⊰ 4 ⊱ Painful Echoes

The hours that pass are painful. Not even the horrid HR videos that I’ve been watching for the past few hours are enough to settle my anxiety. 

The lunch hour couldn’t roll around fast enough, and while others in the team start trickling off at noon, I wait until Krina gets up to follow behind her. We part ways when she approaches the floor’s kitchen area and I continue to the elevator where I ride it down to the first floor and make my way to my car in the garage. 

Anxious to call my best friend, the phone’s already dialing as I lower myself onto the passenger seat. Closing the door, I press the speaker button, the heel of my foot incessantly tapping against the car’s floor.

“Hey, girl!” Ava answers cheerfully. “What’s up? How’s your first day going?! Tell me EVERYTHING.”

Under different circumstances, I would’ve been ever-so grateful for having a great friend who’s just as enthusiastic as I would’ve been otherwise.

“Ava…” my voice quavers as I try not to let what I’m feeling completely overpower me. “Cade is my boss.”

There’s a long silence that falls between the line. I’m almost sure that she didn’t hear me until she suddenly says, “You’re lying...”

I shake my head, tears gathering at the brim of my eyes as I feel my heart at my throat. “No, Ava. I wish I were. And apparently his dad owns this company too. What am I supposed to do, A..?” My voice trails off.

“Oh, Elys…” I can practically hear her shaking her head over the phone, the sincerity in her voice only making it harder for me to hold it together. “Can you find another job? You’re so smart. I’m sure you can find another job.”

I exhale deeply, tears breaking from my eyes as I tell her, “I can’t. I signed a 3-year contract. I can’t just leave, and I can’t even try to get fired because it’s gonna look really bad and no one is gonna want to hire me if they see that I got fired on my background check. I’m screwed, A. I’m totally screwed.”

The soft sob that breaks from my lips only makes it worse, my desperate attempt to hold myself together utterly useless. I pull my glasses off of my face, wiping the tears that gather in my eyes before they fall.

“It’s gonna be okay,” she tries to comfort me. “Don’t engage with him if you don’t have to. Make it clear that your relationship will only be a professional relationship. Maybe if you don’t bring up the past, he won’t bring it up either. It’ll be as if it never happened.”

Her words sting, because deep down, no matter how much I tell myself otherwise, a part of me doesn’t want it to never have happened. 

I don’t regret him. I just regret being hurt by him.

“You’re right,” I respond as I wipe the remnant of the tears from my face and put my glasses back on. “It’ll be better that way.”

Despite saying it, and no matter how many times I tell myself to try to convince myself otherwise, I wish that it weren’t better that way. I wish that I could, at the very least, get the closure that I never got.

I just want to know why…

As I sit here, my mind drifts back to the last time I saw Cade before everything fell apart. I remember the last time I was with him like it was just yesterday. 

Ironically, it was raining. 

In a black dress, I stood next to Cade as he held an umbrella over the both of us. I’d been trying so hard to be strong for him, but as my eyes flickered from the beautiful picture of Olivia—his mother—to the casket where her body rested, I couldn’t hold it together. As they lowered her into the ground, I clung onto Cade’s side, tears streaming down my face.

When I glanced up at him, it was as though I was looking at the empty shell that was made of him. There were no tears in his eyes—no life. As I looked around the open field, tombstones fading in the background, I realized that it was only his eyes that were dry. Like the wonderful woman she was, she was loved by many.

That day was one of the worst days of my life, and having only known her for the better part of a year, I couldn’t begin to imagine what Cade was going through.

When I first received his letter, a week later, I dreamed of nothing but him coming back and telling me that he was just having a hard time dealing with the loss of his mother. I would have accepted that, knowing how close they were. I would have forgiven him. I wouldn’t have held it against him, because love is not proud. 

I had faith that despite whatever it was that was going on in his head, he’d come back to me.

But I was wrong. 

Well, I guess, ultimately, I really wasn’t wrong.

“Are you gonna be okay?” Ava’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts, snapping me back into the reality I wish I wasn’t living.

I hope so.

“Yes,” I respond with uncertainty. “I’ll let you go. I need to get back to work. Love you!”

“Okay, girly. I love you too!” I can hear the hesitation in her own voice, her reluctance to leave me alone with the gnawing restlessness of my thoughts. 

One of my favorite things about her is that she doesn’t pry.

I sigh softly as I end the call, throwing my head back against the seat with my eyes closed. “It’s all gonna be fine. It’s going to be fine,” I say to myself, hoping that if I speak out loud, it’ll come true.

I allow myself a couple more minutes of wallowing in self-pity before I head back into the building and to the cafeteria that I overheard a couple of the engineers on my team talking about earlier. 

It’s very much like me to have a poverty appetite when I’m under a lot of stress and anxiety, but I know that I have to eat something. Otherwise, I’ll have gone the entire workday on an empty stomach.

Then, I’ll really feel sick.

The caesar salad chicken wraps and fruit cup seem to be the best looking options, despite how ridiculously overpriced they are. Accompanied by a Coke Zero, I find the empty table at the far end of the cafeteria and sit, next to the pairs of large windows.

As I usually do, I pop my earbuds in, prop my phone up against my Airpod’s case, and play an episode of The Office that I’ve rewatched about twelve times already. It’s hardly enough to distract me from the situation, but it’s enough to release some endorphins while I try to finish my meal. All of the fruit and half of the wraps is all I can do before I lose my appetite once more and I have no choice but to dispose of the rest of it.

With silent earbuds in my ear, I make my way back to the elevators and hop into an empty one. I keep my gaze on the elevator floor, crossing my arms just beneath my chest as I hug myself for comfort. For a second, it works. Unfortunately, within the next, the doors stop mid-way and open again, my eyes snapping up to meet a very stern Cade emerging into the elevator. 

You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me…

Our eye-contact is only brief, my gaze snapping back to the floor as he moves to stand but a couple of feet away, beside me. 

My skin feels hot, my breathing short and shallow as I desperately try not to move or make a sound. It’s funny that my anxiety often convinces me that if I don’t draw any attention to myself, I’ll truly become invisible. 

The elevator dings, the doors sliding open on the 7th floor. A part of me wants to use this opportunity to get the hell out and away from him, but as a pair of men emerge into the elevator, I rest easy in the thought that the tension between us will grow thin.

It’s easier when their chatter continues, and the next time the elevator dings, I’m the first one out. I don’t waste any time, moving back to my desk only to find that I’m the first one on my team back and the office is otherwise empty.

Why is this happening to me?!

While I can see Cade walking toward his office out of the corner of my eye, my gaze holds the screen as I log back into my laptop. I watch as he shuts the glass door and lowers himself onto his seat, and though I can’t clearly see his face, my eyes locked on the screen, I can feel his eyes on me.

Maybe he plans to keep it strictly professional. Maybe I need to stop worrying.

With the hour coming to an end, more and more people fill the floor, and my team reconvenes. The ten restroom and water breaks that I take throughout the remaining four hours aren’t enough to stop my brain from wanting to shut down at the never-ending HR training exercise and videos. At this rate, I’m confident that I won’t be done until Friday.

I don’t think I can take four more days of this crap.

The sound of Krina’s joints popping as she stretches snaps my attention to her, watching her as she rises to her feet. “Finally, we can get the hell out of here,” she says as she begins to pack her belongings into her backpack. “Are you coming to the happy hour?” She asks.

Huh?

“Happy hour?” I ask as I straighten on my feet and begin to pack my belongings, mirroring her actions. 

She arches a brow, saying, “Yeah…you know, Bridges’ Bar at 6? The one Cade mentioned in the meeting this morning. You should come!” 

And that is what I missed.

…

I would really rather not…

I don’t doubt that she can see the hesitation in my face as she carries her backpack on her back and pulls in her chair, insisting, “It’ll be fun! I’ll be there and so will the rest of the team. It’ll be your opportunity to introduce yourself to executive management.”

She lowers her voice, leaning in closer to me as she whispers, “And the drinks are all on the company, unlimited.”

The thought of facing Cade in a more casual setting makes me uneasy, and as much as I would much rather go home and cuddle with Bubbles, I know that it’ll reflect poorly on me if I don’t show up to the first social outting I’ve been invited to.

Offering her a small smile, I forfeit, telling her, “Alright. I’ll see you there.”