I checked my watch -- 3:56pm. I knew Dr. Schroeder wouldn't be a minute early or late. Schroeder's been my therapist for about two months, but I think I need to switch. He's a nice enough guy, but how can you take your therapist seriously when your image of him is sitting on the floor hunched over a tiny grand piano playing the Charlie Brown theme?

I leaned back and tried to chill out. God, what a crappy week. How many times can a girl get slammed? I thought of Christine. I almost trashed the bed after she left that day, but decided against it. Bad enough I couldn't make rent, I definitely couldn't do without a bed. After she left, I couldn't get up for hours. I was like a depressed slug. Going out with Greg the other night didn't help me either. Everything was just a reminder that I was alone now. Oh wait, I do have a new roommate. Not that I had too much choice. It was him or another girl, and I just wasn't ready to live with another dyke. The risk of the rebound syndrome was too high; and the woman I talked to was a real geek. Mike, as smug as he was, at least had a sense of humor. Jeez Louise, I'm single! Maybe I'll get a new tattoo....

*****
"How does that make you feel?" Schroeder asked me about Christine leaving.

"I'm hurt. And mad. "

"Hurt and mad because she left you or because she left you first?" He caught me there. She did leave me. No one's ever left me -- was this an ego thing?

"You had a pretty stormy relationship didn't you?"

"Well, yeah.

"You've said you fought a great deal."

"Yeah. But that's what made it so neat. I mean people who love passionately fight passionately.........."

*****
"Fight passionately. Can I just say that's the biggest load of baloney I've ever heard?" interrupted Mike. We were sitting at Mocha Daze -- Greg's idea -- so I could give him the keys to the apartment.

"No you can't." I said. He might be moving in with me, that doesn't mean he has the right to an opinion. I wished Greg would get back with the coffees.

"I agree with Mikey," said Hugo. "Take it from a widower, doll, a passionate relationship does not mean you gotta fight all the time. Skip the fighting, and proceed to the making up!!"

"Mikey???" I thought. Mike's got every guy I know bamboozled with his good looks and tight jeans.

Mike was talking to me again. Quietly he asked me, "Come on roomie-to-be, why don't you give me a break. I'm not a bad guy. Why don't you like me???"