Where To?

After Duane left I needed to call someone, so of course I called Monroe.  And of course it went to voicemail; I often forget that I am the only one who is not working sometimes.  Hey Monroe it’s Bella, call me back when you have a chance, you will never guess what just happened to me. As I hung up my phone started to ring from a private number.  Now usually I do not answer them, but I thought maybe it was Monroe calling from somewhere.  “Hello?”  I answered rather quickly.  “Hey Beautiful...”  I rolled my eyes as that accent was so familiar. “What do you want Craig?  You and Chloe have your baby and you want me to be the godmother?”  I asked him with sarcasm.  “When are you going to forgive me and let me make it up to you?”  He tried his best to sweet talk me, even after so much time had passed.  I hadn’t heard from him since that farce of a rehearsal dinner.  “About the time that hell freezes over and I become Queen of England.”  He knew that was about the time I would hang up...“Bella don’t hang up.I know that you and Joel aren’t together anymore...and I miss you so much!! I realize I was an arse and that I deserved everything you did to me and more, but please baby...I love you!   It has always been you!!”  “I am not even entertaining your pleas for forgiveness. If it was a one and done I might have been able to look the other way, but for you to parade it all over town, and for my BEST friend to tell me and show me pictures...and then the fucking icing on the cake you bring her into our HOME...MY HOME...and fuck her that was unforgivable.  You fucked it up, you tried to blame me, and now you’re alone and you miss me??? I hope you suffer the wrath of a thousand flea bites on your crotch and arms too short to scratch!!!”  I hung up my phone and took a deep breath.  How fucking dare he call....

But that fuelled my fire to get the fuck out of dodge.  First thing was first...I packed up my cheque and bundled up for the cold.  I left the loft and headed straight to the bank and deposited my inheritance into my bank account.  Once I was done there I headed straight to Telus, I needed a new phone, a new plan and a new phone number.  I decided to pre-order the Samsung S6 edge, since it was going to be released in 3 days, but secured a new phone number and negotiated a plan for myself and customer service.  I left Telus feeling like I had just started my new journey.  Next stop was a travel agent.  As I walked through downtown I stopped in at a Flight Centre, time to start planning...

“Hi I am David, can I help you?”

“Hi David, my name is Bella.  I hope you can help me, I have, without giving too much away, had the worse 5 years of my life and am now going to travel the world and figure out where I want to go from here.  So I need to best deal to do that.  I have a list of places I want to go and check out, but I need help from an expert on how to do this...without spending millions of dollars that I don’t have.”

He smiled sadly at me and started in on the list that I had on my phone.  Scotland, England, Spain, France, Italy, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Hawaii, British Columbia (to visit my brother), Japan, California (no not to visit Joel), Nevada (back to VEGAS!!!!), New York (Visit Monroe, obvi!)  David set to work on my list telling me that some places may be more expensive than others due to single occupancy, but that he would leave those for the end so that in case I met a travel buddy the price would go down.  So he asked the dreaded question “Where to first?”  I sighed, as I didn’t know the answer.  I wanted to go somewhere warm; I needed a break from the negative weather.  But if I went then I would need a travel buddy.  I sighed “I don’t know, I had not thought about the single occupancy and I really don’t want to pay for 2 people just to have my own room...but I need to go somewhere warm first...definitely warm....” He nodded and smiled searching different warm places that I could visit before he whispered “Have you checked out Air BNB?  It is a website that you can rent peoples apartments or rooms in their houses while you’re travelling.  It would totally save you some cash rather than staying at a hotel.  Check it out while I do some number crunching and maybe come back tomorrow around 3pm.  Maybe we can start in California or Florida.  Check out those two places first, and we can discuss findings then.  Leave me your number and I will call you if I find anything amazing before then.”  I wrote down my name and number and David stood and shook my hand and showed me out. 

I left feeling like I had accomplished a little bit, I may not have a ticket yet but I was starting out somewhere.  I walked back to the loft and was greeted at the front desk with a bouquet of star gazer lilies.  I shook my head knowing, hoping but still, it was from Craig.  I took them upstairs and put them on the counter before opening the card, and to my surprise they were from Monroe;

Baby Girl,

 Daphne called and told me what happened to your dad and I wish I could’ve been there for you.  I know that you would tell me you’re alright but I know you better than you know yourself and you were hoping for that second chance with him.  I love you babes, come to NYC!!!

~Monroe

 

I put the flowers in water and moved over to my tablet and downloaded Air BNB.  I started researching places in California where I wanted to go and see what was offered.  I was a little shocked at some of the daily rates for apartments.  But when I factored in that I wouldn’t be eating out every single night and that I would have all the luxuries of home, it kind of made me want to not stay in a hotel.  I sat back and thought about how many of my friends have kind of ditched me in the last little while.  I know I wasn’t a treat to be around, but still I was always there for them.  With the exception of Arianna; she was still calling and texting daily.  Fuck the rest of them I thought to myself.  I was going to move away from everyone if my life depended on it, there had to be better friends out there somewhere.

I had searched Los Angeles and San Francisco on the website and had a few ideas in mind.  I didn’t want to blow all the money I had just gotten but I wanted to use a good chunk of it on myself, plus I still had all that jewellery to pawn.  I got up and started to make dinner and put on a This is Where I Leave You.  I thought the title was kind of fitting for what I was planning to do. 

I awoke the next day with my dirty dishes sitting in front of me, and the DVD replaying on the TV.  I checked my phone which had a few missed calls on it and a couple texts.  It was running low on battery so I charged it while going through the log.  Of course Craig called...again.  Ignore.  Monroe had called back and texted that he was super busy but would call me tonight. And I had a text from Joel; which surprised me since I hadn’t talked to him since I left him.  I looked at the time and realized I had to get over to flight center in a few hours to see what Joel had come up with. So I quickly scanned my app and marked a few places I was interested in.  But not knowing the area, I didn’t know if I was close to anything.  I turned my phone off and left it to charge, while I busied myself with dishes and a shower before I had to go.  As I was getting dressed I smiled to myself that I was actually moving on, I was growing up on my own terms.  I walked out to the living room and turned off the TV, grabbed my purse and phone and headed out on my walk to see David.

I walked in and David got up to greet me, I never noticed how charming and boy next door good looking he was.  But when he smiled and shook my hand I felt giddy.  We sat at his desk and he opened up a file in front of him.  “I have good news and bad news...which do you want first?”  I instantly felt deflated, like this wasn’t going to happen now.  “Bad news first I guess...” I responded.  “Well the bad news is I won’t get to see you after next week.”  I looked at him confused.  “I’ve gotten you several options in California and Florida.  Did you check out that app I told you about?”  I started to laugh “That was bad news?!  I thought you were going to tell me it was going to cost me a billion dollars to do what I want to do!!”  He smiled and I noticed he had one dimple in his right cheek. “Bella you will be gone as of next week if you want.  Now where do you want to go first?”

**Please vote in the top right corner on her next stop....I will be posting again Monday based upon the votes of my readers**