Page 87 of The Sidekick

He sounds like he’s strangling on the words as he speaks. Did Max give him cue cards or something? I look behind me, expecting Max to be there with a poster board filled with words. The hallway leading to the exit past his office is empty. Awesome. I’ll just hear him out and text Max the number later.

He clears his throat again, bringing my focus back to him as I realize I’m eyeing the exit door like I want to hump it. I turn around and start studying the floor again.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is, can we just… start over?”

Start over? From where? My interview for the job or my first day here? The day I realized that what I felt for him was more than a crush, and I started worshiping the ground he walked on? Or the time I realized I had been staring at Max for almost an hour, imagining what it would be like when he finally talked back to me? He wants me to return to the bumbling idiot I’ve been throughout my entire life.

My thoughts are careening out of control, and anger begins to rise up in me. I don’t want to be mad. I want to hear him out and give him a sounding board. Everybody needs one at some point in their life. But I’m no Dr. Robinson, and this? This sucks.

I don’t want to sympathize with his troubles. I don’t want to give him the benefit of the doubt and pretend like everything he’s done is ok. It’s not ok. And I’m ok with it not being ok. I’m thinking ok a lot.

“You have to forgive me.”

Excuse me?

The anger that was simmering in my thoughts suddenly bubbles over, and my head jerks up to meet his gaze. My emotional rejection mask is in place, and I suddenly feel like I’m wearing body armor. I don’t recognize my own voice as it comes out so cold and detached.

“I don’t have to do anything.”

As soon as the words are out, that realization slams home inside me. I don’t have to do anything. At all. That anyone says. Ok, let me dial that back a bit because I have to obey the law and maybe follow common decency rules. Otherwise, I’m free!

His gray eyes widen in surprise, and he raises his hands as if he’s going to fend off an attack. “That’s not what I meant. I said it wrong. Can we rewind?”

“It is what you meant,” I tell him softly, with a grim little smirk. “You want everything for nothing, just like everyone else. Out of all the things you just said that one sentence is the only true thing.”

His jaw drops, and his brows pull down as he begins to get angry. Good for him. Let him have a meltdown for once. I refuse to feel guilty about how he takes my truth.

“That is not what I meant at all, and I’m not lying to you.” His tone has dropped into what I now consider his real voice. A dark commanding tone that screams pay attention or suffer the consequences. It makes me want to bow my head, submit, and give him whatever he wants in the most mentally unhealthy fashion possible.

There’s nothing wrong with submitting. I just don’t want to feel this pull and obsession with a jerk.

“I don’t believe you,” I stress the word as the mask slips and anger starts to spill out. “I don’t have to believe you. Because I’m a person and I deserve to have my feelings whether they’re wrong to you or not.”

“You have a right to be angry. I know that.”

I interrupt, “I know that too, Satan!”

“Do not take that tone with me, Tera,” he says darkly and takes a step forward.

“I’ll take any tone with you that I like, Satan. I am not a toy to hand off to your boyfriend. I am a person! And you are going to hear me. What you did was horrible! You didn’t even care about what happened or how it would feel for me. Just like everyone else! That’s what you are, another piranha in the waters of this crappy existence. Max loves you so much, and sometimes I wonder if you treat him that way, too. Is that why you both look for some toy to mess around with? Someone you can throw away like trash after you’ve had your fun? How many of the women here have fallen for your nice guy act and gotten treated like dirt after you’ve gained their trust?”

I take a deep, gasping breath as tears roll down my cheeks. He stands there with a scowl, not replying at all as I yell, and it somehow makes my anger flare even higher.

“Why don’t you focus on the relationship you have, with a man that loves you with everything in him, instead of trying to get your dick sucked by any girl that offers.”

My eyes widen when I think about what I just said. I used the D word. I’ve been yelling at the top of my lungs in a quiet bar filled with employees. My hand slaps over my mouth in horror. Satan doesn’t look any better with his shocked face that has paled to the point he almost looks like a wax figure.

If no one knew about his interests in the bedroom before, I just outed him without a thought. All of their hiding in plain sight has just been wiped out by my stupid mouth. I hurt him. And Max by proxy. It suddenly doesn’t feel good or righteous, it feels crappy. Like I ripped my own heart out this time and used it to beat someone with. I had no right.

“I’m so sorry,” I choke out as tears fill my eyes to overflow unchecked. I’m staring at the floor again with no idea when I lowered my head.

He passes by me without another word, closing himself into his office. The door latches with a gentle click, and I run. Straight out the rear exit, to my car, and peel out of the parking lot.

I cry the whole way home, reliving the moment over and over and wishing I could go back in time and just stay quiet and let him say what he wanted. I could have endured it. I’m capable of taking a verbal lashing without freaking out, or I used to be. What is wrong with me?

Babygirl,

I have a problem with anger, in case you haven’t figured it out. I’m sure you have, but I feel like I should say it. Just know that the anger I get is at me, not anyone else. But I can’t keep my fucking mouth shut, and it just falls out of me. I’m getting into an anger management class. This shit isn’t healthy for anyone.

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