Two Day Magazine

A Tale of Anger, Brownies, Fabio, Love, and Eventual Sunshine

“How does this always happen?!” I thought angrily to myself.

Here I am, sitting alone in a little coffee shop on Valentine’s Day, stood up. I think. It’s either that or he was in a freak car accident that caused him to be two hours late... At this point, imagining him in a serious wreck did make me feel a little better. I smiled internally at the thought of him getting his eyebrows singed off. I decided I was finished waiting for him, and I got up and decided for my troubles, I deserved half a dozen fudge brownies for the road. The teenage goth chick who gave me the brownies had a look of distinct pity on her face. I felt even worse than I did before; if a teenage cutter who listens to screamo feels bad for you, you know you’re in a bad place. With this thought in my I head, I began to walk down the cold and rainy street.

Even the weather was abysmal today. Everything was in a permanent state of gray. It matched my mood perfectly. Nothing had been working out for me in such a long time. I always felt alone. I had my share of good friends, but no one ever seemed to have feelings for me. I thought I was reasonably attractive, not supermodel perfect of course, but certainly not ugly.

What was wrong with me? Was it the fact that I’m shyer than others? Am I not forward enough? I always treated my dates like absolute gold, I tried to do everything right. I compliment them constantly, and if they were rude to me, I ignored it...that is, when they showed up. I decided the rest of my evening would be devoted to bad poetry, fattening foods, and crappy means of entertainment as I felt bad for myself.

I walked into my favorite used book store and came across all of the romance novels with Fabio pasted on the covers.

“Hmmm...” I said aloud to myself. “I could really go for some of this...”

I bought five of the sappiest, most mellow dramatic novels I could find. Normally, I had much better taste, but considering that my evening tonight would consist of nothing more than me sitting around my apartment drinking cheap wine and eating fudge brownies, I might as well buy bad romance novels to top it all off. I went to the checkout line and the cashier looked at me for a while with her big fake eyelashes and her crocheted cat sweater. Then, she looked at my purchases, and exclaimed, “These are my favorites! I really hope you enjoy them!”

I gulped and didn’t respond. A part of me looked at her and thought, “This is my future.” I shivered, grabbed my purchases, and ran out the door.