japan, and her friends remind her of all the times she was anything but boring, nearly peeing themselves reminiscing about the time Willow skinny-dipped in College Square fountain, and Willow relaxes a bit after her first glass of Merlot,

paintbrush in hand

meticulously stroking brown paint into the shape of a tree

sponging faint pink for cherry blossoms

which the instructor explains are currently blooming in Japan, and Willow could go see them, she could, she swears one day she will, and although her painting holds no resemblance to the instructor’s, she loves it, and afterwards she carries her painting into a tattoo shop a few blocks away, and her friends take turns holding her hand as a copy of her cherry blossom tree is inked onto her ankle like a promise, and at the end of the night she stumbles giddily into her apartment, and she sees a text from Brandon asking if he can come over, eggplant and purple devil face emojis, and she says yes because she drank four glasses of wine and shouldn’t be trusted with her phone, her cheeks and heart and body flush, and when Brandon knocks on the door

she opens it

he leans in the door frame

smirking beneath his shitty mustache

like he expected this, her giving in to him

like he’s the only excitement in her life

and she cringes at the thought of that mustache touching her

so before she slams the door in his face, she tells him they are officially done, then texts her friends, asks who’s up for an adventure, takes another look at that beautiful tattoo on her ankle, thinks of Japan, the smell of cherry blossoms everywhere.