Read Love Leaps: A Short Story for Free Online

stumble toward the door. Surprisingly, my migraine seems to be
going away.
    I open the door and my face drops.
It’s not Kate. It’s Michael. He just stares at me for a second.
Just from his expression, I know that I really must look like a
pitiful mess.
    “ Look, Meg, we need to
talk,” he says.
    “ We have absolutely
nothing to talk about,” I say and try to shut the door, but he
reaches out and holds it open.
    “ I hate that it happened
like this. I wanted to break it to you gently,” he says.
    “ You're unbelievable. Get
out of my face!”
    “ When you calm down,
please call me so that we can straighten this out,” he says. The
slight crack in his voice gives away his annoyance with me, but I
don’t care.
    “ I hope that your life is
cursed with pain and misery and that you never experience happiness
again!”
    With that, I slam the door in his
face. I wait to hear his footsteps walk away, then I crawl back to
the sofa and cry again. How could I have thought that Michael was
so perfect? I’m such a fool.
    I really have to stop crying. Looking
up at the ceiling, I try to keep the tears from rolling down my
cheeks as I take a deep breathe. I close my eyes wishing that I
still felt numb. Instead, I feel raw pain, and it’s piercing. Maybe
watching some TV will distract me from all of this crap. Before I
can turn on the tube, that obnoxious buzzer is going off again. My
heart sinks and I feel like I’m going to vomit. I drag myself off
the sofa once more, hoping Michael hasn't come back.
    As I crack open my door, Kate gives me
a great big hug. I start to cry again. She brings me back to the
sofa and gets me a new bottle of water. It’s such a relief to
finally have Kate here. She wants to know what happened, but the
events are so hideous, that I only want to go through the story
once, so we decide to wait until Cecile and Julia
arrive.
    Kate sets down copies of People
Magazine, National Enquirer and US Weekly on the coffee table.
During a crisis, this is standard issue. There’s something
comforting about reading outrageously sensational stories. It kind
of makes your own drama seem a little less, well, dramatic. Kate
reads me an article about this celebrity couple on the brink of
divorce and an article about a nasty fistfight between these other
two celebrities. Even in the midst of my crisis, these articles
amuse me.
    The buzzer goes off again. Kate
answers the door for me and lets Cecile and Julia inside. They both
hug me and flop down in chairs, tossing their purses and jackets on
the floor. Kate picks up the phone and calls our favorite Mexican
restaurant. She tells Miguel to have the dark corner booth ready
for us in about an hour.
    Now that Kate is off the phone, and
Cecile and Julia have arrived, I guess it’s time to tell the whole
morbid story. Just thinking about where to begin, makes me start
crying again. They look at me a little bewildered, murmuring words
of encouragement. Kate hands me a box of Kleenex and squeezes my
hand. I take another deep breath. Okay, I’m as ready as I’m going
to.
    “ Since it was such a
beautiful day, I decided to walk to the deli to get my lunch
instead of eating at my desk. On my way there, I stopped outside
Bailey’s Fine Jewelry store to look at this beautiful vase that was
in the window. But, when I stepped closer, I could see inside the
store,” I say and gulp down another couple cries. “That’s when I
recognized Michael. At first, I was so excited thinking that he was
picking out jewelry for me. But then I saw her, a blonde leggy
bitch wrapping herself around him. He actually put his arm around
her and smiled. I honestly couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I
just stood there staring as the jeweler brought them pieces to look
at.”
    “ Oh my God! He’s cheating
on you!” Cecile shouts.
    “ Oh, it’s worse than that.
I got up the nerve to go inside the store to confront Michael with
his tramp,” I say sniffling.
    “ Good for you, Meg,”