by Bella Baird
Alice avoided eye contact with the woman from earlier when she went to pick up a water bottle. She didn’t feel like she needed more scrutiny from anyone apart from herself. Quickly making her way back to Daniel, Alice realized that her extreme drowsiness started to return. She took her place by his side again and rested her head on his shoulder while he looked at a painting on the wall. Her guilt didn’t keep her from showing him affection in her drowsy condition. He tilted his head to take a look at her, and he softly laughed for a moment.
“What?” she asked dreamily. “Are you laughing at me?”
“Babe, you look really tired. Your eyes are all glassy and red,” Daniel said, still laughing.
“Yeah, it just hit me. I feel like I’m going to pass out,” Alice replied. “Maybe I should have stayed home today.”
“Probably. I would have understood. You should go home now and get a good night’s rest. You seem like you could desperately use it.” He gave her another kiss.
You wouldn’t want to kiss me if you knew what happened less than 24 hours ago. You’d almost certainly hate me.
“Okay, I just have to catch a cab. I left my car at work last night and never got a chance to pick it up today,” she said. “Good night!”
“Good night, sweetie. I hope you feel less drained tomorrow!” Daniel said as he hugged and kissed her. “I love you.”
Alice said it back to him while walking to the exit even though she felt like she didn’t deserve the sentiment in the first place. She couldn’t stop her eyes from welling up with tears as she walked the street and waved for an available taxi. Regardless of her weariness, she sensed it was going to be another long night.
The following week delivered heavenly unremarkableness, which made Alice partially thankful and also partially anxious. She hadn’t heard a word from Trent since the incident on Saturday night, nor did she want to. A meeting needed to occur eventually, but she wanted to hold off on one for as long as possible. Alice imagined many scenarios in which she met with Trent to initially discuss work progress, and all of them contained either awkward silences or uncomfortable conversations about the nature of their current relationship. What if he begs me to leave Daniel and come back to him? That’s a conversation I need to stay away from. Avoidance of any similar moments would help to sustain Alice’s sanity, if only temporarily.
The pressure she put herself under from Monday through Thursday conveniently forced her to complete a greater amount of work. It was surprising to her and the team how many tasks she’d managed to breeze through. Evidently, Alice worked much better under intense stress. She wasn’t sure how long she wanted to tolerate such conditions though. Her sleep and mental acuity were suffering from the strain. Maybe a talk with Daniel and with Trent should happen sooner than later.
Adding to the unfortunate work situation and possible compromised relationship was another stressor. A woman on the team began to question many artistic decisions that Alice made recently. Alice had originally liked Alisha, but something told her that the woman put on a façade to make a good first impression. Alisha appeared to doubt Alice’s direction as head of the team, and she offered many suggestions and criticisms that Alice felt were meant to undermine her authority and abilities. Luckily, Melanie and Kevin weren’t afraid to shoot down a few of Alisha’s less valuable ideas without being too harsh. Alice just couldn’t bring herself to take a firmer approach with her coworker. She was too afraid that she might look like a bitch if she didn’t at least take all suggestions into consideration. Also, Alice wondered if Alisha’s behavior wasn’t due to their considerable age difference. Alisha appeared to be around 35 years old, which may have added to her lack of desire to work under a woman of only 22. Alice had seen plenty of people of her type, and she guessed that Alisha didn’t intend to act maliciously. Alice excelled at giving others the benefit of the doubt more often than not. Growing up with a mother like hers and a father that disappeared when she needed him the most called for such qualities in her.
Maybe I’m not cut out for a leadership role. I can’t deal well with telling people what to do or how to do it. I’m not even able to stand up for myself.
Alice tapped her desk with a pen, trying to decide what project she should tackle next. It would benefit her mood greatly to get lost in the focus of another task. She still had about an hour and a half left in the workday, and there were no scheduled meetings until Monday. Choosing her next move seemed the hardest part about moving on to another project, at least to her. Her teammates didn’t usually pick their own tasks, though she’d give each of them something in which she thought they excelled or showed an interest. Judging others’ strengths appeared as the only thing Alice could do well in a leadership role, in her opinion.
Alice flipped through the binder, trying to find inspiration from Trent’s notes and objectives. She’d placed a lot of large red stickers on tasks that were already finished and finalized. Seeing all of these unexpectedly boosted her pride in her accomplishments this far, notwithstanding everything that happened since her arrival at Jitter. Perhaps she wasn’t as good a leader as someone more experienced in the field, and it’s possible that she made a few grievous errors on her way to this point. Nonetheless, she was pleased to have the experience regardless of the current situation or ultimate outcome.
Stopping on a page with no red or green stickers—green meant she’d delegated that task to someone else—she decided to close her eyes and point to something. It all needed completion either way, and Alice grew tired of dawdling between assignments. Her finger met the page at a random spot, and she opened her eyes to see the conclusion.
Typography it is. No problem! Just do what you’ve been taught, Al. You’ll get it done.
The next hour didn’t have anywhere near the amount of productivity that the rest of the week held. Maybe it resulted from the fact that the workweek would finish in less than two hours, or it could have sprung from Alice’s perception of so many shadows looming over her. She’d become burnt out soon if nothing changed. In any case, she couldn’t concentrate that well on selecting and testing fonts. Her thoughts always returned to everything she would have to do in the near future. She had no desire to confront things, but she wanted to be fair to Daniel, Trent, and herself by facing her actions head-on. Now is as good a time as any. If I really want to put this all behind me, I can’t ignore it and let the situation become more aggravated.
Alice never was the kind of person to procrastinate or avoid difficult situations demanding action on her part. The time when she needed to discuss with her parents the role they might play in her education held little difference to the current set of events. The consequence wasn’t great, but at least she’d handled it. The conversation itself or the worst-case scenario didn’t worry her anymore, and she had the ability to move on. Alice hadn’t a clue what she’d say to Trent, but she trusted she could find the words when she stood in front of him. She pressed the intercom button and dialed Trent’s extension. Hopefully, he was in the office and available. Alice itched to tell him there would be no more future incidents, and that things must return to normal for both of them. Squelching some of her tension necessitated doing so immediately.
“Trent? Are you available? It’s Alice,” she said sternly.
“Hey. Yes, I’m not busy right now. Did you need something?” Trent asked.
“I do. I think we should have…a status meeting.” Alice hoped her purposefully placed pause held some meaning for him.
“That’s a good idea. Come up, and we’ll talk more about the status of things,” he said indicatively.
She tried to calm herself down on the elevator ride up, to no avail. Relax now. This is going to be totally standard. Walk in, tell him we need to cut the crap, and walk out. Then you have one less thing to worry over. On her way down the hall, she felt the world taking on the dream-like quality she sensed whenever she dealt with anything complex and out of the ordinary. Her body moved along withou
t feeling as though she controlled the movements. Alice’s head felt light and airy while her heartbeat thumped aggressively. She knocked on the door, waving across the hall to Veronica as she waited for a response.
The office door swung open with Trent characteristically absent from the opening. Alice walked in to see him standing behind the opposite door again. Why does he like to do that? For as nervous as Alice was at the time, Trent looked even uneasier. He appeared to have been sweating for a while, probably since she talked to him on the phone earlier. Alice closed the door behind her and placed the binder on the table. She began to think that she had made a mistake in forcing a meeting this soon. Their silence implied a lack of readiness for either person.
Alice was absolutely stumped. For some reason, she couldn’t speak. She tried to recall the attitude she had on her way up to the office. Still, she couldn’t manage to drum up the words that would free them both. The meeting she imagined was vastly different than the reality where she had trouble telling him nonchalantly that nothing could or ever would happen between them again. Seeing him in person, looking upon his matured yet still innocent face dissolved Alice’s surety of what she might say. It’s like she was a totally different person when they were apart. Alice found it easier to think about Trent as this abstract embodiment of forbidden and unwelcome desires when she didn’t have him right in front of her. Alice desperately wanted to act like she was all business and let him down with ease, but his presence brought only more doubts about the truth of what she wanted to tell him. After what seemed like five minutes of quiet, Trent spoke first.
“I’m sorry for what happened at the party. I shouldn’t have ambushed you like that. It wasn’t right. It was downright disrespectful and unprofessional of me to ask you about a relationship we had in the past. I guess it just got to me more than I thought it would when you told Veronica that I meant nothing to you anymore. It’s like it finally hit me that you’d found someone else and moved on completely. I momentarily lost my judgment and thought I had to know how you really felt,” Trent blurted out.
Alice stood there and listened without saying a word. It took her a moment to process that he’d just given her a long apology. This had turned into a fully different set of circumstances than she had pictured. She wasn’t even sure what to say in response. Trent’s own guilt and respectful nature made her second-guess what she originally wanted to tell him. Can I really get rid of him so easily? How can I be sure I’m not making another mistake like the one that happened 5 years ago? She stayed silent for a little while longer.
“Please don’t be mad at me. I can accept that you want to distance yourself and live your life like before, but I don’t want you to be angry with me. I shouldn’t have kissed you. I knew you didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize your relationship with Daniel, but I was selfish. I’m sorry,” he apologized again. “I hope I haven’t caused too much trouble for you.”
He waited expectantly for her to answer, but Alice didn’t say anything right away. She required her next words to sound carefully chosen and truthful. If she said the wrong thing or stumbled over her own thoughts, the meeting could do more harm than good. Finally, she came up with what she wanted to say to him.
“You know, I had a totally different idea of what would happen in this meeting. I thought I was going to march in here and tell you that we have nothing; that we could never be anything but employee and employer. I wanted to be unemotional and firm while I told you off for initiating what happened, but I can’t do that. I had just as much of a part in the kiss as you did. You may have started it, but I finished it. Don’t apologize for something we both did. I also said a lot of things that made the circumstances harder for us both. I admitted to feelings that I should have kept inside. Honestly, I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I thought it would be easier to walk away from you and try to get over our kiss, but I don’t think I can. Every time I see you, it reminds me of what we had and how it was cut short. I don’t think our relationship was meant to be finished that way. I really hate myself for this thought, but I don’t feel that anyone can really compare to you,” Alice brushed her wet cheeks as she finished talking.
“Wow. That’s not how I expected you to react. I thought you were going to yell at me, call me names, or even quit. Anything but what you just said. What does this mean? Do you still love me?” he asked as he absentmindedly sat back into a chair.
“Y-yeah. I do still love you. What scares me is that it means I might have to make a tough choice. I can’t keep being torn like this. It’s not healthy. I’m barely eating, barely sleeping, and I just want my life back. I want to be happy again, like we were six years ago,” Alice crumpled into a chair and put her head in her hands. “But at the same time, I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want to be the one who gives under pressure and betrays someone she loves. I hate that feeling.”
“Hey, slow down. You’re not doing anything wrong; you’re just in a situation that’s not ideal. You’re handling it much better than many people would. We could have taken this a lot further, but we’re not letting that happen. Still, do you think I don’t feel guilty about Daniel, too? I know exactly how cheating affects someone. I saw my mom go from a composed and strong woman to someone I didn’t recognize when my dad cheated on her. It broke her,” Trent reminisced. “But this time isn’t the same. We had a moment of weakness, and it didn’t go any further. We’re not sneaking around or having sex, even though our kiss still makes me feel awful.”
“I’m going to tell Daniel about our kiss no matter what the outcome is,” she said. “He doesn’t deserve to have such a huge secret kept from him.”
“That’s good. I’m not going to pressure you at all. If you want to give us another chance, I’d be really happy. If you decide that you want to stay with Daniel, that’s all right, too. I know we’re in a tough spot here. I just want you to be happy though I think you should make a decision sooner than later if Daniel doesn’t make one for you. I don’t know how much more of this I can handle, Alice,” he said as he got up from the chair.
“I know. I wish we didn’t have to be in this mess,” Alice got up and walked over to Trent.
She put her arms around his back and buried her face in his chest as she suddenly began crying harder. The sudden hug took Trent off guard, and he apprehensively put his arms around her before squeezing much tighter. Alice knew that nothing about her life in the near future would be easy, but standing there with Trent made her think that things might be okay again soon enough. They both closed their eyes and remained in the embrace for another minute. Trent placed his lips on Alice’s forehead for a moment.
Just then, the door to the office opened. They both hastily let go of one another and turned to face the person entering. Alice’s heart raced furiously. Veronica walked in and saw them standing in that compromising position. Almost immediately, her face showed a mixture of surprise and anger. Veronica’s eyes narrowed while she looked from Alice to Trent and back. She furrowed her brow and shut the door behind herself.
“What’s going on here? Are you okay, Alice? Why are you crying?” Veronica asked urgently.
“It’s nothing. We were just having a meeting,” Alice answered in a shaky voice.
“Bullshit. What happened? Spit it out,” demanded Veronica.
“Okay! We had a moment. We still have feelings for each other, and we were discussing what to do about it,” Trent disclosed.
“What do you mean? What discussion is there? You’re her boss no matter what happened in the past, and she’s already involved with someone else. This is way out of line,” Veronica whispered angrily. “Alice?”
“He’s right. We don’t know how this is going to end, but I’m going to tell Daniel,” Alice replied.
“You’re damn right, you will! I don’t believe this is happening,” Veronica threw up her hands and then opened the door to leave. “You both have to stop this. Now.”
Trent became slightly irritated, and
he said, “It’s not as simple as that! We can’t rush anything.”
“You’re joking, right?” Veronica asked prior to throwing her hands up with indignation. “I can’t be here right now.”
She pivoted and threw the door open, speeding out into the hall.
Alice looked at Trent before running after her and yelling, “Veronica, wait!”
When Alice caught up, Veronica was already taking a seat inside her office. She looked up at Alice with pure, unfiltered displeasure. Then she focused her gaze downward again and shook her head as she shuffled papers around on her desk. I wish she’d given me an angry expression. I can deal with anger. But I think she’s really disappointed in me. That hurts more than anything. Alice stood awkwardly in the doorway and watched Veronica organizing her paperwork. It was clear that she was being ignored. All Alice could do was lean against the doorframe and hope that Veronica would say something soon because she wasn’t sure if she could utter the first word.
Without looking up from her chores, Veronica sighed, “What did you come here to say, Alice? I’m busy, and it’s almost time for you to go home.”
