The apartment is strewn with empty Ben and Jerry’s ice cream cartons. Shades are drawn to keep out the late day sun. A Sex And the City marathon plays at low volume on the TV in the corner. A heap of University of Missouri sweatpants and blankets hide a barely stirring human form lying on the couch.
A phone conversation is overheard:
“I just don’t understand. I tried to make him happy. I know things had been a little rough over the last year but things seemed to really turn around in the spring. Sure, things weren’t perfect but I thought we could work through them together.”
“I can’t believe he is gone.”
“I just don’t know what to do now. Every time a great guy comes into my life, things start so well and then…he just wants out. He never gives me a real excuse or reason. Just some vague notion of wanting something different. Something better.”
“If it had just been one or even two, I would chalk it up to my bad luck with guys. You can’t always find a winner, you know? But now if I counted these bums in roman numerals, I would be perilously close to moving to a V from an I.”
“It can’t be all them, you know? No one has that much bad luck. At some point, I have to look in the mirror and ask if there is something fundamentally wrong with me. Am I unlovable? Am I destined to grow old alone without ever getting that shiny jewelry I so desperately want? Is this my destiny?”
“I….I can’t talk any more. I have to go and prepare to tell the world how this happened to me…again.”
Phone clicks silent.
Socked feet shuffles from the couch to the bathroom.
Stan Kroenke looks in the mirror. Red eyes that sag after another sleepless night look back at him.
Robin Van Persie. Cesc Fabregas. Samir Nasri. Carmelo Anthony.
The list of those that have left him continues to grow and he doesn’t know what to do to stop it.
Maybe it is the moustache, he thinks…
