After Tonight

Rob’s P.O.V.
I let Abbey pack her suitcase in peace. As much as I wanted to be with her at that point, I knew she wanted space. It was no use prolonging the inevitable—we were separating. She kissed me once more, quickly as if touching me a second longer would bring on the Apocalypse. Then she was gone.
My fiancé was gone and so was my dog. I was totally alone and it was strange, sleeping in our bed without feeling her warm body. I had always gone to sleep knowing that I’d see her the next morning and she’d throw her arms around me and smother me with her kisses. But that night I went to sleep blind. I couldn’t see what the future held for the two of us.
Perhaps this was supposed to happen. Maybe she would be better off without me.
…
I got her first phone call the night she left. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t—it hurt too much. When she called a second time, the next afternoon, I didn’t answer because I didn’t know what to say. By the third time, I was just embarrassed that I hadn’t answered the previous two calls. When my fingers finally dialed her number, I hung up halfway through the first ring. I wondered whether or not she hated me yet.
Then I wondered if I was trying to make her hate me? If she hated me, wouldn't this be a lot easier?
Tom called a few days before I was scheduled to leave. He wanted to let me know that he’d be in neighborhood more often because—get this—he was moving in with Grace. I sputtered a quick response, nearly choking on my own spit.
“That’s…that’s fantastic!” I gritted my teeth and rubbed my forehead. How was I supposed to tell him now? “Really, that’s awesome.”
“I can really hear it in your enthusiasm.” Tom chuckled. “What, you don’t like Grace?”
“Abbey’s pregnant!” I just blurted it out. And then I kicked the chair leg in front of me. “She’s keeping it and I think we might be finished."
“Wait, what?”
“I don’t know what to do.” And then I proceeded to spill it all. It probably wasn’t the “manly” thing to do, but I did it anyway.
I was usually good with words, but no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t find one to describe how I felt. I was a little bit miserable, a little bit sad, a little bit heart-broken, a little bit confused and very angry. Inconsolable? Melancholy? Disheartened? Enraged? They all seemed to work. Maybe I could invent a new word—incomelodishenraged.
So when asked, I simply said that I was feeling incomelodshenraged. It made complete sense.
Whatever anger I had been lacking in New York, I definitely made up for it in Vancouver. It was like an enormous puzzle, and I always got angry when I couldn’t figure out a puzzle. It was usually easy for me to work through this kind of stuff—acting was my release, the way making muffins until four a.m. was Abbey’s. But this, this was so different; Abbey wasn’t something a change of character could push out of my head.
Where exactly did she get off thinking I’d be alright with a baby? We discussed it. We even fought about it for Christ’s sake. What the hell would make her think I would have changed my mind? It wasn’t like I had randomly picked up someone’s baby and said, “Ya’ know, I think I want one of you.”
I thought I had made it abundantly clear that I was not the baby-having type. Was I wrong to assume that she understood that? I mean, I guess I saw it in her all along but I honestly thought we were both on the same page after our kid-quarrel.
Things had been right. It was the way it should have been. We had been happy that night watching Clint Eastwood, bodies entangled on the couch. The only thing either of us had been concerned with was whether or not we’d be eating take-out for the third night in a row. And then it was like an atom bomb. Sudden. No warning. Poof. Bam. Everything was gone.
…
The first few weeks on set were downright depressing. We wouldn’t start filming for another few months or so—it was basically time for the cast to run lines and get to know one another. I spent most of my spare time in my hotel room or trailer. Either that or going on hour-long walks with my cigarettes—anywhere I could be alone and avoid the advances my co-star, Megan, was trying to make.
I tried calling Abbey a few times, but my feeble attempts always ended the same way. I either got tongue-tied or frustrated. One time I called with the intention of leaving a message that was, well...that wasn't very nice. Luckily, I dropped my cigarette on the ground in a fit of rage and had to hang up before the trailer burnt down. I thanked my lucky stars--if I wanted things to get better, that would not have been the way to go about doing it.
…
My moodonly worsenedwhen I got a call from Lizzie, demanding to know why she’d gotten a voicemail from Abbey telling her that our wedding was canceled. I cleared my throat uncomfortably—a little shocked to say the least—and told her that I had to go. I hung up to her shouting in my ear. It hadn’t even been one month! It seemed that Abbey had made her decision in days, rather than the three months I had proposed. I realized that I had spent the past few weeks loathing her, but even I hadn't called off the wedding.
Things were not looking good.
So I did the only thing I could do. I began to frequent the little dive bar that was located near the set. The bartender and I were on a first name basis by the time I left that first evening. His name was Jim, Jimmy to his friends and apparently I was one of them.
If she wanted things to be this way, then they would. I would forget her.
…
Who was I trying to kid? I failed miserably at forgetting her—it couldn’t be done. But I was an actor. My job was to pretend. And that is exactly what I did.
I got so caught up in trying to pretend I had been a bachelor for the past two and a half years that I’d forgotten how to pretend to be Alex Malone, the struggling columnist who worked for a dumpy newspaper trying to land his big break.
Things were unraveling fast and it was only a matter of time before I did something really stupid.
That something happened two months into filming. The entire day had been spent running lines. I knew them like the back of my hand—like I knew where every mole, freckle and scar was located on Abbey’s body—but I couldn’t dig up the emotion to convince the director I was worth the money he was paying me.
Abbey had called and like a five-year-old, I blatantly ignored her call. I didn’t even let it ring out. The minute I heard the personalized ring tone, which she had set herself on our fifth date, I pressed the “End” button and cut her off.
After that, the only thing I wanted to do was get pissed. Like a gift from above, I heard a knock on my door. It was Ben, Tyler, Curt and Megan. Apparently they had gotten wind from one of the girls from wardrobe that there was a “really great” club in the city. Though I wasn’t that fond of clubs, I knew I could get something really strong to drink.
I was easily swayed.
Eight drinks later, I forgot about Megan’s hand on my thigh.
Eleven drinks later, I forgot that I was kissing her.
Fifteen drinks later, I forgot that I had paid a cab fare and was taking Megan to my hotel room.
I woke with a bloody awful headache and a gnawing feeling in my stomach that I had absentmindedly passed the point of no return.