Page 59 of Dance with Me on New Year's Eve

Reluctantly meeting my neighbor’s eyes for a brief moment, I looked at my watch and called out, “Jenna, hi, I’m late for a meeting!”

I sped past her as I raised a hand to wave, neither hearing nor seeing her reaction. It wasn’t long before I reached the office. Outside, I stood breathing heavily as I held onto the front door to steady myself. After catching my breath, I wiped my eyes on my jacket sleeve and entered the building.

The last thing I wanted to do was work right now, but at least I could escape to my office, pull the shades, and lock the door.

As one does.

I’d nearly made it to my office door when I heard Hazel’s voice.

“Rox! I didn’t know you’d be in this morning.”

I stilled, my hand circling the doorknob now. I turned partially toward her, knowing my face was safely curtained by my messy, damp hair. I was both cold and sweating, desperate to dart into my office and slam the door shut on the world.

“Yeah, I’ll talk to you a little later,” I mumbled before pushing the door open.

“Wait, wasn’t today the anxiety meetup?” she asked, coming closer.

I felt the panic rise, my stomach turning into knots. Hopefully Jeff wasn’t around to hearthat. The last thing I needed was for him to know about any of this. “Oh, it was, but something came up.”

Safely inside my office, I started to close the door, offering a wave as I avoided her eyes.

“Wait,” Hazel said, putting her palm on the door.

Could this get any worse? Now my boss was here to see me break down.

“Roxy, are you OK? You won’t even look at me,” she said. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, no,” I murmured. “I just—I have a lot to do. We can catch up later.”

“Roxy, please. You can’t tell me nothing’s wrong. I know you better than that.”

Against my will, my fearful eyes met hers for just a second before fiddling with my handbag. “Sorry, I’m being totally unprofessional. It won’t happen again. Please—”

“I don’t give a crap about professionalism right now, Roxy,” she said forcefully. “I thought we were friends. You seem really upset.”

I swallowed with great effort. “I—” Choking on the word, I dropped my bag on the table next to us and sank onto the hard metal chair in front of me.

Hazel immediately pulled a chair in front of mine and sat down. “Roxy, dear, it’s OK to be upset. I care about you.”

I looked up slowly as she edged closer to me and then drew me gently into a warm embrace. Unfortunately, this just turned my quiet tears into heaving sobs.

The more I tried to speak, the more anguished my sobs became, and Hazel hugged me tighter.

She started smoothing her hand over my tangled hair and uttering soothing sounds. Finally, she whispered, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, it’s—that’s OK—I don’t—” I hiccupped and pulled back.

“One second,” she said, rising to grab the box of tissues from the desk and then handing it to me. She patted me on the back twice and then sat down.

“I can be a great listener, believe it or not,” she said with a half-smile. “Is this because of the meetup? Nerves?”

I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak. After going through a large portion of the tissues, I breathed deeply in andout a few times while staring at the red and dark brown pattern of the table I was leaning on. “I bumped into my ex.” As Hazel’s eyes widened, I added, “Literally. Almost fell on my face.”

“Oh, no. Was it a bad breakup? I’m assuming from your reaction that it wasn’t good to see them.”

“The worst. Andrew, he was … terrible. S-so full of himself. I never proved he was cheating, but there was good reason to suspect it. And when I confronted him, he—he said some really awful things about me.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?” asked Hazel quietly. “You don’t have to. But I spent many years in the dating scene, so I have seen my share of messy breakups. Was it recent?”

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