I Could Use Somebody in this Windy City

“Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you! Happy birthday dear JayJay. Happy Birthday to you!” I looked up to see Leon with a huge cake in his hands. Twenty candles were burning and before I knew it, all of the people in the shop, which were about ten, were huddled around the counter smiling at me. Someone called out to blow out the candles. With a small smile, I took a deep breath and blew all of the candles out in one good breath.

A round of clapping, and the coffee shop was back to it’s normal volume. The huge cake stood on the counter as Leon ran to the back room. He came back out with a knife and handed it to me. “I know I said some things Leon, but I didn’t know you were alright with it”, I chuckled aiming the knife towards my chest. A slap to my arm and a loud annoyed ‘no’, Leon snatched the knife from me and cut a piece of the cake, placed it on a small plate, and handed it to me.

Leon disappeared again and came back with a huge stack of plates and a cup filled with forks. Smiling, he turned to the room and took a deep breath. “Anyone want to celebrate with some cake?”, A line of people were soon by the counter. Leon cut the cake and handed it out. As everyone got their cake, they would wish me a happy birthday.

Honestly, I liked it. Sure, I hated a lot of people, but having anyone say a word to me lately made my day. Especially today, my twentieth birthday. Not only did I have to spend it at work, but Leon was the only person that wished me a happy birthday. Not my parents, not even Lori my ‘best friend’ wished me a happy birthday. If it was my nineteenth birthday I wouldn’t be mad, but this was Twenty, I wasn’t considered a teen anymore.

After Leon passed out cake to everyone in the shop, I told him I had to go take a break to smoke. I’ve been doing it a lot lately. When I lived with Jon, I was always occupied by something, or I was around the guys which meant I couldn’t smoke. Now that I was alone and depressed, I was smoking a pack in two days, my worst yet.

Once I walked out of the Coffee Shop, the door reopened and Leon popped out, a serious expression on his face. “You take your pill today?”, he whispered. I shook my head and watched him scowl and walk back into the shop.

A week ago, I went to the doctors. Leon forced me to go, because I wasn’t acting like myself anymore. Instead of snapping rude comments and being sarcastic, I just sat there and did whatever I had to do. I didn’t even pick up the AP magazines anymore, which was Leon’s biggest clue something was wrong. When I got to the doctors, after a series of questions and tests, I was diagnosed with depression. There was no stage or anything, according to the doctor they can’t put stages on it because everyone’s different. So, instead of telling me to cheer up and suck it up like most normal people would do, he did the one thing all doctors love to do.

He put me on Prozac.

Now I had to take two pills a day. One every twelve hours. Trust me when I tell you I was not a happy camper. Even though he told me to take them, I would skip days. So far, I only took eight of the fourteen pills I was suppose to take. I just couldn’t force myself to do it.

I lit my cigarette and stood on the curb in front of the shop. People walked by behind me, but I completely ignored them. When it finally burned down to the filter, I took one last drag, then let the smoke out through my mouth and threw the bud into the middle of the street where the orange slowly faded into the darkness. As I stood up, I turned and ran right into someone, causing me to fall back into the street. Luckily, I caught my balance before I fell into the middle of the street where cars were whizzing by.

“Jayden?”, I took a deep breath and pulled out my carton of cigarettes and took another one out. I looked up, placing it between my lips and took a deep breath. “You got your job back?”, I nodded and watched him scratch the back of his head, his cheeks noticeably redder under the dim streetlight.

“How are you?”, I asked through grinding teeth. A small smile made it’s way onto Jon’s face. Shrugging, he looked up at the cancer stick between my lips and sighed. “Shut up about this”, I pulled out my lighter and lit the cigarette in my mouth. Taking a long drag, I turned and let the smoke out away from Jon’s face. I didn’t want to be rude after all. Cigarette smoke in your face is extremely unpleasant.

After a few more seconds of silence, he gave me a small smile. “I turned twenty a few weeks back”, nodding, I felt the urge to tell him today was my birthday, but instead took a long drag on my cigarette and let it out in a sigh.

“Congrats”, I whispered and watched him move uncomfortably in front of me. I flicked the end of my cigarette and let the ashes fly into the street. “How’s Lori?”, he gave me a questioning look. “She hasn’t called me in two weeks”, I said bitterly and looked up at Jon from the corner of my eye. Instead of shrugging, he told me Lori had recently found a boyfriend and had been pretty consumed in him. It made me want to throw up, honestly.

Jon asked me if I found anyone, and I laughed as a response. “All I found was a new craving for cigarettes and a bottle of fucking Prozac”, I snapped and threw my half finished cigarette into the street. “I have to get back to my job”, I spat and pushed passed him and walked into the shop. As I entered, Leon screamed ‘Happy Birthday’ to me and handed me a box wrapped in gift wrap. Turning slightly, Jon looks shocked as the door slammed shut.

He didn’t came into the shop, and I was able to sit down at an open table and open up my gift. Smiling, I picked up the box and opened it. Inside was a Third Eye Blind tee shirt and two front row tickets to see them at the United Centre. “You and me, Jay baby!”, Leon squealed and pulled me out of the seat taking me into a hug and spinning me around a few times. Chuckling, I was set back down on my own two feet and chuckled.

“You are the best person on the face of the Earth”, I chuckled and watched Leon nod and walk to the back room. He came back out with a matching tee shirt and forced me to put my new shirt on over my tank top. With no fight, I did as I was told and smiled at him.

“Hold onto the tickets, I will lose them”, I chuckled and watched Leon nod and strut to the back room singing one of third Eye blinds’ songs. Walking back behind the counter, I felt my phone vibrate from my back pocket. Pulling it out, I looked to see Lori calling me. One stupid moment later, I was on the phone with her.

She started babbling on about how sorry she was that we haven’t talked and that she’s been so caught up in him. I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t catch his name. She then went on to wish me a Happy Birthday. Immediately following that, she told me that her and Heidi had gotten into a fight because she was talking shit about me. It didn’t bother me as much ads I expected. Heidi just looked like one of those girls. Has to try to start something with everyone who threatens her.

Pathetic.

“There’s something else”, Lori’s voice became serious and I let out a heavy sigh ready to hear everything about Heidi and Jon. About how they were going to get married and whatever else they planned. “Heidi’s pregnant again”

“It’s been a fucking month!”, I screamed causing a few people to look over worried. “One month she‘s already cheated on him with another guy?”, my voice cracked because of the loudness. I jumped over the counter and stormed outside of the shop and sat down on the curb where I smoked. After a few deep breaths trying to calm myself down, I shook my head and told Lori to continue on with whatever she was saying. “I was talking to Heidi. Just after I mentioned you and how I told you about my new hair color and how you called me fire crotch.”, I let out a small chuckle, “She told me the kid was Jon’s”

The phone slipped out of my hand. My whole body shut down and I felt thought after thought jam up in my mind while Lori’s words run loudly in my ears. I herd her faint screaming from the phone by my feet, but I had no energy to reach down and get it.

Sure, I hated him. Seriously, I hated him. But I still had feelings for him. I still loved him. I mean, after everything, I still had the strong feeling that Heidi was going to puck up and I’d have a chance.

What Lori said crushed every thought I ever had about getting back with Jon. Realizing this, it killed me. My heart ached, my legs felt numb, and my arms felt like they had fifty pounds tied to them. After my vocal chords came back from paralysis, I reached down and grabbed my phone.

“I’ll call you later”, I whispered and shut my phone. Slipping it in my right pocket, I walked back into the shop and went to the back, grabbing my hoodie Sharp gave me, and my time card. Checking out, I told Leon I had to leave and tore out of the building, tears rushing down my cheeks.

Call after call, my phone buzzed in my pocket. Call after call, I ignored it. All I wanted to do know was get back home and got to sleep. I wanted to take my pills, and get to bed as quick as possible and just sleep. I don’t care when I woke up, how long I missed work, or who was looking for me.

I give up on the human race.

They all suck.

When I reached my apartment, I took out my phone and noticed eighteen missed calls and four new voicemails. With one good press, I shut my phone off. Kicking off my shoes, I went into my room and slipped on a pair of sweats. From there, I made my way into my kitchen where I pulled out my bottle of Prozac and dumped four into my hand. I didn’t know what kind of pills they were, what milligram they were, but I didn’t care. I knew people when I was younger who took five and nothing happened to them, so I’m sure four would do absolutely nothing to me. My body was usually good with holding stuff.

I grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and one by one swallowed the four pills in my hand. After they were gone, I took a deep breath and threw the bottle into the living room. After it slammed against one of my windows, my mind went on a spree of bringing up thoughts of Jon and I.

Memory after memory, I felt my fingers run through my hair. On the ones where we kissed, I laced my fingers with the roots of my hair and shut my eyes, shaking my head violently until the memory was gone from behind my eyelids.

An hour later, when the memories were finished taunting me, I was drenched in sweat and my heart was racing in my chest. Scared, I walked to my bathroom and put my hands on the edges of the sink. Looking up at my reflection, I scowled and felt my mouth open.

“Look at you”, I spat at my reflection as tears rolled from my cheeks. “Look how pathetic you are. Crying. Crying over what!”, I barked and watched as more tears gushed from the corners of my eyes. “Over some no good, stupid guy”, with the palm of my hand I hit it against the mirror. “No good”, I hit the mirror harder, “Stupid”, I hit it again, “Guy”, I screamed and with one good swing punched the center of the mirror and watched as the blood from my knuckles dripped down the sink and the pieces of glass shattered in the sink and fell onto the tiled floor. “And I hate you”, I whimpered as the pain from my hand overtook my thoughts.

Sweat still rushing down my face accompanied by a new nausea feeling and light headedness, I stumbled out of the bathroom leaving a blood trail through the hallway and wrapped my hand up in the bottom of my tank top. When I reached my room, I quickly opened a draw and took out a tee shirt. I wrapped it around my hand and shut my eyes tightly, trying to get the dizzy spells to go away, but nothing worked.

Feeling sick and dizzy, I stumbled back into the living room and grabbed the remote to the television. Heart racing, I tried to calm myself down. I figured I could just be worked up from hurting my hand, or something like that.

That’s exactly what’s wrong. It’s left over adrenaline from punching a mirror.

With that in mind, I started flipping through the channels, trying to find something to watch, With every few channels, I would feel myself lean over to the side and shut my eyes. Every time I detected it, I would stand up and walk around a little.

As the nausea grew worse, I got up and stumbled into the kitchen, my tee shirt wrapped around my hand fell off and stayed on the hallway floor. I opened the fridge with my left hand and pulled out another water bottle. Opening it with my teeth, I chugged half of it and squeezed my eyes shut trying to get the horrible feeling like I was about to pass out to leave my head.

After a few deep breaths, I cracked my eyes open and chugged the rest of the water. When I only felt worse, I walked back into the living room and picked up my phone. I sat down on the couch, feeling five hundred times worse and held my button down on the end button trying to turn my phone on. After five different attempts, the screen lit up.

I picked my head up and watched the room spin before me. Loosing balance, I fell to the floor on my knees, my cell phone skipping all the way into the hallway. Once the dizzy spell went by, I blinked through the headache and sweat pouring down my face and crawled across the floor.

Picking up my phone, I watched as seven new text messages appeared on my phone. Instead of opening them, I shut my phone and held it tightly in my hand as I stared at the floor and tried to push myself up. Mind going five hundred miles a minute along with my heart rate, I stood up and fell into the wall.

Leaning all of my weight onto the wall, I shut my eyes and took a long deep breath. When I reopened my eyes, I had two more new messages on my cell phone. When I checked them, ten were from Lori, and the first text message was from Leon, the last was one from Jon.

“Jon”, I cried out and clicked the button to read it. As it popped up on the screen, my vision went fuzzy and only after blinking a few times and rubbing my eyes was I able to read the small little hite letters on my phone’s screen.

Just seeing if you’re alright. Lori said she couldn’t get a hold of you. Text me back, please. Let someone know you’re alright

Tears rolling down my cheeks I clicked the ‘reply’ button. I thought about it for a second, surprised I was able to successfully push all of the thoughts to the back of my head. In a moment of bravery, or so you can call it, I typed everything I felt. How I wanted Jon back to how I was sorry about being a bitch to him all of those times, At the end, I informed him I was feeling really sick at my place and that there was something really wrong.

Once I took my weight off of the wall, I collapsed to the hardwood floor. My phone landed within arms reach. Trying to get up, I felt all of the energy in my body completely wash away. With only enough push to move my left arm, I reached out and grabbed the phone. Vision blurry and head spinning, I pressed a button. Narrowing my eyes, I watched my phone shut off.

The message was erased.

With not even enough energy to grunt, my body shut down. My eyes fluttered shut as every thought in my mind was washed away by a wave of darkness.