Page 56 of #Awestruck

Brenda moved to the corner of her desk, positioning herself on the edge while she stared down at me. “Are you really that girl? The one who is this close to having the career she’s always wanted, but you’re just going to give it all up and walk away for some guy? Choosing a relationship over a job? With a guy you can’t even trust? Have some self-respect, Ashton.”

I nodded, blinking back the anxious and angry tears that were making my vision watery. I would not cry, because Brenda would never let me live it down.

“Go home and think about what kind of employee you want to be. What choices you want to make. Your job is very much on the line here. I expect for you to have the information I want soon. A top reporter would have had this story to me days ago. This is your chance to impress me, and I have a roomful of interns dying to do just that. You need to decide if you’re going to deliver on the potential I see in you or accept that there’s only room at ISEN for reporters who can deliver.”

I heard the dismissal in her voice and quickly stood, then made my way out of her office and to the elevators. I felt nauseous, and my limbs were shaky and cold. I had to get out of the building. When the doors slid open and I stepped into the thankfully empty elevator car, I finally allowed myself to sob all the way down to the lobby.

I’d been wrong. There wasn’t going to be a way to get out of this Evan story and keep my job. I’d be held up in my family as the Poor Example of a Daughter, who had failed to take her parents’ advice and now wouldn’t be able to afford to live. I would have to start all over at a different branch of ISEN or with a different network. Which meant I’d be living at home since I didn’t have the money to fund another internship. And then I’d have to get a second job just to pay my expenses.

I walked out to my car and stumbled to a halt when I realized the front driver’s side tire had gone flat.

And I already had my spare tire on one of the rear wheels.

“Could this day get any worse?”

Although the tears were blinding my vision, I picked up my phone and dialed.

“Hey, Ashton, what are you up to?”

“Evan? I need your help.”

He must have heard something in my voice because he went from fun and flirty to totally serious. “Are you okay?”

“I’m ... stranded. I was out running, and I had to stop by my office, and now I have a flat tire, and I don’t have a spare, and everything is just terrible.” My throat felt thick as I tried to hold back my tears.

“Whatever you need, I’m there. Tell me where you are.”

It was why I had called him. Somehow I’d known he’d show up, no questions asked. I gave him the address. “There’s something else. I’m going to have to call a tow truck and wait for them. Which means I’ll be late to Thanksgiving, and that means I’ll get attitude from my mother. Can you go by my condo and get my change of clothes and shoes that I left on my bed and then come and pick me up?”

“Absolutely. How am I going to get into your condo?”

“The front door is unlocked.” It was a bad habit of mine. My roommates in college had constantly yelled at me about it.

He paused for so long that I thought the call had dropped. “Ashton, why would you leave your front door unlocked? You live in the city. Do you know how dangerous that is?”

“Yes, I’m obviously too stupid to live and will get murdered in my sleep.”

“Just ... it’ll be okay. We’ll talk about it later. When you will promise me to never leave your front door unlocked again. I’ll be there soon. Everything’s going to be all right.”

And when he said it, I believed it. We hung up, and I called the tow truck company, which arrived much faster than I’d anticipated. I had them take my car to the mechanic I usually went to, and then I called the mechanic to let them know what I needed. They promised to have the car back to me on Monday, given that it was almost the holiday weekend.

I left the parking garage and went to wait on the street for Evan to arrive. It occurred to me that when I was upset and needed help, I hadn’t even hesitated. Evan had been the first person I called. Not my parents, not my sisters.

Evan.

While I mulled over what that meant, he arrived in a big black SUV, darting across two lanes of traffic to pull up to the curb. He rolled down the window and pointed to my clothes in the back seat. “Do you want to go inside and get changed?”

I absolutely did not want to go inside and get changed. I didn’t want to be where Brenda was. “Holiday traffic getting out of the city is going to be awful. We need to get on the road. I’ll just change in the back seat.”

I opened the rear passenger side door, and an empty bottle of the Gatorade flavor that Evan endorsed fell out. The flavor was called, of course, Awesome Dawson. It was purple, and I’d always thought it tasted like douchebag and lies. The entire back seat was a complete mess. I had to move a bunch more empty bottles to get in. “It’s like a Gatorade graveyard back here.”

He pulled back into traffic, driving a bit faster than what most people would consider, you know, legal. “The psychologist said to let something be messy in my life.”

“So you chose your back seat?”

“I’m working on letting go.”

If only he knew what a mess my boss was trying to make of his personal and professional life, he wouldn’t worry about the back seat.

---