by Ford, Mia
“I guess some people are willing to do whatever it takes to get to the job. However horrific it is. Personally, I think that she is an absolute fool for going anywhere near him…”
She said those things. I heard her with my own ears. She might look genuine now, but I don’t buy in to it. I can’t. I have been sucked in by her too many times. I’m not going to now. That isn’t what my grandmother would want for me. That woman was a fire cracker through all of her life and I need to follow in her footsteps.
“Fuck you,” I whisper to Hannah. “Go fuck yourself you nasty bitch.”
“What?” She steps away from me with her eyebrows in her hair. “What did you just say?”
“You heard me. You know exactly what I said. Don’t come over here and pretend to be my friend when I know that you aren’t. Don’t act like you give a shit when you’re glad to see the back of me.”
Hannah glances around to try and seek reassurance from other people that I have lost my mind.
“Look, I know that you’re hurting,” she says with a tremor in her voice. “But that isn’t my fault.”
“Oh, I know that my grandma dying has nothing to do with you. But everything else does.” The anger is the only emotion coming through now. Everything that I have bottled away comes flying to the fore front. I don’t have even a scrap of control over myself. “You have been playing a game with everyone here, treating us all like pawns. I don’t know what you wanted from the promotion really, what your angle was, but I am out.”
“Woah.” She holds up her hands in a surrendering gesture. “I have only been your friend. I wanted to support you. I am glad that you got promoted. I thought that it would be awesome. I don’t get where any of this is coming from. If I have done something to hurt you, then I’m sorry. I didn’t want that at all.”
All of sudden, I become acutely aware of everyone around us, staring at us. The way that they are looking at me and Hannah is like she is the reasonable one, and I’m the one who has lost my mind. I guess it probably does sound that way to everyone who doesn’t know what’s going on. I have gone crazy because I’ve lost my family and I’m yelling at poor innocent Hannah who has just tried to support me…
Well, fuck them. Fuck all of them. I don’t need any of them to care about me. Even Wesley. I haven’t met his eyes yet, but I can sense the stare of disgust coming from him which is the last thing that I want to process right now. I just want to go. To head to New York and not just for a short break but for good. Maybe the big city won’t transform me and turn me in to this amazingly well rounded person, but it isn’t here. Anywhere but here would be good for me because this place is like being in fucking hell. The worst of the worst.
I could go and stay with Jessica for a while, then maybe get my own place there. Or somewhere else, who the hell knows. The world is my oyster now, I don’t need to be here, I can do whatever I want. Maybe after some time, I will want to come back here to prove to all of these assholes that I am better than them and I can’t take them down, but right now, I just want out. So, without another second of hesitation, I gather up my belongings and I stalk towards the exit. Someone yells something behind me, Hannah I think, but I don’t turn back.
It’s like a weight has been lifted as I walk away from this place. Like my shoulders can unfurl just a little bit. Okay, so the problems aren’t really going anywhere, they are coming with me, but I don’t have to face those assholes anymore. Those toxic bullshit people who are the worst of the worst.
Good luck with that, Andy, I think sarcastically as I get far enough away to finally think. Good luck trying to sort out that bullshit. I don’t hold out any hope that you can sort this out.
Chapter Seventeen
Wesley
What the fuck? I don’t know what just happened, but I am freaking the fuck out. All of that was just so messy and now Zoe is gone, and Hannah is parading around the office like the innocent victim who has been targeted for absolutely no reason. I screw my fists up in anger and distress as I try to work this out.
“Can you believe that?” she finally gets to me and Hannah throws her hands in the air in distress. “What a bitch. Why would she just freak out like that? I was only trying to be nice. Why would I be horrible after her grandma just died? I get that she’s upset, but she shouldn’t take it out on me, should she?”
Those words spike a realization in me. Of course she’s freaking out if she lost her only family member left alive. Shit. It doesn’t matter what else has happened, she needs someone right now. So, without answering Hannah, I turn on my heels and I run towards the door. I need to just check on her, for all of the good times that we’ve had, for all the times that it felt real, and also because it’s the right thing to do.
“Zoe!” I cry out as soon as the fresh air hits me. “Zoe, don’t go. Where are you?”
For a moment, I fear that I have left it too long and she’s gone, but then I catch a glimpse of her blonde hair. Panic zig zags through me as I pick up the pace, running faster than I have ever gone before to catch up with her. I don’t know if Zoe hasn’t heard me or if she’s ignoring me, but she refuses to turn around.
“Zoe, please.” I reach out and touch her shoulder, which causes her to snap around. “Talk to me.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.” She angrily brushes some tears away. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“Please, Zoe, you are hurting. I know that you’re mad at me, but just talk to me a moment. It’s really sad that your grandma has passed away. I know how painful that must be for you. I can help you…”
“I don’t need your help. I don’t need anyone’s help. I just need to get away.”
“You’re going?” I can’t stop the disappointment from crushing through me. “How long for?”
“Andy said that I can have all the time that I want so I can get my head in order.”
Woah. Now that is nice. Andy has been good to Zoe through this which is a little surprising to say the least. Not that he’s a bad guy, but that is overly nice. Then again it could be to do with the rumors and the fact that his marriage is being affected by this. Maybe he doesn’t want to have her here while he sorts things out.
“Right, so… so you’re leaving. But do you really want to go fallen out with everyone?”
“I don’t want to talk to Hannah, if that’s what you mean.” She folds her arms defiantly across her chest. “She has done too much to hurt me. I said everything that I wanted to inside and now I’m done. With everyone.”
Fucking hell, this is bad. It seems like Hannah has been doing a lot of manipulating behind the scenes which I guess is something to be expected. I pretty much knew that about her. But I still don’t know the truth about Zoe in all of this and I guess this isn’t really the time and place to ask her. Her grandmother has just died and she’s in an emotional place. I will have to just keep myself calm and deal with this in the proper way.
“Do you want me to give you a ride here?” I ask her curiously. “Get you away?”
“No, no way.” She shakes her head violently. “Not a chance in hell. You have been a dick to me.”
“No, I know that!” I jump in instantly. “I have been an asshole. I’m sorry about that. It’s all been a little bit confusing to me. I don’t want to drag everything up again, but… well, look, none of that matters now.” I shake my head quickly. “It doesn’t matter. I just want to help you. That’s all. So, please, there isn’t much else that I can do. Let me give you a ride. Let me… take you home or whatever. Get you away from here.”
Her eyes flicker between me and the work building, and I can see her debating this. The fact that she is even considering it gives me hope. After everything I just want to be good and help the tiniest amount. She deserves some assistance. She needs something from me. I will give her whatever I can give her.
“I don’t want to go anywhere with you, Wesley, I’m sorry. I don’t want anything to do with anyone from this place. I just need some time to walk
and sort my head out. Everything has been a lot today.”
“But I have been through similar things,” I insist. “I lost my parents, so I can talk…”
“It isn’t just that. It isn’t at all. I have got so much more going on. You couldn’t possibly understand any of it, Wesley, and I really don’t really have the time to explain it to you. I need to get out of here.”
She turns and walks away, her feet clapping along the floor as she goes because she’s stomping so hard. I stand there and watch her walk away, my heart pounding as she does. It tugs at me, pulls at every part of me, and makes me crumble hard. I feel like I should let her go because it’s clearly what she wants, but at the same time I’m scared that if I let her go then I will never see her again. I don’t know why my gut is so convinced of that.
“Don’t go!” my voice cries out before I have really decided what I’m going to do. “Stay. Fight.”
“Fight who?” she cries back without even looking at me. “I shouldn’t have to fight. Work isn’t about that.”
Huh, she’s right. I guess I have forgotten that in all of the drama that has been going on. Work isn’t supposed to be a battle field, but somehow, that’s what it is has become. Court and Hannah have turned it in to that and it has my head spinning so much that I don’t know what I should and shouldn’t believe anymore.
“I will help you,” I insist. “I will support you. I know that I haven’t, but I will.”
She turns to look at me this time with sheer hatred in her eyes. I don’t think there has been a time where I have ever been so confused in my whole damn life. She has my head all over the place.
“I can’t trust you,” she snaps. “I can’t trust anyone in that place. You have all betrayed me. You especially. We had something. We really did. Or at least I thought that we did, but then all that shit happened.”
“Shit? Look, I don’t know what happened when it came to the promotion, but we can talk about it.”
I break off panting, desperate, and needy. I really don’t want her to walk away without us at least trying to sort this out. I have no idea if there is anything to salvage but if we don’t try then I’m sure it will be a mistake. My stomach is flip flopping, telling me that if I’m not careful I will end up falling in the wrong way.
“There isn’t anything for us to talk about, Wesley. That time has passed. It’s too late now. When we could have been talking, you have been out getting wasted with Court and Hannah, hooking up with other people…”
“I haven’t…” I start, but it seems like Zoe has no intention of letting me speak.
“It doesn’t matter what you have or haven’t been doing. You haven’t been there for me when I needed you. You turned your back on me and chose not to even speak to me about things. You didn’t even give me a chance. You just decided what you thought was the truth and that was the end of it.”
“Okay, I get it.” I nod emphatically. “I was a dick. But I’m here now. Tell me now. Talk to me now.”
“So, I have to do it on your terms?” she shoots back. “When I have too much other stuff going on? No, Wesley. You don’t rule the fucking world. You can’t control me. I am not going to work with your schedule. I am going now, like I have already told you, and if I decide that I want to talk to you at some other point then I will.”
“If you do that then you are being just as bad as me,” I snap back, the frustration getting to me. “Don’t act like you are being all mature and like I am the one who has refused to talk. Because I might have been a shit, but I’m here now and I’m trying. Yet you are the one who has chosen to walk away from me.”
“My grandma died this morning, you asshole,” she screams at me, proving to me like I have said the wrong thing. “How dare you come at me like that? What the fuck is wrong with you? You know what, you have just proven to me that getting away from here is the best thing to do. Really getting away from here, I mean. For good. So, I guess my shitty little ‘plan’ back fired, whatever the hell that was supposed to be, and I am walking away from the job that has caused me so many issues. You want it, you have it. Congratulations, manager. If only that had happened in the first place, then maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess now.”
“What do you mean? I don’t need the job. You earned it. Andy gave it to you for a reason.”
“So, now you are happy for me? Wow, a little too late, Wesley.”
“But I am happy for you. Maybe I was childish at the time, but I had just heard all the rumors…”
“Heard them, but you didn’t come to me and ask me about them, did you?” she sneers. “You just chose to turn your back on me and what we shared. So, now you don’t get to be mad when I do the same to you.”
I don’t know what she’s trying to say, but I can’t let her walk away from me without asking. It isn’t he right time, but if I don’t do it soon then I don’t know if I will ever get the chance.
“But what about the baby?” I call to her back. “What’s going on there?”
“Ha ha,” she yells back sarcastically, her nastiness cutting right through to my bones. “Very funny. I thought that we had already established that there is no baby.”
“But I thought that you said it was all rumors… that Hannah is a two faced liar…”
“You are too. So, you can be two faced liars together.”
“But I’m not! I just didn’t know what was going on…”
“Well, now you know. You have won and you have no ties to me anymore. Well done you.”
Fuck. She really has gone now. Leaving me with no answers at all. I have to just assume that if there is a baby, she will let me know when she’s less angry. She wouldn’t do that. There probably isn’t anyway. I can’t get lost in her sadness and convince myself that there haven’t been all of these issues. Maybe a clean break would be the best thing for the pair of us.
Chapter Eighteen
Zoe
I hold on to my stomach, pouring all of my love into my little baby, and finally feeling a little better about the world and all of my decisions. I have had some time to think about it all now, and this is definitely, one hundred percent, the right thing for me to do. Sorting out my grandma’s funeral and all of her belongings, packing up her life and then my own, has been good for me. It’s made me see that I have given everything of myself that I can to this place, and I haven’t gotten anything back, so a fresh start is the best thing for me.
It’s what my grandmother would want for me, all of my family would want. No one would want me to stay in a toxic environment where it constantly feels like my life is crashing in around me. I wouldn’t want that for anyone else so I know that anyone who gives a shit about me would want better for me too.
I have the money from the sale of my grandmother’s house to get me started, plus the help of Jessica, so I think that New York will be the best thing for me. Me and my baby are going to have the best start in life. Yes, of course I feel horrible that my child’s father won’t be in the picture, but he hasn’t made any effort with me at all. He must have known that I was being sarcastic when I told him that there wasn’t a baby, Wesley must be smart enough to realize that the rumors are a load of shit, but he doesn’t care enough to reach out.
Well, if our baby isn’t enough for him to pull his head out of his ass and to change his ways then it will never happen. In which case, we are much better off without him. We will live our best life without any sign of him at all. Plenty of people raise children alone and they do a damn fine job of it, so I can too. He has had days to reach out and even attempt to speak to me, and he hasn’t taken that chance, so now he has lost it.
I guess I will always keep the same cell phone number to give him the chance if he ever changes his mind. Not for me and him, that is dead and done, but for our baby. Not that I’m going to hold out hope.
I glance at the departure board, willing for my flight to be announced already because I’m on edge, excited to get the hell out of here and on with my life, but the
re isn’t anything yet. I guess I’m stuck here for a little while longer. The only problem with being stuck here is the terror that something will happen to prevent me from leaving. I don’t know what, but I have horrible visions of someone running to the airport to stop me.
But who? Not Wesley. There isn’t any chance of that. He doesn’t even know that I’m here. Nor does anyone else. Nor can I imagine anyone else wanting to stop me. Perhaps my ex fiancé… but is that realistic either? If he didn’t want to marry me then I don’t think he’s going to care that I’m leaving. I don’t think he ever cared.
God, how have I gone from failure to failure? How does that happen? This isn’t just one life fuck up, but a whole bunch of them. An endless array of things going wrong. Much as I do blame the other people in my life for the parts that they have played in all of this, I blame myself more. I am the one who invited them in, who allowed all of this to happen, who should have been smarter and better.
Well, in New York, I will be. I will keep Jessica close and everyone else at arm’s length. If a job seems toxic, then I will walk away however good the actual work is. And most importantly, I will keep far away from any man. There isn’t anyone worth going through all of this pain for again, and since my judgement can’t be trusted then it’s definitely for the best. No man would want me when I’m pregnant anyway and I highly doubt that dating as a single mom is easy, but that’s good because I am not interested at all. No man can change my mind.
Finally, my gate comes up on the screen and I grab up all of my belongings. I only have the one suit case thank goodness because I have shipped most of my stuff, allowing me to travel light. There’s a smile on my face, the first genuine one since my grandma passed away, and I feel myself looking forward to what’s coming next.
