Haze

by Andrea Wolfe

  My feet pulled me rapidly toward the door, the door symbolic of escape and short-term relief in my mind. I was fucked, but I wasn't about to solve my problems in that office.

  "Don't think I'll forget any of this, Jacobs," he said, his words slurring as he spoke. "You'll never work in this business again."

  I turned toward him, continuing to cautiously walk backward. "If this business is full of people like you, then that sounds just fine to me. Maybe sober up before work next time, huh?"

  He snarled something behind me, but I couldn't make any sense of it. Just angry syllables. I just kept walking until I was on the street, once again surrounded by so much stimuli I thought I might explode. I yanked my cell phone out of my purse, ready to dial Jack and talk his ear off, unsure of what my angle would be with him. My grip was faulty; the phone slipped out of my sweaty palm and tumbled to the ground touch-screen first.

  "Dammit!" I mumbled, reaching down and grabbing it, upset with the fact that the accident had slowed me down. But why did I care? I was unemployed now. I had all the time in the world!

  I started pressing buttons before I realized the screen was totally smashed and nothing I had pressed had worked. The glass had fractured in several spider web patterns that began from a deep, single point of impact.

  "Dammit, dammit, dammit!" I shouted to no one. Tears were streaming down my cheeks now and I couldn't do anything about it. I desperately needed respite, but I didn't know where to find it. I wiped my eyes with a tissue from my purse and continued to the subway. I was just gonna go home and think. The universal solution for everything.

  I had so many questions for myself, so many questions for the world, so many people to blame, myself included. It seemed that I had found myself standing atop a gigantic emotional landfill, my assignment the sorting and acknowledgement of every emotion beneath my toes.

  Thankfully, I arrived home to an empty apartment. Upon entering my bedroom, I angrily threw my pillows on the floor and stomped on them with my bare feet before proceeding to deliver a brutal beating to my mattress. I sobbed uncontrollably, allowing everything out, not restraining myself at all. I was pretty sure that anyone else in the building that heard my outburst probably couldn't tell if it was one woman's total emotional breakdown or really loud sex.

  I didn't care one way or another.

  After calming down—and fighting the urge to get entirely wasted prior to noon—I grabbed my laptop and looked through Craigslist for any accounting jobs. No matter what I found, I felt totally inadequate. I had only set foot at MCI for the interview, avoiding the challenges of the rest of the city entirely. To make matters even worse, most of the listings paid less than I had been making.

  My wounded phone on the table was a consistent reminder that I needed to remedy this situation fast.

  Dammit, I didn't want to go back to that existence, the world of dead end jobs. I didn't want to be thirty and still working in retail or at a coffee shop. I didn't want to be a clerk. I wanted to feel validated by my work, whatever it was.

  I gently closed the lid on my laptop—breaking one screen today was enough—and stared at the wall in silence, listening to the ambient noise from the street. The city kept moving, even though my place in it had vanished in the span of an hour. My position was gone, but MCI kept going. I wasn't necessary, wasn't needed in the grand scheme of things because I could be replaced...

  ... and this sort of nihilism wasn't doing me any favors right now.

  My head more or less accidentally found the pillow and I quickly fell into a stress-induced slumber.

  ***

  I awoke suddenly, startled from a dream in which I was both falling and being relentlessly chased by faceless men. "Fuck," I mumbled, pulling my sweat-soaked hair away from my forehead. I was glad to have escaped that fate of perpetual, confusing horror.

  Buzz!

  My phone fell off the table, leaping to its second death on the floor. It hit with a quiet thud, the rug cushioning the fall. It was already damaged, so I was mostly indifferent to the event. My mind still cloudy, I picked it up and answered the call without looking at the fractured display.

  "Hello?"

  "Hi, gorgeous. How's your day?" It was Jack, of course.

  I took a sip of water from the glass on my nightstand and gulped it down before responding. "Jack." I tried to talk after that, but nothing came out. I felt so vulnerable after hearing his voice in my ear.

  "Effie, what's wrong? Are you okay?"

  Feeling like a pipe about to burst, I blurted "No!" and fell silent again. Those damned tears returned, slinking down my cheeks as if I somehow wouldn't notice their salty presence on my face.

  "Effie, did something happen at work today? Oh shit, did that Dan guy run his fucking mouth?"

  I hated to say it, but I was a veritable mess, beyond the obvious events of the morning. That was the simplest way to describe me in that moment. I had spent Sunday realizing that my qualms with Jack had been unjustified, that I needed to let my guard down and trust him.

  It felt good, no lie, but maybe it was just because I made a fucking decision for once. It felt good what Jack did to me, what we did together. He took care of me physically and emotionally. Yet like a parasite in my belly, that desire to be independent and free awoke, telling my emotions to go fuck themselves. That desire could really be an unreasonable asshole sometimes, perhaps even worse than Sam.

  By the time I realized what side of me I wanted presented to Jack, it was already too late. "I fucking got fired thanks to our little adventure this weekend. Sam called me a whore and humiliated me in front of everyone!"

  "Wait, wait," he said, urgency surging through his words. "He called you that and it was humiliating, or he called you that and did other stuff to humiliate you?"

  "It doesn't fucking matter," I snarled.

  "You could sue his ass for sexual harassment. That fucking prick."

  "Jack, I don't have a job anymore. I have rent and student loans to pay. I don't have time to sit around waiting for a lawsuit to go through. Or a lawyer for that matter."

  His voice got weaker on the other end, perhaps reflecting a change in strategy. "I'm so sorry, Effie. I didn't know this would happen. Let me make this—"

  "Well, I did know this would happen. That's why I asked for a break. I didn't want Sam to have any ammo to use against me. Instead, I gave him a fucking atom bomb!"

  "Dammit," he said calmly. "I'm sorry, Effie, I couldn't resist inviting you. When you're around, everything is better." He seemed to choose each word with careful consideration, uttering it with an even cadence. "I couldn't just idly sit there doing nothing, hoping you'd come back. It felt like too much of a risk. I don't want to let you go, Effie."

  Unfortunately, there was a lot of truth in what he said, far more than what I wanted to allow myself to believe at the time.

  "What am I going to do?" To me, the question had no answer, but I needed to ask it.

  "Let me make this right," he pleaded. "I swear everything will be fine. I promise you that I'll take care of everything. Let me take care of you."

  His promise felt like nails on chalkboard. Something told me he was right, that he would help me unconditionally, but the whole misery loves company part of me didn't want to hear it. He was trying to help—and it scared me.

  "Jack, I have to go right now. I can't deal with this."

  "Effie, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry about the trip and I'm sorry about what happened with Stacy."

  "It's nothing but sorries these days, isn't it?" I asked. I didn't even know where my attitude was coming from. "Goodbye for now, Jack."

  "Trust me." He hung up before I did. I looked at the phone and realized that thanks to the shattered face, I couldn't have pressed the end call button anyhow. I sat there silently, hands splayed across my lap, pondering my life in that moment.

  Why was it that sometimes people would refuse the best advice only because they hadn't arrived at it themselves? What was it about us that ma
de us so selfish and prideful, so unwilling to budge until we came to terms with things by ourselves? It seemed like a lot of heartache could be avoided by just listening instead of talking or shouting.

  My internal determination to succeed on my own didn't make much sense, yet it was the only thing I was fixated on, the only thing I really cared about in that moment. I needed to make a plan for myself, a getaway from the mess I was in. I grabbed my laptop and opened up a new blank text document.

  Goals for tomorrow:

  1. Sort out finances.

  2. Fix phone.

  3. Update resume.

  4. Check classifieds and job websites.

  Jack?

  I typed that last bit without a number, a quiet acceptance that Jack might actually have an unstructured solution for me. Whether I ever looked at the document again or not, it felt good to type everything out. I didn't want to deal with this tonight, I just couldn't.

  Tomorrow, however, was a different story.

  Out of nowhere, I realized I needed to eat, and fast. Even though I was on a budget, I decided to grab cheap Chinese food, just for tonight. Even though I had nothing to do, making something in the kitchen and having the scrub dishes sounded like the furthest thing from soothing.

  After a quick trip to the nearest restaurant to grab my take-out—my budget definitely wasn't about to include delivery charges—I met Jesse in the kitchen.

  "Effie, how are ya?" he asked. He was alone, his backpack slung over his shoulder. It was obvious he had just arrived.

  "I'm fine, Jesse," I said, lying through my teeth."

  "You don't look fine," he said sympathetically. "Is something wrong?" I didn't know if I should tell him what happened or not.

  No, I wasn't ready yet.

  "I feel a little tired and sick. I didn't sleep that well last night." I threw my take-out bag on the table like it weighed a hundred pounds and I needed relief.

  He gave me a disappointed look. "That sucks. I've got to catch up on some work though. Try to feel better, okay?"

  "Yeah, sure." Jesse appeared to be mildly distressed by the fact that he couldn't stay here and talk to me due to his workload. I, on the other hand, was perfectly okay with the situation. I wasn't ready to tell him, not until I gave it some more thought.

  Yeah, sorry, Jesse. I can't pay rent this month because I got fired because I didn't take your advice. Now we'll both get kicked out of the apartment!

  No, I wasn't about to do that.

  I shared my lonely meal with no one, washing it down with lemon-flavored sparkling water that I desperately wished was a cocktail. I wasn't sure why I wasn't permitting myself to drink, because temporary escape sure felt like a good idea.

  It was so hard not to think about what had happened, especially because I kept telling myself not to think about it. Telling yourself not to think about something was definitely the best way to ensure that you actually did think about it. Think about it way too much. Brains could be so cruel.

  After starting to feel nauseous as I replayed that cruel event from today in my mind, I realized that I needed to drop it. I put on Netflix and put on the first movie that showed up in my recommended section, not even looking at the title.

  Thank God that Jesse would leave before me in the morning so I wouldn't have to maintain some dumb charade where I snuck out ahead of him to pretend that I still had a job.

  Before I fell asleep, I thought about how much I wished Jack were here, even though I wasn't totally over the blaming him phase of my grief. I debated trying to call him on my mangled piece of technology, but I let the thought go.

  Tomorrow, I thought. Everything good is tomorrow.

  Chapter 19

  "You want four-fucking-hundred dollars to repair my phone?"

  Tomorrow was definitely not good.

  I was at the cell phone store, trying my damndest not to give myself a heart attack. Well, at least if I had a heart attack and died, I'd get out of paying my student loans. Hmm...

  "Ma'am, you didn't pay for the accidental coverage and the parts are still expensive for this model." The clerk was timid and mechanical, obviously someone who was just reciting company policy and barely listening to me.

  "You fucking piece of—" I was mad at everything again, but I stopped myself abruptly. "I just don't get it." I rested my hands on the counter, took a deep breath, and stabilized myself. This guy was a mere retail peasant, probably just doing his job so he could pay for college.

  Shit, I might end up like this...

  Waking up had been peaceful—well, until I remembered I didn't have a job or any real plan at all. The coffee left in the kitchen cupboard was old and stale, and my wonky coffeemaker from college didn't do it any justice on top of that. If I hadn't needed the caffeine so badly, I probably would have just dumped the pot down the drain after the first miserable sip.

  There were few things that made me madder in this world than shitty coffee.

  On top of that, it rained the whole way to the phone store. As soon as I got inside, it stopped immediately. I hadn't heard from Jack or anyone else, and with my broken phone, dialing numbers was a formidable task, nearly impossible. I had tried to call the cell phone store, but after ten minutes of mistyped digits, I gave up.

  Although it was tough, I regained my composure and tried to relax. "Is there anything else I can do about this?"

  The employee nervously eyed the line of customers that was forming behind me. "At this point ma'am, not really. You could get a cheaper phone or get a temporary prepaid phone from somewhere."

  Ugh. I really liked this phone, the primary reason why I got it. Timothy had tried to convince me to order one of those fancy protective cases—he was always obsessed with new gadgets; I think he was more excited about them than he was about me—but I had forgotten to follow through with the plan. His bitching about how expensive they were in the retail phone stores had definitely contributed to my lack of action. Ordering stuff online was easy but also easy to forget to do.

  I snatched up my phone and thanked the employee for his time, tossing in an almost inaudible I'm sorry for my behavior at the end. He seemed like he was probably used to people acting like I did.

  I checked at a couple of other places, pricing out prepaid phones because I most likely wasn't going to be able to find a job if I couldn't type any numbers into my phone. The problem with getting a prepaid phone was that my contacts wouldn't transfer over, which would mean hours of trial and error as I tried to manually decipher the mangled digits on the cracked screen.

  Time was definitely something that I had—but that still seemed like a waste of it.

  After arriving back at the apartment, I sat down on my bed and started pulling up job listings on my computer, feeling more and more helpless the more I clicked. I really hated starting over, especially since I had been in such a great position. Starting over after you had just started over was tremendously miserable.

  I would have to figure out the new subway schedule and plan my days differently. I would have a new boss and co-workers. I would have to find a new nearby coffee shop.

  I didn't want any of that right now. Why couldn't things go back to how they were?

  I liked how things had been before I got into this mess. Yeah, I felt like kind of baby for whining about this—everyone changed jobs now and then; it wasn't that big of a deal—but I couldn't control how I felt in my compromised state.

  My phone buzzed once, just a text. I figured I'd barely be able to read it, but I decided to check anyway. It was from Jesse:

  Him: Rent is due tomorrow. Don't forget!

  Yeah, I wished that I hadn't even picked up the phone to check it, because now, I really wanted to smash it into oblivion and take it off life support. How could all of this be happening at once? On Sunday, I was in a dreamland, not concerned about anything at all in the world. Jack had calmed me, assuaged the things that had troubled me.

  Now, I was swimming on my own and in the sky above me was a f
ucking electrical storm. I didn't even have a lifejacket. It was obvious that as soon as my legs stopped moving, I was going to drown—if the bolts of lightning didn't kill me first. I held back my tears of frustration.

  The first thing I did—well, first thing after diffusing the smash the phone bomb that almost went off—was log on to my bank's website and check my account balance. After typing in my username and password, the urge to cry crushed my willpower like an elephant stepping on a mouse.

  Either the decimal point was in the wrong place, or I was fucked. I knew it was the latter.

  I definitely didn't have enough for both rent and even the cheapest prepaid phone. Where had all my money gone? I had gotten so wrapped up in Jack's spendthrift mentality that I had blown way more money than I had intended on coffee and lunches.

  For the first and probably only time ever, I was enraged at myself for putting my graduation money toward my student loans instead of creating an emergency fund for a time like this. I guess it had seemed like it was the right thing to do given my desire to be responsible.

  However, that money would have totally saved my ass right now.

  My pillow absorbed the majority of my tears as I sobbed my heart out, regretting almost everything that I had done in the past few months. It hurt to fail at being an adult, to accept additional responsibilities and keep your act together. Why didn't I want anyone to help me? What made doing everything by yourself so damn appealing?

  I had told my parents I didn't want them to pay my cell phone bill anymore, even though they wanted to keep me on the family plan after I left for NYC. I was really regretting that decision now. Should I pay the rent and cripple my ability to communicate? Try to work something out with the landlord?