Page 7 of Not As Advertised

“Seriously, who do you think took his photo for his ID badge?” Indie said. Easy for her to focus on his looks as someone who hadn’t experienced the whiplash of yesterday vs. today’s Mr. Sullivan. “He’s got a hot daddy look about him. So bossy.”

My face heated to the approximate temperature of the sun’s surface. “Do not ever call him that again. I need a brain bleach now. All I know is he couldn’t get me out of his office fast enough this morning. And I’m going to be working directly under him.”

“Babe, I wouldn’t mind being under him at alllllll.” Indie waggled her eyebrows and winked at me.

“Shit. You’re doing this on purpose!” I wanted to hide my face again but managed to stop myself. Indie’s response was a smile and a shrug.

Scandalized, I looked around to see if anyone had overheard her. Everyone nearby seemed to be absorbed by their phones or were chatting with other people, but I couldn’t help feeling embarrassed. When I looked back at my friend, Indie’s expression was completely unconcerned, not caring what people thought. I felt as though we were having this conversation via a megaphone.

“Indie! You are not helping,” I muttered. “I have to look this man in the eye every day. And you can’t go around saying stuff like that in the office.”

“Whatever you say, Abs. But for a man that handsome, I’d break a few hundred rules. But enough wishful thinking for me. What really happened?”

I’d never admit out loud that Indie’s outrageous comments were just what I needed. My muscles were already relaxing, tense from stress and nerves. The riot of anxiety in my stomach had gone from crisis mode to higher-than-usual discomfort. The shock of Indie’s unrepentant opinion was an effective distraction.

“It wasn’t like I did anything. I was working on a photography assignment for that class I’m taking for fun. Next thing I know, he sits down on the bench next to me and hands me my lens cap.”

This was the part of the story where Emery, the third member of our trio, melted into a puddle of swoon when I told her what she had interrupted at the park. Indie was more mercenary than that. She never stopped until she had all the details.

“So he was definitely interested,” Indie said while she lifted her hand like a stop sign. “Don’t start. He was interested. It’s a fact. We’re not going down the ‘he was just being nice’ rabbit hole because if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t have sat down. Period. Go on.”

“He gave me my lens cap and started asking me questions about my photography.”

Indie gave me a look that said, “See? Interested!” before I could continue. “Then this morning, Linda and I walked into the VP’s office, and it’s the hot stranger from yesterday! I basically blacked out for the introductions before realizing he was talking to me. I looked like an idiot in front of him.”

Indie rested a comforting hand on my shoulder, giving it a small squeeze in sympathy before letting it fall back by her side.

“Yeah, that totally sucks. So he was a jerk to you?” The idea had Indie frowning. She had major mama bear instincts and would call out anyone who hurt her friends.

Shaking my head, I tried to explain the sinking feeling I got the longer he spoke to me.

“Not a jerk, per se. But it was like talking to a totally different person. He said we had to put yesterday aside, and that was it. It wasn’t so much what he said as how he said it. Like he was irritated or inconvenienced or insinuating it was my fault somehow that we were in this situation, even though he was theone who approached me. It was just jarring that he might think I would act unprofessionally.”

Indie pressed her lips together in thought. For all her cheekiness, she was a deep thinker who was careful about what she said when it mattered. I could tell Indie didn’t want to upset me further, no doubt thinking about the anxiety spiral I was going down. But she wasn’t going to lie to me to make me feel better.

Realizing I’d chewed the edge off my thumbnail while I waited for her response, I had to consciously pull my hand away from my mouth. Instead, I gripped the fabric of my skirt at my side.

“Okay. I can see how it feels really awkward now,” Indie said slowly. “What do you want to do?”

“I want to go back upstairs, type up my resignation letter, and drop it off at Linda’s office so I never have to see Mr. Sullivan again.”

I gave her my best pleading, hopeful look so she might agree with my totally irresponsible plan of running away from this situation.

“Cool. So unemployment is the answer. I guess you can stay with me for a while. But what happens when you run out of money?” Her tone was patient and calm. She nodded for me to keep going, encouraging me to purge my worries. Sometimes, no matter how little sense it made, it helped to just get the words out.

This was not Indie’s first rodeo with my anxiety. I had a bit of savings. But between rent and other living expenses, plus paying back my student loans, there was a reason I’d held on so tightly to my job at Appeal.

It might seem hard for someone who’d had a family they could count on, but I would never live at home again. The toxicity of living with my mother’s emotional manipulation untilI was eighteen had taken so much “normal” away from me. Constantly being told I was too sensitive, never being able to meet her ever-changing expectations, being denied the right to feel my own feelings was too much for me to bear ever again.

I had to do everything in my power to avoid a situation where I put myself back under my mother’s passive-aggressive thumb. Where she could grind me into dust with every look of disapproval, sigh of disappointment, micro-aggressive and blatant denial of me as a person. All because I couldn’t become another version of herself she’d always wanted to mold me into.

Even knowing where Indie was going with this, I couldn’t stop myself as I spewed out my worst nightmare version of this scenario.

“That’s easy. I overstay my welcome at your place and ruin our friendship forever. Then I have to go home to San Jose to live with my mother and stepfather. I’ll be under my mother’s influence again, which means that I’ll have to give up Mew because she’s allergic. I’ll go back to having my life picked apart daily because I’m a disappointment as a daughter. Arthur will give me some job in his company to keep me busy as she forces me to date a series of horrible men until I just don’t care about anything anymore other than pleasing her.”

It wasn’t like I would implode my entire life or anything. Clearly, nor was I dramatic in the slightest.

But that was the thing about anxiety. My brain could know something was true, but my soul and body couldn’t feel it. It was terrifying.

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