by Bella King
I shrunk under his glare but didn’t feel the same sense of panic that I had before Jared rushed me. Atlas was a bad guy, but he wasn’t on Jared’s level. At least he had enough self-respect not to through his high school career away on assault charges.
After a moment of staring me down, he turned away and walked out of the locker room. The air that I was holding in my lungs came rushing out, and I was finally able to go fetch my pants so that I could get the hell out of there.
I heard a groan from the far side of the room. Jared was slowly getting back to his feet. I pulled my pants on and grabbed my bag, giving him the finger before I left. I hoped that he had learned his lesson. I didn’t want to be paranoid every time I changed after swim practice. I guess next time I would leave with the rest of the girls.
Chapter 6
Work is a necessary evil.
I didn’t tell anyone about what had happened in the women’s locker room. I didn’t share things that made me seem vulnerable. It wasn’t my fault that Jared was insane and much stronger than I was. I shouldn’t have to be afraid when I was at school, but this year was beginning to grow dangerous for me.
I was surprised that Atlas had come to save me. I was tempted to find him at work to thank him, but I didn’t want him to think I appreciated having him around, because I didn’t. My dream was to be left alone by both he and Jared, not to start shit between them.
I wasn’t a prize to fight over, after all, but Jared was the only one who seemed remotely interested in me. I wasn’t sure why Atlas had saved me, but he didn’t appear to like me in the least. He didn’t even look at me in a provocative way when I was exposed in front of him. Most guys would have, whether they were into me or not.
I settled on ignoring Atlas. He didn’t want me to work for his father’s business, so I owed him nothing. Even a simple thank you was too much for me to justify. The best thing I could do was forget that it even happened and move on with my life.
After school, I was tempted not to even show up at work. It had been a long and stressful day, and I barely ate anything. I knew that my father would be angry and disappointed if I didn’t go, and my high school graduation was hinged on the money I would make from work, so I couldn’t ditch it that easily. I had to go.
I grabbed some leftover turkey from the fridge and made a sandwich out of it, shoving it into my mouth before running up to my room to change. Even though I was only supposed to sort mail, away from the public eye, this was a legal firm, and everyone was expected to dress formally. I had prepared a white blouse and a black skirt to wear, opting for flats instead of heels. I’d probably break my ankles if I tried to stand all evening in heels.
I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror as I crammed the final bite of the turkey sandwich into my mouth, trying to decide if I needed makeup. I looked alright, but I always benefited from mascara because of my black hair. It made the whites of my eyes glow.
I grabbed a tube of it off the sink counter and pulled the applicator out, brushing a few strokes onto my lashes. That was all it took to look considerably nicer. I nodded at myself in the mirror, trying to build up my confidence. I could do this. Mail sorting was about the most braindead job I could think of, aside from working on an assembly line. The biggest risk was being bored to death and falling asleep on the job.
I looked at myself in the mirror several more times before finally leaving. Just the fact that Atlas was opposed to my new employment made me want to do better. Pressure builds diamonds, as the saying goes, but I had enough pressure to turn diamonds into dust.
Chapter 7
Obstacles are often fabricated in our minds.
I got to work early. It was a tall concrete building with orange letters hung above the door that read “H & H Legal Services”. I couldn’t think of a more generic name for a company, but they were obviously successful, catering to all the wealthy people who lived in Granite Hills.
I walked up the shallow steps to the building, having to take them three at a time because of how short they were. I always wondered why public staircases were so poorly made. I never had an issue with indoor ones, but the ones outside were never tall enough.
I pulled the long wooden door by the brass handle, but it wouldn’t budge. I wondered for a moment if this was all a big mistake and they were closed before I noticed the white bell button beside the door on my right.
I rang it, and almost instantly I heard the loud crack of a bolt being retracted into the door. I was able to open the door after that. I swung it open and stepped inside the warm lobby. It smelled like coffee and cologne.
There was a secretary sitting behind a single desk in the front. She was a pretty woman in her late 20s. When I entered, she looked up at me. “How may I help you?” Her voice was artificially high.
“It’s my first day at work. I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to do,” I said softly. I felt nervous again.
“Oh, you must be Virginia, then, correct?”
“Yes,” I said, perking up upon hearing my name. At least they were expecting me.
“Take the elevator down to the basement floor, and the sorting room is the last door down the hallway. You can’t miss it. Someone will be down to help you shortly,” she recited.
I thanked her and turned to the golden elevator. Everything in the building was so nice. I wondered if the sorting room would be the same, or if the word ‘basement’ indicated something dreary. There was only one way for me to find out.
I pressed the button to the elevator, stepped onto the swirled marble floor when the doors rolled open, and pushed the lowest button on the grid. It was labeled -1, which I assumed could only be the basement.
The doors rolled shut and the elevator quickly dropped down to the bottom floor. The air was noticeably cooler in the downstairs hallway compared to the lobby, and the lighting wasn’t nearly as bright. I was right to assume this place would be as nice. It looked like an old office building that nobody had worked in for the past ten years.
I could hear the hum of the air conditioning unit as I walked down the hall to a set of double doors that were labeled ‘sorting’. I pushed them open and was surprised by how empty the room was. I thought there would be other people there, but there was only a large blue plastic bin of letters and a few smaller white bins with various labels on them.
There wasn’t a soul in sight. I leaned against the table, feeling cool metal against my skin. It was like a mailroom of sorts. I bet there were tons of sensitive legal documents here, and they had hired a high school student to sort through them. I wasn’t even given a proper background check.
I suppose the money had to be enough of an incentive not to do anything stupid. Even though I was down here alone, I spotted a dusty camera hung in the corner of the room. Was that all the security this room has. I doubted it even worked. I didn’t see a light blinking on it or anything, and there was enough dust over the lens to obscure the video.
I wasn’t permitted to ponder such things for too long, because I heard the clack of men’s footsteps before the double doors were banged open by a fat man in a suit. “Virginia,” he exclaimed walking toward me with a hand outstretched.
“That’s me,” I replied, trying to force my lips into a smile.
“My name is John.” He said, grabbing my hand and shaking it vigorously, his grip too tight for my liking. “This is a pretty simple job, so I’m sure I can count of you not to fuck it up, but they had me come down to train you anyway,” he said, his voice throaty and cheerful.
I nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
“Of course, you will,” he said, leaning over on the table as though walking here had been physically taxing. “Now, on to the good stuff.” He gestured with his free hand to the blue bin. “Take the letters from there, and sort them by who they’re addressed to. Number 1 gets Mr. Montgomery’s mail, number 2 is for Mr. Alton, and Number three is for everyone else. They don’t get their mail delivered,” he said, pointing at each bin as he
spoke.
“Where would you like me to put the bins when I’m done?” I asked.
“Don’t bother moving them. Your job is to sort. It shouldn’t take you more than an hour, but they got you here for three, so I guess sort as slowly as you like,” he said, looking at a gold watch that was comically small against his meaty wrist.
I nodded. This was going to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. Maybe I should have charged my phone before I came here. I could kill time playing games on it until I left. I doubted John would care.
“Alright, if you have any other questions, speak now or forever hold your peace,” John bellowed, amused at his play on words.
I shook my head. “I think I have it covered.”
“Good. Leave the same way you came in,” he said, quick to wave me goodbye and leave the room.
I stood awkwardly, listening to his footsteps retreat down the hall and the gentle ding of the elevator as it arrived to bring him back up. Only once he was gone did I attempt to begin sorting. Montgomery, 1. Smith, 2. Everyone else, 3. Easy enough.
I pulled out a handful of letters and splayed them over the metal table, moving them apart from each other with the tips of my fingers so that I could see who they were addressed to. One was for Montgomery and all the rest were for other people. This might be even easier than I was led to believe. An hour of sorting? More like ten minutes.
I made a game out of sorting the letters, taking stacks in one hand and tossing them like disks into the appropriate bins. I thought it would take longer this way, but after fifteen minutes, I was down to the last few letters. Great. Did I have to stand here for the rest of the evening with nothing to do?
I took the letters, all addressed to random people, and placed them in the third white bin. I got the idea to stack them all up neatly, but that proved to only kill about five minutes before I was back to having nothing to do again.
There was no chair, so I hoisted myself onto the table and pulled out my phone. My battery was at 15%, but that was enough to get through two and a half hours is I turned the brightness down and just read something instead of playing games.
I zoned out in front of the screen, reading up on techniques to improve my swimming time. I wasn’t trying to be a gold medalist or anything, but I always tried to be good at my hobbies. They weren’t any fun unless I was beating personal records constantly. That’s just how I was.
I allowed myself to get lost in my phone as the minutes ticked by. By the time it was almost time to leave, my phone was at 1 percent. Perfect timing. I placed my phone down on the table and hopped down on the dusty cement floor. I wanted to check the mail a final time before leaving.
I began thumbing through the letters in the first bin for Montgomery when I heard footsteps in the hallway again. At first, I thought it was John, but as they came closer, I realized they belonged to someone else. John’s footsteps were a bit heavier than these, and he moved slower.
I watched the double doors, curious to know who was coming down to check on me. My stomach dropped when I saw Atlas walk into the room, his expression as cocky and smug as ever.
“So,” he said, barely glancing at me as he walked over to the table. “This is your workspace. Pretty drab, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you,” I said firmly. “What are you doing here?”
“This is my father’s building. I can go wherever I want. A better question is, what are you doing here?”
“I’m working,” I said, clutching the side on the table as though Atlas might decide to knock me over at any moment. I didn’t know why he had come down here, but I didn’t like the way he was smiling, like he was up to no good.
“You don’t look like you’re working. You haven’t done a damn thing here, Virginia,” he said, shaking his head.
“I just sorted the mail,” I said, waving my hand at the bins on the table.
Atlas chuckled. “What mail? This?” He asked, lifting up the thirst bin as high as he could in the air.
“Yes,” I said slowly. “Now put it back.”
“Why don’t you?” Atlas said, his smirk widening as he flipped the bin over and letters came fluttering down on the floor.
“I just fucking sorted those,” I said, jumping up and grabbing the bin from his hand.
He looked surprised that I would take it from him, but his face turned back to cocky amusement as I crouched down and began to stack the letters back in the bin. He walked over to the table, and ,moments later, more letters fluttered over my head to mix with the ones already on the ground.
I looked up to see Atlas standing with the other two bins, overturned and empty now. He smirked down at me triumphantly. “Sort them again, Virginia,” he sneered.
I threw the bin in my hand at his legs. He kicked it away once it bounced off his thigh and onto the floor. “Temper, temper. I could get you fired for that,” he teased.
I was fuming inside, but I kept my mouth shut. Anything I said would just make this worse. My best option was to wait for him to leave so that I could clean all this up before I left for the night. I hated Atlas, but I knew better than to cross him in his own domain.
He studied my expression, nodding his head in satisfaction at my anger. “You should quit while you’re ahead, Virginia. Nobody wants you here,” he said, his face growing serious.
Any thankfulness that I had felt for him before had vanished like rubbing alcohol against hot skin, the vapors of it stinging my nose with regret. I couldn’t believe I had even considered thanking him. He was a monster, nothing less.
I stayed quiet, but my eyes told stories that I refused to express with words. Atlas could see that. He squinted at me, the cold gaze of his green eyes drilling into me. He looked like he wanted to do something worse, but couldn’t think of anything else that wouldn’t involve hurting me.
After a moment, he seemed to give up. His shoulder relaxed and he took a step back. “Don’t fuck around here, Virginia. I’m watching you,” he said, walking backwards out the door.
I shivered as the double doors sent a cold gust of air into the room, causing a few letters to fly up into the air and slide across the smooth floor. I should be thankful that there was no furniture for them to slip under, else I would be moving couches to make sure I didn’t lose any mail.
The first day of work was shaping up to be terrible, but it hadn’t been difficult. If Atlas hadn’t shown up, I would have even said that it was nice to work in the mailroom, sorting mail lazily while the clock ticked down.
A stayed on my knees, scrambling to gather up all the letters and sort them quickly before it was time to leave. I didn’t want to have to stay late. I needed to leave this place and go home. My father would be waiting for me, and my phone was about to die.
I was always home on time, or I texted my father beforehand if I was going to be late. Ever since my mother had died, he was irrationally fearful when I didn’t let him know where I was. I couldn’t blame him. My mother never showed up one evening, and it was only six hours later that we got the news. Apparently, it had taken them that long to identify my mother’s body.
Sometimes I wondered about the other person who had been involved in the crash. My mother had lost control of her car on the way home from work and collided with another car, killing them both. It was raining, the roads were slick, and the traffic was heavy. There was no way that it had been her fault, but I still wondered if the family of the other person blamed her for it.
I was never told the name of the other person who had died in the accident. They were a stranger, and my father said it was better if I didn’t have a name to put to the person. It would only make it harder to let go of, he had said.
I think he was right. If I had learned their name, I would have ended up looking them up at some point and getting familiar with who they were. People have more morbid curiosity than is normally good for them. It would have caused me more emotional stress with nothing to gain from it.
Still, I didn’t l
ike being left in the dark about such things. Even years later, I wondered about who it was that my mother had died with on that horrible rainy night. I didn’t dare ask my father. He was trying his best to forget about the whole thing, and I could tell that he didn’t like talking about mom. He only mentioned her when he wanted me to do something. Quoting her on things that he agreed with.
I finished sorting the mail and placed the white bins neatly in a row on the table. Hopefully, Atlas didn’t come down after I left and destroy them again. I snatched my phone from the table, clicking the power button a few times with no response. It was dead.
I sighed, tossing it into my purse and charging out of the room. I took long strides down the hall toward the elevator, eager to get home before I was late. My father wanted to make something nice for dinner after my first day of work, and I told him I would be back at 10PM.
The secretary was already gone when I exited the lobby. I flew out the front door and dashed toward the bus stop as the bus rolled up to it. I was just in time.
Chapter 8
Blood is thicker than water under the bridge.
I got back home earlier enough not to worry my father, but still late enough to warrant a few questions.
“Did they keep you busy there?” My father asked, coming out of the kitchen and poking his head into the hallway as I slipped off my shoes and tossed them beside the door.
“Not really. It was pretty boring,” I said, coming toward him.
The hallway smelled like garlic and spices, and my stomach grumbled in response to it. I was finally hungry, and I craved a hot meal. I was glad that my father took the time to make me food almost every night. That had been my mother’s job before she had passed.
“I’m sure they’ll give you more to do eventually,” my father said, returning to his place in front of the stove.
