by Nella Tyler
He pursed his lips and shrugged. I don’t know if it was my out-of-whack hormones, or what, but in my head, there was a vivid picture of me choking him until his cheeks flushed red.
“Look, this is a group effort and we can’t schedule the project around everyone’s schedules, otherwise it’d never get done.”
“I can’t,” I said softly and wetted my lips before tossing the pamphlet onto my desk. “There’s no way you can shift the date?”
“I know you’re new around here,” he began in a condescending tone, “but that’s not how this works.”
“I’m not asking for special treatment,” I snapped at him and then immediately worked to correct my attitude. “I haven’t seen my parents in God knows how long, and I’ve already booked the flights, and you know how unreasonable those people are about canceling itineraries.”
He dropped his elbow to the lining of the cubicle. “You’re a young enough girl, young enough that I can’t imagine your parents are on their deathbed so trust me when I say you’ll have plenty of opportunities to see them, but if you care about your job, then you’ll make your job a priority.”
“B… but,” I stammered.
“But nothing.” He forced a cocky grin and offered me a similarly cocky nod of his head. “Get over it.”
“Get over it?” I questioned lowly under my breath.
“Yeah,” he cocked his head again. “Grow up and stop being a damn child.”
And just like that, he was walking away from me and the violent visions in my head intensified. Instead of choking him in my imagination, I chased him down the hall, pushed him into the bathroom, and drowned him in an unflushed toilet. I shook the violent images from my head and let out a soft exhale. I just knew I had to calm myself down before I actually snapped on someone.
I focused my attention on the presentation stacked upon a growing mountain of paperwork for various projects and tasks. It felt as if I would never finish all my work, especially because my head was so preoccupied with a thousand different things.
“You look like hell,” Ina said from behind me and giggled to herself as she leaned against the cubicle.
I turned to give her a death glare.
She immediately straightened herself out as her smile turned into a frown. “Something wrong?”
“Yeah,” I said softly and nodded my head. My teeth sunk against my tongue as I tried to bite it, if only to keep the word vomit at bay. But I simply couldn’t hold it in any longer. “I’m fucking sick of the people in this damn—”
“Uh-uh,” Ina said as she threw her hand over my mouth to prevent me from making a fool out of myself. It was hard to breathe under the weight of her hand around my mouth, so when she prodded me to stand up, I obliged.
Once I was on my feet, she removed her hand from my mouth and pushed her palm against my back as she guided me to an empty conference room right next to the row of cubicles.
“Okay, now what the hell has gotten into you?” she questioned me as she slammed the door shut behind her and threw her hands to her hips. “You’re acting like a crazy person.”
“I think I am going crazy, Ina.” I dragged my palm against the clamminess of my forehead. “I’ve fucked up.”
“We all fuck up,” she said and pointed backwards with her thumb. “For example, if you need any proof that we all fuck up, then look no further than Caleb, who might quite possibly be the biggest fuck up in this office building. Or it could be Lance, or anyone else, but somebody seriously fucked up. It’s okay. Fuck ups are fixable.”
“Are you aiming to break a world record for most fucks given in a single paragraph?”
“The only record I’m aiming to break is the broken record that seems to be you lately.”
“It’s complicated.”
She shook her head furiously. “Then uncomplicated it, because this look is not a good look, and if you’re going to snag some prime grade husband—”
“I slept with Caleb,” I blurted out, interrupting her in the process. Once the words were out there, I grimaced widely and waited nervously for the scorn I was sure to come.
“Okay,” she nodded as her eyes shifted to the floor as if she was trying to process what I had just said, but then a smile hitched across her lips. “Good job, girl.”
“Please don’t patronize me,” I scolded her and twisted on my foot to face away from her. “I’m so damn angry at myself.”
“Seriously, Lindsay?” She laid one palm over my shoulder and chuckled gently. “You really need to lighten up and see the grass on the other side if you think this is something to be angry about.”
“You don’t understand,” I scoffed and pushed her comforting hand away from me. “Do you think I like feeling this way?”
“Feeling what way?” she questioned sincerely, confused as to why I was so angry, but that was just it. There’s no way I could tell her what had happened, not until I was one hundred percent sure anyways.
“It’s just complicated.”
“You’re becoming a broken record again. You’ve already said that.”
“This is what I’m talking about.” I pinched at the bridge of my nose, and realized that I was just talking in circles. Soon after, I realized that I was more upset than perhaps I should be, and all it took was Ina’s presence to remind me of that. “Never mind,” I said and smiled at her. “Thank you for talking some sense into me.”
“Now you know that I’d love to take the credit for that, but honestly I just think you needed to take thirty seconds and cool the hell down.”
“Yeah…” I mused aloud. “That’s probably it.”
“Seriously?” She arched her brow. “That’s not how you’re supposed to respond to that statement. You’re supposed to respond with something along the lines of, Thank you, Ina. You’re the best damn girlfriend in the world.”
“Seriously?” I arched my brow right back at her and then mocked her. “Thank you, Ina, you’re the best friend in the world.”
“I know.” She shrugged and grinned a wicked grin. “Now, I’m knee deep in work shit and I need to get back out there. Are you going to be good?”
“Yeah,” I nodded. “Just give me a moment.”
“Okay.” She smiled warmly before stepping out of the conference room and out into the hallway.
Once she was gone and closed the door behind her, I sunk into a leather chair and exhaled sharply. Any relief I had felt with her reassurance were gone in an instant, and once again I was left to only myself and my constantly shifting thoughts. And Caleb was right there in the center of my imagination.
And then the baby.
I prayed the positive test was a fluke because I wasn’t ready to have a baby, especially not with someone I didn’t even have a real relationship with.
Chapter 21
Caleb
Three Weeks Later
My feet tapped anxiously against the tile floors of the cafeteria. In the last three weeks, nothing had become any clearer in regards to what exactly was going on with my taxes. All I knew that I was personally innocent in the matter. I barely ever looked at numbers or figures, so someone in accounting must have fucked up big time.
In front of me sat a half-drank cup of coffee and a bagel with cream cheese, but I didn’t have much of an appetite. Not after the embarrassing fiasco that was having my credit card declined at the bar the night prior.
Everything was getting progressively worse and it was all I could do to not scream at the incompetent idiots all around me. I received notice, when I called into my bank to question why my cards were declined, that my property and assets had government liens placed upon them, and that if things weren’t handled and sorted out within three weeks, then I would be prosecuted.
The very idea that this was even a remote possibly was enough to terrify me, and that’s not easy for someone like me to say. But there I was in front of a delicious bagel that did nothing more than churn my stomach.
I was amongst the commoners, the pe
asants. Terrible choice of words, but I only use them because of the analogy. I felt like a king whose crown was slowly slipping from his grasp. Just like all the tiny buildings on the outskirts of the downtown area felt out of my reach from within the suddenly suffocating walls of the empire I had built. I wanted to be anywhere but there, anywhere but in that building, or hell, the entire state. I briefly thought about chartering a jet to take me to Paris, or more likely somewhere warm, like Ibiza. Then I remembered the feds revoked my passport. If I were going to leave the country, then it was going to be through illegal means, and then I’d definitely end up in the slammer.
All of this because some dipshit fucked something up somewhere. If it was a mistake of my own doing, I would have worked to make it right. The problem is that I was legitimately in the dark and had no godly idea what the feds were talking about. All I know is that I didn’t evade my taxes—or at least not intentionally. Maybe they were processed wrong. I didn’t have a clue. All I know is that I trusted my people before and the only hope I had left was to continue trusting them.
I turned my attention to my bagel smothered in cream cheese, but still my stomach turned. I knew I had to eat though, so with fidgeting fingers, I scooped the bagel into my hand and raised it to my mouth.
Shit, I thought to myself as I took the first bite and noticed it wasn’t satisfying to me at all, and bagels and cream cheese was one of my favorite cheat meals. Nothing was quite as soothing as the cool softness of strawberry cream cheese caressing the lining of my throat. Not that day though. It was just bland and tasteless, and felt like I was chewing the bagel for an hour. After the first bite, I dropped the remainder of the bagel onto the plate and pushed it out of sight.
I was back to staring out the window, contemplating just how I had gotten here. It seemed unfair, the idea that I could spend so much of my life studying, working hard, and building a life for myself that most people envied, just to have the possibility of it being ripped away from me in an instant.
That thought only served to turn my stomach over once more. I had to get my mind off the troubles. I had to get my mind as far away from the word taxes as possible so I began to reflect on other things, like Sarah for example.
I thought about her and the subpar sex. I thought about how I flew across the country to go visit her even though I had no intention of doing so when I made the plans with her. But fuck, I had to get away from all the noise and confusion. I had to get away from the clouds hanging over my head, and in a city like this, where it always seems to rain, that was next to impossible even as spring was beginning to give way to warmer weather.
The visit with Sarah went about as well as I had expected it to. She showed me around the city, though I had been there countless times. She treated me as if I was just stepping foot onto the Goddamn moon or something from the second I stepped off the plane. From there, as each minute with her passed, I realized just how truly annoying and shallow she really was. And then I wondered if that’s how other people saw me. Fucking probably.
We went out on the town, which wasn’t too different from going out on the town in this town. I’m sure other people would see it differently, but to me, a bar is a bar and a drink is a drink. All the rest of the bullshit is just that: bullshit.
After a few drinks, she insisted that she take me home. I wasn’t prepared to hand over the keys of our relationship and let her be the alpha, so instead I took her back to my plush hotel and fucked the shit out of her. But like I said, it was dull and boring. There was no excitement. While I was on my back and she was riding me, I couldn’t help but to stare at the ceiling and the very exact thing I was running from appeared on the plastered ceiling. All my problems came roaring back to me, occupying the space of my mind, and it took everything I had to not let my dick go limp.
That was the first, and hopefully last, time I ever faked an orgasm. And it was all the proof in the world that I needed that I couldn’t run away from my problems. Even thousands of miles away, they somehow found their way to me.
Even in recollecting the things that were supposed to clear my mind, I was still left reflecting on my problems. It was a never ending merry go round of bullshit and I wanted off.
I shook my head and buried my face in my palms. I needed something that could truly get my mind off my woes. I needed something, but I didn’t know just what. I just needed a fucking release to forget for even just a few short hours, how bad my life was getting.
More than that, I needed answers, and I needed a way out of this mess, because the truth was that I didn’t have the money to get out of this IRS situation… period.
I exhaled a series of short, warm breaths before throwing my head backwards in the chair and staring at the ceiling. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Lindsay walking across the cafeteria.
My upset stomach sank further into my gut as I caught her glistening eye. I was facing Karma straight in the face, and getting what I deserved for dicking over such a beautiful girl.
I knew what needed to be done.
I needed to fucking apologize to her for the hell I had put her through.
Chapter 22
Lindsay (Wed)
It had been three weeks since I first found out I was pregnant, and after a litany of successive tests that featured the same results, I had to accept my fate. For those three weeks, I continued to harbor my secret and honestly had no idea what I was going to do. I went back and forth between telling him and not telling him, but I understood that telling him could have been the worst possible thing to do, seeing as how he was already under a shit ton of stress. If I would have told him that I was carrying his child, that could have been the final straw that sent him over the edge, or straight out the window.
But I also had to decide whether or not I really wanted him to be the father of my kid. I mean, he obviously was the biological father since I hadn’t been with anyone for practically a century. It was his kid, but he didn’t know and maybe he never had to know.
I was torn between hunger and apathy. The child growing in my stomach demanded that I eat, but I was more than a little queasy and wasn’t quite sure I could hold down the food from an equal mixture of morning sickness and anxiety about the predicament I had found myself in.
I made my way through the line, which seemed to move at a glacial pace as my co-workers ahead of me pretended as if turkey or ham was the most important decision of their lives. Finally, when I made my way to the front of the line, I threw healthy eating out the window and decided on pizza, chips, and soda. My body was sure to thank me later, but I was craving something unhealthy. And that’s just what I got. It wasn’t like I was going to be able to keep my figure much longer anyways.
Once I paid for my food, I paced across the cafeteria with my tray in my hand, and noticed him—Caleb—right in front of me, parked against a window with a view. And then he turned to look at me, and I know he saw me. My stomach dropped into my gut and I twisted on my foot in an instant to escape his gaze. I had every intention of storming out of the cafeteria and eating my lunch in either a bathroom stall or my desk.
Fate—or Caleb—had other plans.
I heard him call out from behind me. “Lindsay,” he yelled and I stopped dead in my tracks and pulled my eyes closed and taut.
I thought about running. I thought about getting the hell out of dodge and eating my lunch somewhere where he couldn’t find me. I thought about clocking out for the day and taking a personal day. But I didn’t. I willed my feet to move, but they wouldn’t. It was like I was being betrayed by my own body, in the same way I was being betrayed when my mind made up its mind to have sex with Caleb.
“Lindsay,” he called out again, this time his voice was closer but somehow still seemingly far away. That is until his palm fell upon my shoulder and I no longer had the choice to run.
I threw on my best game face and twisted to face him. “Hey, Caleb,” I said with just about the flattest smile I could muster.
“Hey.” He
shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks like a college frat boy. “How are you?”
“Right,” I said with a nod.
“Right?” He questioned back, and then I realized that that wasn’t actually an answer to his question.
I chuckled uncomfortably. “Right. No, I’m good.”
“Are you sure?” He cocked his head. “You seem a little anxious.”
“Me?” I shook my head and forced a wider smile. “Everything is great.”
“Awesome.” He swiveled on his foot. “Me too,” he added with a warm smile before breaking into a nervous laugh. “I mean, everything is going to shit and I might be in an ugly orange jumpsuit within a few weeks.”
“I don’t…” I swallowed a nervous lump in my throat and nodded my head gently. “I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
He shrugged, almost with apathy, but I knew the idea bothered him. Why wouldn’t it? Prison seemed worse than death to me, especially if he was as innocent as he was protesting. Besides, didn’t the government have more dangerous criminals to spend their time prosecuting? Shit, I thought to myself and forced myself to snap out of the daze I found myself in.
“Would you…” he began to ask, but broke halfway through his question like a shy schoolboy.
“Would I what?”
“Do you want to go on a walk with me?”
“Where?”
“There’s a park nearby, just a few blocks away.” He shrugged. “I hear it’s nice this time of year.”
I knew exactly which park he was talking about as I had taken countless walks there over the past few weeks to try and clear my head. It always seemed to help for a short period of time, but everything always seemed to rush back in an instant. Soon, not even the green scenery could ease my mind. It always went straight back to Caleb, and his child I was carrying.
