3A) #### Com Ave: Epilogue to a Hellish Six Months

So a couple of things happened the day before I moved out of the apartment.

The first thing that happened was John broke up with me.

Yeah. After all that.

He said he didn�t find me attractive anymore, and he wanted to be with someone more �normal�-- not a chronically devastated outcast like myself.

He didn�t use those words exactly, but that�s what he meant.

There wasn�t much to discuss. He said he didn�t love me. And I guess I knew that he probably never had. I had moved heaven and earth to be with him. I left Rochester NY with a duffel bag and 25 dollars to be with him. I had braved homelessness and domestic abuse just to be near him because I had never ever loved someone so fiercely in my whole life. And it had all been a waste. I felt like a devout Catholic whose faith is the center of his life and one day he wakes up and realizes there is no God.

Cardboard boxes full of junk I didn�t have a home for were strewn all around us. He could barely meet my gaze. He knew what a bastard he was. But it didn�t change anything.

After awhile John left. He said he�d be back tomorrow to help me move my shit out. After all he�d promised.

Yeah, you promised a lot of things, didn�t you?

The second thing that happened the day before I moved out of the apartment was that I started throwing up. Like for instance if I smelled something strong � say Penny�s peach body lotion, I would be overwhelmed by nausea.

I had only felt that way once before.

Whoops.

I took the test three hours after John dumped me. It was positive. I threw it against the bathroom wall. I sat down on the toilet seat and sobbed.

Overwhelmed by sorrow and the weight of failure I contemplated slitting my wrists. I was such a fuck up. And I was indignant at the unfairness of it all. I had used protection for chrissakes. I knew people that fucked all the time sans condoms and never had this problem.

But those people didn�t have my luck, and I should have known better. This would be the second time. The second abortion.

No baby. No boyfriend. No house.

I was moving out of my apartment to nowhere. This guy Wendell from work had agreed to store all my shit in his basement until I found a home. I wanted to say, screw all my shit dude. Just store me in your basement.

Penny�s parents had rented her a studio apartment. The studio was a punk rock closet with 70�s rec room type wood paneled walls in Kenmore near the Ratt. She told me I was welcome to crash there. I said I�d probably take her up on that offer at some point, but I didn�t really want to. Although Alex�s parents had gotten him his own studio down by Symphony Hall, I had an inkling he�d be over at her place all the time; she was afraid to completely break it off with him.

The thought of all three of us sleeping in that tiny little room made me sick to my stomach. I would rather sleep in the airport again.

If all of this wasn�t enough, I began running a fever and coughing up green stuff.

The whole situation was so absurd that in between crying jags and coughing fits, I would go into gales of laughter. I mean, this was right out of a 1940�s melodrama about what happens to Bad Girls�I had become a cross between Stella Dallas and Nancy Spungeon. If a screenwriter pitched this idea to a studio, he would be told it was just too much�nobody has a day this bad.

Around 11 O� clock that night I got a phone call from Eric. Angus had told him about my situation.

Why don�t you stay with me and Krist? You can stay as long as you like.

And so I was saved.

Sort of.