The Promise

I rolled over to see the glowing red numbers and groaned. 7:58. I fumbled around for my glasses and put them on. Today was the day. I had been promising myself for weeks that today would be the day. The day that I would do it. I climbed out of bed and almost tripped over my cat, Achilles. Grumbling, I stumbled into the kitchen and made myself a coffee. I stared out the window sipping my coffee, hoping to catch a glimpse of my attractive next door neighbour, Brad, mowing his lawn shirtless.  To my disappointment he wasn’t out yet. I walked to the front door with Achilles on my heel. As I opened the door to get the mail, Achilles ran past me and out into the street.

“Achilles!” I cried before dropping the mail and running out. I got to the edge of the sidewalk before realizing that I was in my silk pyjamas. 

“Hey,” a voice said from behind me. I looked around and to my surprise saw Brad, shirtless “Is this your cat?” he said holding Achilles.

“Oh my goodness. Yes! Thank goodness you caught him! Thank you!” I stammered while taking Achilles from him. 

“No problem,” he smiled, “Nice pyjamas,” he smirked and winked as he walked away. I blushed profusely as I watched him walk away. 

“Silly cat,” I whispered to Achilles as I walked back inside.

I put Achilles down inside, put some toast in the toaster and went to my living room to replay that encounter in my head and overthink it forever. My first encounter with Brad and I was in my pyjamas chasing my cat. I groaned and fell onto my hands. Just then my smoke detector started going off. I sighed and got out of the chair to go see what happened. It turns out my toast was burning. I turned off the smoke detector and stared at my toast. Great, another thing that was going great today. Would I ever get to do it? I mean I had to, I had promised myself. I made myself a bowl of cereal and ate it while I scrolled through instagram.  All my friends were all married or engaged or dating, and then there’s me, eating cereal on my couch with my cat watching my neighbour mow his lawn shirtless. How had my life come to this? I pushed all those thoughts out of my head, I needed to focus on the one thing I had to do today. I put my bowl away and went to get ready. I got into the shower when I realized that I was out of conditioner. I sighed, just one more thing that’s going wrong today. I got dressed and brushed my teeth. I had to do the thing, but first I needed groceries. I drove to the store and went inside. As I was walking down the chip aisle I saw the last person I wanted to see. My ex-fiancé, Todd. Todd and I were all set to get married a month ago when I found out he was cheating on me. Needless to say I moved out and forgot all about him. Back in the chip aisle I kept my head high and walked past him. I got my groceries and went back to my car. As soon as I got in I realized I had forgotten to get the conditioner. I went back and got it. I saw Todd again and he gave me a strange look, but I ignored him and went back to my car. As I was getting my groceries out of my trunk the bottom of the bag broke making all my groceries fall out. I swore under my breath and bent down to pick them up. 

“This isn’t your day is it?” someone said from above me. I looked up and saw Brad, still shirtless. He handed me my conditioner.

“It’s really not,” I sighed, “thanks,” I stood up and smiled at him.  I don’t know what came over me in that moment, maybe anger towards Todd, but I made my move. “Would you want to grab coffee sometime?” I asked, still holding my conditioner.

“I would love to. Why don’t you give me your number and I’ll text you?” he replied.

“Perfect!” I said before giving him my number. He gave me a smirk before going back to his house. I quickly ran inside trying to not drop my groceries. I put everything away and looked at the time. Noon, already? I pulled out my leftover pizza from last night. After lunch I decided that I should probably do the thing that I absolutely had to do. I got up and was about to do it when my phone buzzed. I checked it and saw that it was Brad asking when I was available for coffee. I replied that my schedule is completely open then regretted it because I didn’t want to seem too eager.  He replied right away and we ended up talking for hours.

I finally looked up from my phone to check the time and was shocked to see that it was 7. I jumped off the couch and decided that I was going to order pizza for dinner, again, for the third time this week. I got my pizza and sat on the couch watching tv until 10. I finally decided to go to sleep. I completed my entire night time routine and got in my pyjamas. I was laying in bed on my phone with Achilles cuddled up by my side when I got a text from my mother. She doesn’t normally text me so I assumed that it must be extremely important, or that she was in the hospital, or a car crash. All these thoughts raced through my head as I waited for it to load. It loaded and all those thoughts left my head. She was asking if I had done the thing I had to do. Shot! I hadn’t. I leaped out of bed and ran through the house with Achilles on my heels. I ran to the front door and stopped out of breath. I opened the door carefully and made sure that Achilles stayed inside. The dewy grass was freezing against my bare feet, but I had to do this, I promised myself.  I carefully walked across the lawn to the far right corner, I bent over and picked the weed.