"Whatever. It's fine," I cut her off, because she's spiraling into self-doubt when it's really not her fault. Not that it keeps me from being irritated with her anyway. "But what the fuck am I going to do?"
"Did you sleep with him?"
"Who cares?" I can't bring myself to lie to her about it. "He's my fucking boss and I lied to him about my name. And instead of coming clean, I split while his back was turned."
"Teag!" She shoots me a sympathetic glance, which would maybe mean something if her stupid lips weren't quivering to hold in her laughter. "What are you going to do?"
"Not talk to you about it anymore." I stare blindly out my window, hating how bitchy I'm being, hating how she's not grasping the seriousness of this.
Hating everything, basically.
Myself most of all.
"I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you—just at how ridiculous this situation is." The sincerity in her apology makes me feel even shittier. "Is there anything I can—?"
"It's fine." My tone says otherwise, but it'll have to do. "Can we not talk about it for a while? I need some time to process." To stew.
No. To get over myself and this thing that lives inside my stomach, the one that has my hands in tangled fists across my lap, squeezing as hard as they can to try to keep some of the fury at bay—because this is my fault, not anyone else's. Not his, and definitely not Cassidy's.
"Okay." She says the word quietly and now I loathe myself. But it doesn't keep me from staying silent the rest of the drive. From muttering a thank you before letting myself out of the car and not looking back, even when she halfheartedly calls out to me that she'll see me later.
Angry or not, I can't look back, though. I never can, not when I'm this close to where I live. If I were to look back, I might go running after Cassidy's car, begging her to take me with her.
My house is two seconds away from looking like one of those rundown, boarded-up, peeling-paint shacks visible from the side of the road in bad neighborhoods. It's one more falling shutter away from being dilapidated, a word I know because it's been flung in my face several times. I got over the teases a long time ago, though, because the outside is such a perfect representation of the inside. And the people within.
My key is in my hand, but I can't bring myself to use it. I don't have it in me to deal with my grandparents on top of everything else. And… I can't stop flashing back to this morning. Frank's face. Alec's face, I mean.
Why didn't I laugh and confess who I was the instant I realized he was my freaking boss? Why did I flee? All I did was make things so much worse.
And before he even said his name…he looked so serious. What happened to the sweet and charming guy from the bar—from his game room…his bedroom?
Damn it. I wanted last night to mean something, to give me something to hold on to. A memory to cherish, to pull me through until I can afford my own apartment, to push me into a newer, better, more experienced me. Instead, all I have is anxiety and fingers itching to call Chambers & Britt to quit before I've even started.
Alec. I shape his name on my tongue. The name suits him way more than Frank ever did.
And that's as far as I get because Gran opens the door, in her uniform, anger in her eyes and the still-lit butt of a cigarette hanging from her lips. She doesn't speak, stepping aside to let me pass. I don't speak either, slipping through the doorway, holding my breath to escape the worst of the smoke.
And then I figure, fuck it. And I breathe it in. This, at least, is familiar; it goes all the way to my bones. Dirty house. Stench of smoke. Gran's contempt. These things bring me back to myself.
"You look like yesterday's trash." She's looking for an argument and my throat tightens. I pause on the bottom step to the upstairs and turn to face her. We've lasted weeks this time without speaking to each other. Guess this means Gramps fell off the wagon again. He's probably still sleeping it off. I bet if I inhale deeply enough, I'll smell the rank scent of cheap booze underneath all her cigarette smoke. I choose not to try it. I also choose not to give her the fight she wants.
Six more months, I remind myself, instead. If I save for six months, with my salary—even as small as it is—I'll be able to afford almost a year of a cheap apartment on my own. Clinging to this knowledge, all I say is, "You're right."
If it shocks her that I'm agreeing for a change, she doesn't show it. "Gonna turn out like your mama, knocked up before your time."
Maybe if I turned out like my mother, I'd be the one my grandparents taped once a week on a cheap TV tape player. The one on a reality series to be the next top LA socialite, pretending not to have a family anywhere.
Maybe I'd be the one who managed to escape this house and everyone in it. Sometimes I almost understand why she did it.
But, "I'll never be like her," is what I say. Because no matter what other path of hers I might follow, I would never abandon a newborn. Especially if it meant leaving her with my grandparents, people more likely to laugh when a child falls down than to help her up.
Gran cackles, a hacking sort of cough disguised as a laugh. "Keep telling yourself that, chub-doll."
"I'm going to shower." My voice carries no emotion. It's deadened and that same deadness creeps through the rest of me, weighing me down like my limbs and my stomach are full of wet sand.
She pulls on the last embers of her cigarette. "Hot water's off, but you look like you could use a cold one, anyway. I work a double at the grocery today, so make sure you feed your grandfather this evening."
"He can fend for himself," I say without much bite, heading up the stairs before she has a chance to respond.
My feet automatically skip the third and eighth steps; one's splintered, the other close to joining it. And I hold on to the wall instead of the railing, which is also splintered in spots. I dump my clothes in my bedroom, wrap myself in a clean towel, and head straight to the bathroom. I need to wash off this morning's humiliation, but more than that, I need to rinse Gran's words down the drain with it.
I turn the water on to mute my voice, and then I turn toward the full-length mirror hanging on the back of the bathroom door. I hesitate a few moments, but I know I have to do it, so I drop the towel. And I study myself. Hard.
"You are not a chub-doll." I glare at my reflection so that maybe the truth will sink in. There are bags under my eyes and my cheeks are a little gaunt. I force my gaze lower. My boobs are medium-sized and perky and almost symmetrical. There's pudge around my belly, and some cellulite on my thighs, but not a ton. Not a ton—the thought needs some extra force behind it. My feet are slender, my toes thin and pretty. I tell myself the truth every day. I'm honest with myself about my appearance, sometimes brutally. But I have to be. If I tell myself no lies, her criticisms won't sink all the way in. Not the way they used to.
"I am not fat. I am average. And sometimes even passable as pretty." I've said these words a thousand times, so I don't know why my voice is quivering this morning. I don't know why my eyes sting with tears, or why I find any of it so hard to believe now. "Even Alec thought I was attractive enough to take home."
Oh, God. Alec.
I wait for the surge of embarrassment to swell through me, but it doesn't happen. I'm too…heavy to feel anything with much force.
This is worse.
This is so much worse than all the anger.
Sadness has no outlet, no fury to unleash and relieve.
Even ice-cold shower water doesn't do anything to shock it out of my system, try as I might to scrub it all away.
I let my wet, sandbag limbs carry me to my bedroom. I let them crawl me onto my thin old mattress. I let them weigh me down into sleep.
CHAPTER TWELVE
CASSIDY CALLS ME all weekend. I ignore her.
Vera tries me, too. Same goes.
Clearing their calls makes me hate myself. But I hate the thought of speaking with anyone even more than that.
Gran doesn't bother trying to speak to me—neither does Gramps—the few times
I stumble downstairs to grab water and the occasional snack. I think they prefer me out of sight.
I know I do.
When I'm not sleeping, I'm curled tightly as I can be on my side, squishing any feeling that tries to rise, wanting to be asleep. It's easier during the days. The nights? Nights are always the worst.
Nights bring the stomach ants. Anxiety. When I was younger, I only understood the tight, crawling sensation that circled in my belly to be ants. Marching nonstop. Biting the inside of my tummy. Making my breath come faster and my mind swirl.
All the things I've done, the ways I've acted. I never get to forget them; they're just around the corner of my mind, every time. External reminders. Internal guilt. The weight of it all is crushing.
And it's always there, a river of gasoline through my veins.
Plenty of times, it goes dormant. There, but manageable. Not forgotten—but abated. Happy days. Happy weeks. Happy months… Well, not happy. But not miserable, at least.
The thing about gasoline, though… It only takes a spark to explode. And every single time I fail at something, there's a flame.
When I let my friends down. When Gran's digs manage to get to me. When an inch of my belly hangs over pants that shouldn't be too tight.
When I can't understand the things everyone around me seems to find simple. When Gramps spends the money I pay them for bills every month on something other than what it's intended for, and our hot water gets shut off.
When I feel fat. Ugly. Bad skinned. When I notice my plainness compared to my friends in pictures. When my pudgy stomach's the first thing I focus on.
Such vanity. I wish I could let it all go and be happy with who I am.
But I can't.
And all that gasoline in my veins? And all those sparks?
They meet way too often.
Ka-fucking-boom.
I spend both weekend nights unable to sleep, tossing and turning and lost in thoughts that grow darker with each minute until I'm crying without tears.
Because tears would give me release, and apparently my chub-doll body hates me too much to let me have it.
Then, somehow, it's Monday morning and I don't have a choice anymore. I'm sleepless, disheveled, gross. And I have to get out of bed.
I reach in my closet and pull out a tilted old picnic basket. I made it in middle school home ec, and it was the first thing I'd ever created that wasn't a total disaster. Yes, it's crooked. And the paint's not thick enough to cover some of the newspaper print from the pages I cut up and rolled into tubes to weave into the basket.
But it's functional. It gets the job done. And that's what I have to do today. Be functional. Get the job done.
In the basket is the only other thing I have of value. A blanket I made, also in middle school, out of scraps of cloth—and sewn into the center is my baby blanket. The thing I came home from the hospital with, tattered and threadbare. I found it when I was younger, thrown in with dust rags. Gran laughed about it when I asked why it was different colors than the other white rags. Then she told me what it was, and when I got mad that she'd used something that was mine to collect dust and dirt, she laughed again.
Sometimes looking at these things, touching them, remembering the way it felt to make them, helps when I'm in a bad mood. Today is no exception, but the little rise in temperament they give isn't nearly enough to push through the weight of the fog holding me down.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ANOTHER COLD SHOWER—and the bite of anxiety coming through over seeing Alec again—helps to clear some of my fog.
At first, it's almost nice to feel something other than overwhelming nothingness. Little nips and jolts along my nerves… It's like remembering I'm alive. It's enough to push me into actually attempting to style my hair, which I'm sure I'll appreciate later. It's also enough to have me squandering away a few precious dollars for a drive-through coffee on my way to Chambers & Britt.
But once I'm there, my poor car sputtering her way into the parking lot, past the company's three towering glass buildings? Suddenly, as hard as I've been trying to avoid it all morning, Alec's face is in my mind. So in focus that everything else blurs away. So sharp I can practically smell him, that woodsy soap scent.
If my face wasn't numb from lack of movement for two days, I'd cringe. As it is, I schlep into an empty space and bury my face in my hands anyway. God. Right now, in his mind, I'm some girl who disappeared like an asshole. Big deal. But the second he sees me this morning? I'll become so much more than that. A way bigger asshole. A huge liar.
Possibly fired.
I wish I hadn't left.
I wish I had slept with him. Not that it'd make this situation any easier, but I bet the memories would be worth it.
I wish I'd been honest.
I wish—shit. The time on my dashboard tells me I really can't be sitting here making regret-filled wishes right now. I wish I wasn't about to be late for my first day of work.
I'm out of the car and halfway through the lot before I notice all of the sleek and fancy cars lined up around me. If I wasn't still so blah about everything, they'd make me feel so inadequate I'd turn around and sputter my little Toyota right the hell out of here. I don't have that option though. I need this job.
I need to figure out how to convince Alec not to kick me to the curb the second he sees me.
I want to pause for one last deep breath before stepping through the doors, but there's a woman rushing beside me and she pauses to hold the door, offering a halfhearted smile.
So in I go.
And, when I check in to ask for the badge that's supposed to be waiting for me, the receptionist at the front desk tells me I'm half an hour late.
"What?" I almost lean forward to grip the jutting top of the counter he stands behind.
"You're half an hour late." He says the words slowly, like he's speaking to an idiot. Which maybe he is, but his tone still pisses me the hell off. Another nice burst of feeling shoots through me.
"The email said—confirmed, actually—my start time was nine a.m. every day except Thursdays." I have to come in half an hour early those days to help set up for a weekly all-hands meeting that starts at nine sharp. I read that line ten freaking times to make sure I had it right—in a magnified print. I point to the clock on the wall behind him. "I'm exactly on time."
"For the record, exactly on time would mean you're in your desk at nine a.m., which you aren't." He's so smug I want to pinch him. "And the email also said that on your first day, you should arrive thirty minutes early for a brief orientation follow-up."
"Where?" My one word is full of enough attitude to make him blink, but I'm getting irritated. Or maybe it's the panic clawing at my throat at how much worse Alec's first—or, actually, second—impression of me will be. "In fine print?"
"It's in the line immediately after your regular schedule is listed." He waves to someone walking past me.
"How would you know that? Did you send the email?" It came from someone in human resources, so I don't understand. I also don't understand why he's being such a dick.
"It's the standard format for all new employees." He doesn't roll his eyes, but he might as well have.
And, fuck. I always do this shit. I try so hard to focus on what I think is important that sometimes other important things slip right past my eyes. I swear I read the email start to finish. The problem is, sometimes words blur over each other if I'm not really looking for them.
"Listen, if you're waiting for me to apologize, it's not going to happen," I say, because his expression's so impatient that now I want to pinch him and twist the skin. "So may I please have my badge?"
He pulls it out of an envelope, handing it to me without comment.
"Thank you. And now what do I do because I missed this morning's orientation?"
He shrugs. "Ask your boss."
Right. My boss. I turn, making my way toward the elevators, and just like that Mr. Way-Too-Much-Gel-in-My-Hair Receptionist is out of my
mind. Replaced by Alec. And his dimples. And his hard, hard chest. And the knowledge of what I've done to make this situation so incredibly shitty.
Fake name? Check.
Run out while his back is turned? Check.
Late for my first day? Check.
I can't do this. Nope.
As the elevator door opens, I swivel around, weaving through the group of people waiting with me, and I head toward the exit.
Right as Mr. Evans—Cassidy's dad—walks through it. Damn it. His face lights up when he sees me and he waves, calling to me as he comes closer. "Happy first day, hon."
I nod, unable to find my voice.
"Nervous?" He walks right past the guy in reception, who's watching us like he's confused I associate with someone this high ranking. It makes me feel a little better—but not enough to stay.
"Mr. Evans, I—"
"Please. We're colleagues now. Call me Brad." He throws an arm around my shoulder, leading me toward the elevators again. "You'll let me take you to lunch today, won't you? First day celebration?"
How do I refuse?
Last summer, Cassidy was supposed to intern here, but she changed her mind at the last minute to work at a rock venue. He was furious. Like, kick his own daughter out of the house furious. Granted, his son had died six months prior and he was a wreck with grief. They all were. We all were. He seems to have come a long way in the past year, but still. I can't let him put his neck out for me and be the second hire to fall through after he's vouched for them.
Damn it.
"Walk me to my desk?" I ask, hating how timid my voice comes out, but if I'm staying, I can't go up there alone. I need someone by my side the first time I see Alec again, and Mr. Evans is almost as high up in the company as Alec's own father. Maybe it's dumb, but I think he gives me a little clout.
Still, it's not enough to keep my hands from shaking the moment we step onto the elevator. It's not enough to give me the incentive to press the button for my floor. Mr. Evans pushes the nineteen absentmindedly while jabbering on about restaurants in the area.
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