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thirty six
"Please pick up," I mumbled to myself quietly as I held my phone up to my ear. The ringing sound dragged on for what felt like forever, before the dreaded voicemail came through for the umpteenth time.
"Tyler Gray is unable to come to the phone right now," the automated recording seemed to taunt me. "Please leave a message after the beep."
"Tyler, baby, it's me - Ally," I cringed at sound of the words coming out from my mouth. "Please call me back, I just want to know that you're ok."
I placed my phone back in my pocket as I waited by the taxi terminal for a ride back into the city. I'd just landed in New York after catching a sort of emergency return flight. Tyler had appeared to have upped and left Melbourne without my knowing, leaving me to assume that he was now back in The States as well. But since he wasn't returning any of my cal
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Make Me thirty seven
I arrived at work half an hour early on Monday morning, hoping that the extra time would allow me to settle my self and my nerves before the inevitable reunion with Mr Gray. Our 'unrelated' holidays had reached their scheduled expiration, forcing both of us back to work to finally face our reality.By the time the clock struck seven, I'd successfully built up the courage to go knock on his door. But there was no reply. When I walked into his office, his chair was empty and his desk was bare. There was no evidence of him in sight, which didn't sit well with me.Nevertheless, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, trying again an hour later, but to no avail. He wasn't in, and something really wasn't right."Come in," a deep voice called as I knocked on the door of my other superior
Make Me thirty eight
"It's my mum," he spoke almost shakily, leading me to immediately assume the worst.And as the next two words left his lips, my heart shattered into a million pieces along with his own."She's dying.""Oh Tyler, I'm so sorry," I tried my best to convey my sympathy, eventhough I knew I would probably never know the extent of his pain. "When did you find out?""Zoey called last Wednesday," he replied, "just after I got the text from Rebecca.""You should have told me. You know I would have come back early with you.""Would you have? Really?" His voice raised slightly again, the first sign that the tone was turning. "Because it really seemed to me like you'd left me for dirt.""I was just scared, Tyler," I reasoned with him. "There wasn't a second there that I stopped cari
Make Me thirty nine
Over the next few days, work became a painful distraction from my even more painful reality.Without having Tyler around, the jobs seemed to pile up for everyone else, which was good for getting my mind off everything, but made me all the more irritable and tired by the time I went home each afternoon.Rather inevitably, there were also a countless number of reminders of Mr Gray everywhere around the office. And even though Mr Baird was the official Acting Manager while Tyler was gone, everything still seemed to be about 'Mr Gray wants this' and 'Mr Gray does that'.After almost an entire week of being in these conditions, I was practically going insane. And considering that this was the case when he wasn't even at work, I didn't even want to imagine the struggle my life would be when he
Make Me forty
Despite my years of running for leisure, adrenaline was the only thing fuelling me as I sprinted through the doors of the emergency room. I'd hardly stopped to take a breath ever since getting the call from Zoey. After grabbing my absolute essentials and rushing downstairs to hail a cab, I'd taken the excruciatingly long ride to the hospital where Tyler was at. It was nearing midnight when I finally arrived, and was eerily quiet in the brightly lit waiting room."Can I help you, Miss?" the receptionist called me over to the front desk."Yes um.. I'm here to see Tyler Gray," I replied, not really sure what to say in such a circumstance."He's actually in the intensive care ward at the moment, and our visitation hours are over," my heart dropped as her words sunk in. "So I'm sorry, but unless you're directly related to the pat
Make Me one
Moving to America had always been my ultimate goal in life. Ever since I was fifteen, when my high school bestie and I had constructed a detailed ten-year plan, mapping out everything from our university courses to our apartment's precise address just five minutes from Broadway, I had known that this was what I wanted to do with the one life I'd been blessed with. And from the moment Rebecca and I had come up with a catchy 'American Dream' jingle in the ninth grade, I'd been determined that nothing could get in the way of me getting to the Big Apple.Having lived in the 'perfect family' my entire life, I felt as though I needed to take some risks and live a little. My parents had given me the classic sheltered upbringing, lined with curfews and restrictions, healthy meals and a private school education. In hindsight, I was grateful for mostly everything they'd done for me, no matter how hopelessly deprived I may have felt at the time. Nevertheless, I was the sort of
Make Me two
"I give up!" I groaned, annoyed by my fruitless search for meaningful employment, or any employment for that matter. By this point, I didn't even care.After two full weeks of searching, I'd managed to secure myself a job at a scrappy little café, which I had honestly only accepted as a worst-case-scenario safety-net.One (dare I say) 'benefit' of the situation was that we'd been able to set ourselves up quite nicely in our apartment in our ample free time. The space wasn't quite finished yet, but the major furniture pieces; a couch that doubled as a king bed, a coffee table, a small dining table and a couple of chairs; had been added, and a TV mounted on the wall. Becca had also insisted on us getting a number of plants. Yep, real plants. I was much more keen on the plastic stuff that I couldn't be responsible for killing, but she assured me that she would keep them going strong and I could simply enjoy them as a sort of decoration. Perhaps my favo
Make Me three
Monday morning came around way too fast for my liking.After leaving the confines of Mr Gray's intimidating building just three days ago, there had been a number of things I'd needed to do in preparation for my first day in the office. I'd started off by telling Becca about my new job, which had produced an unexpected reaction from my best friend."How could you go against Mase like that?" she had practically yelled at me. "I know you were desperate for work, Al, but your priorities are absolutely whack if you think you made the right decision taking this job."Deep down, I'd known that she was completely right, but that hadn't stopped me from being rather defensive at the time."You're literally the PA of Mason's biggest rival!" She'd responded to whatever lame argument I had scrambled together. "I can't believe you see nothing wrong with this.""It'
Make Me four
Gray's Consulting did it all, which meant that I did as well.The paperwork, filing and business correspondence was endless. I took all of my boss's calls, planned out his every move, and made sure he was everywhere that he was meant to be. I also attended countless meetings, where I was basically just the scribe, writing down every notable comment that was made. It really baffled me as to why billion-dollar businesses like his hadn't implemented some sort of recording technology to replace the physical labour.In my first few weeks on the job, I'd also done a lot of research, both assigned, and of my own accord. I was obviously required to know every intricate detail of the business in order to represent it well. But in addition to studying the surface facts, I' s found myself more often than not digging deeper into the history of Gray's Consulting, as well as into their many scandals, both past and present. I was more than aware that a lot of what
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