Page 39 of The Butterfly Effect
I cleared my throat. “Nothing, but I need to go.” I pulled my jeans and boxers back on. “We can’t do this again.”
She stared at me, and the shine of tears polished over her eyes. I finished getting dressed, but she didn’t move more than to cover herself with the sheet. There was a disappointed look on her face. Not exactly regret, but almost like she wished it was.
“William…” She only spoke in a whisper, but her face was covered with the questions she couldn’t bring herself to ask. Questions she didn’t want the answers to.
I looked at her and I tried to steel my posture, so I didn’t look as defeated as I felt. The hurt I’d warned her about covered her face, and I turned to avoid seeing any more of it as I started walking out of her room.
“I told you I’d hurt you.”
I felt her eyes bore into me as I left, but she didn’t say anything to stop me. When I clicked her front door shut behind me, I relaxed. I tried not to imagine her laying in her bed, defeated and wrapped in nothing but a sheet. If I thought about it too much, I was going to walk back in there and wrap my body around hers. We had gone too far already.
AvoidingWilliam in such a small office all day had been nearly impossible, but at least we were between accounts, so I didn’t have to meet with him. Short of a small nod and a half smile in the hall, I haven’t acknowledged him once, and as Katie pointed out, he didn’t have to try to force contact with me if he wanted it. He’d made that clear more than once, so it was safe to assume he wanted to avoid me just as much.
The taunting “I told you so” of my conscience was loud, pounding like blood in my ears. I didn’t want to admit that I knew this was exactly what was going to happen when I saw him walk in the door on his first day. The coffee I sipped was black, cold, and bitter, but I swallowed it and closed my eyes as if it was the first delicious taste.
“Jules, that coffee is like six hours old…” Katie didn’t bother to hide the concern in her voice or the look in her eyes when she stared at me throughout the day.
“It still does its job.” I looked at the clock, drawing side glances from Grant and Sasha. “I just have to get through the next two hours and thirty-seven minutes.” I swallowed the lump that had suddenly lodged itself in my throat, willing my eyes not to fill with tears. There was no way I was going to cry over a man in the office, let alone in the same office he was in. That would mean he had won this ridiculous battle we’d somehow committed ourselves to, although I was sure he’d known from day one he would. Even knowing that, part of me thought I would be able to hold my own.
Katie nodded at me, solemn defeat on her face, but when she picked up her phone and tapped quickly, she was probably texting Andy an “SOS” to meet at my place after work. I’d be okay with that. Getting wine-drunk on a Monday sounded better by the minute. I shot a lazy smile in her direction, setting my mug down and sliding my keyboard towards me. My to-do list for the day hadn’t gotten any smaller, and I could only put off so much until the next day.
As I gathered my focus on the content in front of me, I was interrupted by Sandra clearing her throat. She stood by my desk, waiting for me to greet her and electing not to speak first – her typical power move. I just stared, unwilling to indulge her, and her annoyance became clearer in her stance.
“Got a minute?” She sighed. It almost sounded polite, but what she was really saying was that you have a minute or you’re going to make one because she wasn’t going to wait on you to meet with her later.
“Don’t I always?” I retorted sweetly, standing swiftly from my chair and gesturing for her to lead the way. Sasha snorted a small laugh behind me and caught a glare from Sandra before she stepped in front of me and led the way to her office.
She closed the door behind her. I was going to regret following her in here. Over the past few months, I’d become Sandra’s favorite punching bag, and judging by the disheveled look of her hair, she needed someone to punch. She sat in her chair, staring at me and waiting until the discomfort in the room grew heavy enough for one of us to speak.
“What do you want, Sandra?” I crossed my arms over my chest like a protective shield. For my entire life, I’ve been the type of woman who couldn’t stick up for herself, usually just sitting back and taking the wrath of my dad’s bad days, my sister’s temper, my mom’s anxiety, every employer’s shortfalls, and everything in between. But after this weekend, I’d taken plenty of punches, and throwing one felt pretty great. So Sandra didn’t scare me.
She wanted to, though, judging by her glare. “Is that how you should talk to your boss? You do know you still report tome, right?” I didn’t get a chance to respond with a sarcastic yes, let alone address the snide implication that I thought I reported to William, before she continued. “Whatever. You need an attitude adjustment. That’s why you’re here.” The look of disgust on her face turned to a satisfied smile.
I raised an eyebrow when she opened the folder in front of her. “You’re writing me up? For what exactly?”
“Like I already said, your attitude.” She picked up the papers and tapped them on the table before setting them back down. “For months, you have been nothing but negative. You bring down the morale of those around you with your rude comments, and that’s not healthy for the workplace. You have left before the end of the day a few times now, as if you don’t work a set schedule. Then there’s this…infatuationwith William, and frankly, I think it’s inappropriate.” She lifted the papers again, starting to mumble to herself under her breath, “And we all know you’re fucking him.”
Reaching forward, I snapped the papers out of her hand and slammed them onto the desk. “Do you want to go ahead and repeat that last part to me with some conviction before I quit?” I glared at her, standing and leaning towards her.
Sandra looked shocked at the outburst, but steeled her spine and met my eyes. “You wouldn’t dare quit, not when there isn’t anywhere else that is going to give you the same chances we do. Be realistic, Jules. You’re not nearly as good as you think you are. You had to sleep with the new CEO to get a good account, and then you slept withthe client to get the contract.”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong. I didn’thaveto sleep with anyone, and Iwoulddare.” I lowered my voice to a near whisper and slid the papers back across the desk towards her. “I quit.”
Standing up from my position over her desk, I turned to walk towards the door. A swirling cocktail of nausea and excitement rose in my throat, and for a second, I thought I might throw up. Quitting my job without another on the line wasn’t ideal, but I had enough money in my savings to get through a few months comfortably before I had to worry.
Sandra tried to insist I give two weeks’ notice, but after telling her no, I returned to my desk. Katie, Sasha, and Grant waited expectantly for me to tell them what Sandra wanted, and I felt guilty and sad about leaving them. If anyone would understand, though, it was them, and they would all be perfectly fine without me.
“So… what happened?” Grant urged. It was always an instant topic of discussion when Sandra pulled anyone into her office.
I gnawed at the inside of my lip, trying to contain the butterflies that threatened to fly out of my throat. Without sitting down, I gave them a brief summary of the short meeting before I took a deep breath and clasped my hands. “And then I quit.”
“You what?!” Katie practically shrieked, drawing attention from the groups around us. Out of the corner of my eye, the blinds in William’s office moved. What would Sandra would tell him?
“I’m really sorry, you guys. I just couldn’t take it anymore.” They looked forlorn, but like I’d expected, they understood. In a daze, I gathered my things from my desk. The picture of Katie, Andy, and me on our graduation day, the dog-shaped tape dispenser from last year’s white elephant exchange, and my empty coffee mug made it into my purse. I picked up the plant I’d managed to keep alive as a procrastination tactic and slid it across the desk to Sasha. “Will you take care of this for me? I know if I take him home, he’s just going to die there. You love him as much as I do.” She nodded and pulled the plant towards her, blinking back tears.
Guilt tugged at my chest, and I grabbed the cup that held the pens I was so picky about; the ones I wouldn’t share with anyone. “You can have these. I know how much you like them, and now you won’t have to use them just when you think I won’t notice.” I winked at Grant and set the cup on his desk, laughing when he swatted at my arm.
I turned to Katie, and even though she’d be at my apartment in a couple of hours, a twinge of sadness pulled at my heartstrings. “I’m really sorry, Katie.” The last picture frame on my desk was a selfie of the two of us, and I sat it on her desk. “This way, it’s kind of like I’m here?”
