Page 37 of Don't Hate Me
Except every time I did, every time I squeezed the phone in my hand like a drunk trying to stay sober while his hand was wrapped around a beer, I remembered her asking me not to break. Not to break, because then we would end up where we’d been.
It was only because I knew she was right, I did as she asked.
So I put my head down and I worked. I studied. I spent all my energy on making sure I was on top. I wasn’t going to just graduate, I was going to do it summa cum laude. On the weekends, I worked for Landen. Grew my account to a significant sum, and eventually was assigned to a client with Trevor as my manager.
I didn’t think about her. Or, at least I told myself every daynotto think about her. Which wasn’t exactly the same thing.
Erica started showing up on Saturdays. She made her intentions known. She wanted me. Just for a fuck. There were times I told myself to just do it. Take her out to dinner, then to her place and fuck her.
To say that I’d done it. That I’d moved on from Ash.
I hadn’t. I told myself it was because Erica wasn’t my type. The truth was, I knew how it would feel. It would feel different than it had with Ash, and I didn’t need yet another thing in my head reminding me that Ash was, and would be, the only woman in my life.
Because that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t my father who had a beef against her. It wasn’t my father who had decreed she would never be good enough for me. That bullshit was on her side. Not mine.
“Fuck, she still looks like a virgin,” Trevor said.
The word got my attention and I lifted my head to see who he was talking about. And there she was. A summer dress, her blond hair down around her shoulders. She was smiling.
How the FUCK was she smiling?
She breezed through the cubes on her way to her father’s office. He happened to be in today, which wasn’t the norm. They must have had plans for lunch or some shit.
It was like being gutted. She looked so light. So effortless. As if nothing was causing her pain or weighing her down. As if not having me in her life made her better and not worse.
When, for me, it had been months spent in hell.
“Although, I suppose she isn’t anymore. Now that she’s engaged.”
I blinked. Then blinked again as she turned into her father’s office, never once looking around at the people milling about the cubes. Never once seeing me sitting in the damn conference room.
“What did you say?”
“Yeah, Landen told me. All proud and shit. Happened last week. She’s engaged. Evan Sanderson, whose family money makes Landen’s money look like pocket change. So, I bet he’s happy.”
She was engaged. To be married. To the man she’d suspected her father was selling her to.
Except it was the twenty-first century and shit like that didn’t happen. He couldn’t force her to marry anyone. If she was being forced to marry, why the hell was she strutting around the office smiling like she didn’t have a care in the world? Having lunch with the man who would do something like that to her?
Landen came out of the office, Ash behind him. She linked her arm with his, and, again, didn’t bother looking around the office, trying to see if she could spot me among the other employees.
I don’t know why I did it. It was instinct, or compulsion or something, but I stood up. Just that. I stood, and I could feel Trevor’s eyes on me, wondering what the hell I was going to do.
“Do not make a scene,” I heard him say under his breath. “Sit down.”
Only I didn’t. I stood there and knew when they turned to leave through the receptionist area, she would see me. She couldn’t not see me. She didn’t stop walking, didn’t stop talking to her father. Instead, she tilted her head, gave me a shy smile, a little wave, then kept walking. Out of the office, without any more acknowledgement than that.
When it was over, I fell back into my chair, because my knees wouldn’t hold me.
“Man, you look like you just got shot,” Trevor said. “I thought you said there was nothing there.”
I didn’t say anything. I just looked at him and said the first thing that came to mind.
“I need to get drunk.”
To his credit, Trevor didn’t ask any questions. We wrapped up the work for the day. Found the closest bar to the office. Not the one where occasionally people showed up for happy hour and easy chitchat. Instead, we found the type of bar that was solely for the purpose of getting drunk.
I drank whiskey until I couldn’t feel, couldn’t think, couldn’t see.
