She had lost count of how many times the television had gone through its cycle. Here was that group of annoying local access channels again. One with a college lecture, the next with a city council meeting. Nothing ever on them.
Waste of time. It was all a waste of time. Nothing to watch and nothing to do.
Mark and Jana had both called. Both offered to stop by.
A smirk. What if they both showed up at the same time, and saw each other. That wouldn't go over so well.
"Ugh."
These were the two channels with the religious programming. The first was some guy with too much hair gel ("wasn't that cliche dead yet") preaching in an enormous mega-church.
The second was that woman with long brown hair, who had the strange vocal inflections... the woman reminded her of the way David Mamet characters speak in some of his movies. She was always teaching some class, like you would sit through in Sunday school. The whole experience was repellant, yet fascinating.
Shannon never admitted this to anyone, but she would sometimes watch this strange Sunday school teacher give her class on cable tv, late at night. There was something intriguing about her, about her voice. But not tonight. The last thing she wanted to think about at this moment was another church.
She didn't really focus on the channels now. Her thumb would flex at a specified time, keeping the momentum going, without the content registering. It was like she had given up the hope of finding something to watch, and was just doing a chore.
Washing the dishes. Doing the laundry. Flipping through channels. Same thing.
A part of her would've liked to have seen Jana tonight, or Mark for that matter. For different reasons, certainly, but still.... She had stopped herself from returning their phone calls. She wasn't ready to see anyone. She wanted to be alone. She wanted to be safe.
And everything seemed so pointless. Sure, she could talk to Jana, but it wouldn't change anything. Nothing that she or Jana could say would make things better, at least not yet. All in all, it was better to be alone.
Because Jana would try, she wouldn't be able to help herself.
Shannon rolled her eyes to the ceiling at the thought.
"Then I would just lose it."
A wave of feelings came, again, as if on cue. She reached over for another tissue from the night stand next to her bed. No sobbing this time, just a few tears. Her eyes felt sore from the crying.
"God, you're pathetic."
She said it, but she didn't feel it. It could've been a bold statement, but she didn't feel anything nearly bold enough to justify the words.
She wasn't filled with self-loathing, just sadness. It was a sense of loss, acute pain passing now and then, bringing more tears, and then chiding from some part of her who wanted to be above it all.
Mark would've been manageable. He would've tried to be supportive, and probably would've said the wrong thing at the wrong time, but otherwise been harmless.
It occured to Shannon that laying in her bed, in Mark's arms, would be better than just laying in her bed, alone, as she was now. She briefly considered calling him.
No, she thought, I don't want to call him over just to listen to me cry.
"I look awful, I feel awful, I just want to be alone."
She sounded far less convincing that she had earlier. She bit her lip, and thought maybe she didn't really want to be alone.
Would Jana be angry?
Of course, if she found out.
She looked over at her cell phone on the night stand, next to her trusty box of tissue.
A loud-mouthed sports announcer startled her for a moment. Shit. College basketball. She changed the channel again.
Was that a sign?
She reached for her phone.
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