13-Sep-19

The door snapped shut behind her. She breathed heavily; glad to be alone. She let the smile she had worn all day from her face. Her bag dropped with a thud at her feet followed closely by her jacket. She stepped out of her shoes and moved towards the kitchen. One hand held the other as her feet softly slapped against the tiles in time with the beating of her heart.
In the kitchen she took a glass from the drying rack, turning it she placed it on the counter before moving towards the fridge.
She pulled the wine bottle out, unscrewing the cap she filled the glass. She didn't bother to return the bottle, knowing it would go down before the warmth overtook it.
She sank into the seat of her sofa and sank into herself. Reaching for the remote, she turned on something she would only half watch. The first sip stung only slightly; the second not at all.
Looking down briefly at her phone - no messages flagged from the person she knew wouldn't send one. She took another sip and scrolled mindlessly through her timeline.
Engagement. Children. Smiling faces.
People always put their best parts on social media. She mused that was why her profile was empty. The good in her life seemed to pass by as fleeing moments of happiness and hope.
She had finished her first glass and moved to refill it. She brought the bottle with her this time.
Images of relationships flickered across the screen she half watched; memories of what she had thought was love haunted her. How did she always get these things so wrong? Were the couples in these shows, on her beaming timeline, as one-sided deep down, as shallow, as she had known? Was it all some unachievable dream being sold?
Were people actually happy?
With the second glass empty she felt the disconnect that she welcomed. Tears formed in the corners of eyes that didn't really feel like hers. Tears rolled down cheeks she had no claim to.
The voice swelled from the back of her mind as she poured another, fuller glass that while she detached herself like this no one would want to know her; she was about as much of a loser as she had been told by people she ignorantly insisted were wrong.