by Kelly Myers
“I’m not fucking anyone I work with,” Zack said. Damn, his lie was smooth as silk. Even I believed him, and I was fucking him. Then again he was good at lying, wasn’t he? Nephew of the President of the Board, wonder how you got this job, Zack?
“I told you to stay away from that fat girl with the big titties.”
Did he mean me? I noticed Zack wasn’t saying anything.
“You know your job is on the line if you are.”
“We both know it wouldn’t be me getting fired if that were the case. Look, Uncle George, the dating coworkers’ thing—”
“No, no, I’m sorry. I know you wouldn’t stick your prick in a fatty. Never stick your prick in a fatty, you can never tell when they get pregnant.” The man went on a rambling rant. He was hyper-focused on me being fat as if he wasn’t. The simmer in my veins reached the boiling point.
“She’s not pregnant, is she? Fat girls like that always look pregnant. Fire her anyway. Craig doesn’t like her. Says she’s stupid. Why are you fucking a stupid fat girl?”
I couldn’t listen anymore. If this was how Zack let people talk about me now, what would it be like once I started showing? Or did everyone already know about us, and I was just the one in the dark?
Zack just let his uncle say horrible things about me. So what if I had extra curves? None of that hadn’t seemed to bother Zack at any point in time. As a matter of fact, he seemed to like my ‘big titties.’ How in the hell did Greg have the ear of the President of the Board?
This was not good. Tears blurred my vision as I ran from the second floor. I needed to get out of there. I needed to get away from Zack and every messed up policy at Shingle Click. I needed to go now, it would only get worse once I was obviously pregnant.
I returned to my cube to grab my purse. I looked at Henry, and then at my monitors. I slid my fat ass into my chair and powered up my system. As I waited, I reached over and pulled Henry next to me. There was nothing else in this office that I wanted.
I wrote an email to the team, hit send, and picked Henry up. Out in the parking lot, I glanced up and saw the light in Zack’s office still on. I called for a car, I couldn’t face a train commute home tonight.
I punched more numbers into my phone.
“Wifey!” Charline answered with enthusiasm.
“Charline,” I sobbed. “Could I really get a job at that place you work?”
“Of course Crystal. What’s the matter?”
“Do you think I could come and stay with you in that big house you got in Texas?”
19
Zack
One Year Later
The sound of white noise dampened all the noises that should have been echoing through the cavernous waiting room. Footsteps, the wheels of push trollies, the whispered conversations of people should have made noise. The ambient din was all sucked into the masking shush. The lack of sound in hospitals always set my nerves on alert.
Paris leaned against my shoulder, focused on her own distraction with a game on her phone. Did she remember the last time we sat together in a hospital? We didn’t have phones to distract us back then. Was that something that could ever be forgotten? Uncle George had been with us then. In a way, he was now too.
“You’re thinking of mom and dad, aren’t you?” Paris asked.
“And you’re not?” I bumped her with my shoulder.
“Yeah,” she sighed. “Hard not to. You know, I can’t remember it as clearly as I used to. But the smell of hospitals always brings back the tickle of that memory.”
“Uh-huh, only I get more than a tickle.”
“Does it make you sad, Zack?” she asked
“Are you trying to be my therapist now?” I responded. I didn’t need therapy regarding my parent’s death. I had already spent years working on that particular issue. “Not anymore. You?”
She twisted so that she could lean her head against my shoulder. “I miss them, but never so much as when I’m in a hospital. It always reminds me of the night that they died. I suddenly feel lost.”
I leaned my head against hers. “Yeah, me too.”
I couldn’t help but think of that night seventeen years ago. It had been an accident. Both drivers had driven through the four-way stop, not stopping, both had been speeding. Reports after the fact showed that everyone had blood alcohol levels exceeding legal limits for driving. One person died at the scene. The other two died several hours later in the hospital. Mom had been killed instantly. We sat in the hospital for hours waiting for news on our father.
The waiting now felt entirely too familiar. We weren’t waiting to learn of recovery, we were simply waiting for the end. This time we weren’t here because of an accident, but the eventual giving out of the body through age and disease.
I hadn’t been thinking of my parents, or even Uncle George, the reason we were here. Like so many quiet moments over the past year, I thought of Crystal. What had happened to her? Why had she left the way she did? Had she gone to a hospital to get better? Had she gotten better? Why hadn’t she told me, or contacted me since? I had told her I wanted to take care of her, go to doctor appointments with her, be there for her. I refused to consider worst-case scenarios. I wanted her alive and well. I wanted her back.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and scrolled back through my emails. Almost a full year. I didn’t have any pictures of her, only emails from work. Her last message had been so concise, not her typical email style. She had to go. She didn’t want to leave us in the lurch but the decision really wasn’t hers. She left small notes of positive advice for each member of the team. Even Greg. Well, she really told him to fuck himself. I was left off the list. What could she say? There were too many missed words between us.
The detailed schedule she provided made my chest burn with despair. With her ability to predict forks in the road ahead for the rollout she provided alternative task schedules that all returned back to the master schedule and met the final deadline. She had taken care of the team, even when not there, and I couldn’t take care of her the way she needed me to.
It was a flow chart of exceptional detail, the kind of detail with thought and effort put into it. It was the level of work that I had come to expect from her, but she had worked so far in advance which made me think she knew she wouldn’t be there. She mapped out what needed to happen, and she did it in such a way that even the other teams that were involved further in the process knew what timelines needed to be kept. Her work laid a foundation that supported the success of the team and the product, even in her absence. She had known something would take her away from the project, from me, and she still cared for the work.
I wish I could tell her how valuable her contributions to our success had been. And it had been a huge success. Shingle Click had record sales increased from word of mouth promotion only, all because we added a mobile control app that worked as promised and delivered as promised. My business success could do nothing to lessen the dull ache that I now associated with her loss.
Putting the phone down, I closed my eyes. The memories and pain I felt had nothing to do with losing my parents, but with losing the love of my life. And I had never told her. I had hidden her away, not letting anyone know about her. Not letting her know what she meant to me. No wonder she didn’t trust me enough to tell me what was wrong.
Fuck me. I pressed my fist against my chest. It hurt.
Paris, thinking my actions and my pain were for other people, rubbed my shoulders.
“It’s okay. It hits me like that sometimes too.”
We sat in silence until a nurse approached us. “Zack, Paris? You might want to come on back now.”
I didn’t want to go back. I hadn’t seen my father after he passed. I didn’t particularly want to see Uncle George. The nurse followed us into the room. None of the monitors were beeping, the machine that had kept him breathing no longer made the same rhythmic hiss and sucking sounds. Everything was eerily quiet.
“I’m sorry. We’re pretty sur
e he was already gone before we removed him from the ventilator,” she said. “Take your time.” Then she left us.
I stood with an arm around Paris’s shoulders. She wiped at tears, but I felt apathetic, empty.
“He was an odd one,” she started.
“How? Odd isn’t a word I would have used for him.”
“I so desperately needed a father figure. You were doing your best to take care of me. It was too much for a college student to also suddenly have to be a teen parent to another teen. I foisted myself on him. I called him all the time,” she spoke quietly. “It was only in the last five years or so he started listening to me and having conversations. And then, you know it wasn’t until you pointed out that he was acting differently than I can say he was acting differently. Like, paranoid.”
“That was the dementia. When he started cussing like a drunk frat boy I knew something was up.” I couldn’t take my eyes from his face. I thought he would look asleep, but he didn’t. He looked like a figure from a wax museum, a pretense of being human, there was no life there.
“You aren’t sad are you?” she asked.
“Not really. Numb. He wasn’t our dad. I think he wanted that from me. You know, for me to see him as a father figure. I appreciated his mentorship. He got me started in business. Made things happen for me. But he also made certain things not happen.”
“What’s that even supposed to mean? Made certain things not happen?” a bitter chuckle in her tone.
“His paranoid rules toward the end made me have to treat someone very important to me in a way she didn’t deserve. I couldn’t be the man she needed me to be because I was just another flunky dancing around his temper tantrums.” I dropped my arm from Paris’s shoulder.
“You’re talking about that woman? I knew you liked her. You never got mad at me when I inconvenienced you before.”
“You know you’re doing it? Then why do you do it?”
“I love messing with you, Zack. It’s the only time I see you get riled up, and even then you contain that temper of yours. I think that’s the closest you’ve ever come to actually yelling at me,” she smirked.
I loved my sister, but damn, she was manipulative.
“So whatever happened with her? How did Uncle George get in the way?”
I shook my head. I didn’t want to remember the words he used or be reminded that I never shut him down when he spoke that way.
“He was insulting and crude. Had he been anyone else, I would have punched him for speaking that way about a woman. Then there was that antiquated policy about dating subordinates.” The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. Uncle George could burn in hell, especially if I ever found out if Crystal had been alone and scared at the end.
“I don’t know what happened to her. She got sick and left,” I sighed. “I think I was in love with her.”
“Oh, Zacky. I’m so sorry.” She gestured, indicating the dead man in the bed before us. “Look at this as the ending to that chapter of your life. Take this opportunity to get over the loss of Uncle George as a chance to get over the woman.”
I shrugged off her suggestion. I didn’t need to grieve Uncle George, and I refused to grieve Crystal. Grieving would mean she had lost her fight.
“We should go, so they can do whatever they need to. I should call his lawyer. Can you make arrangements? I guess we need to schedule a funeral?”
“I can handle that. It should be a somber affair, huh? I think a festive thank you party for the man who just left me millions of dollars would be rather inappropriate, wouldn’t it?”
I shrugged. “I guess all those years of turning him into your father figure were not lost on him.”
“Does this mean I’m your boss now? I own more shares of Shingle Click than you do, don’t I?” she mused.
It was something I needed to consider, Paris now held a controlling block of shares. She needed to be introduced to the board. Hopefully, she wouldn’t take an interest.
20
Crystal
The climb to the second-floor apartment would get easier, I reminded myself. I would get stronger. I would gain strength. I had to. I had the best reason ever. I gazed lovingly at the tiny face of my baby boy, all tucked up in his car seat infant carrier.
I carried the portable seat into my new apartment. And set him down gently, not wanting to disturb his sleep.
A small study table and two mismatched wood chairs already occupied one side of my new living room. It was smaller than my last apartment. I shook my head to clear those thoughts away. Regret lay in the past. I had a bright future to look toward with no time for regrets.
“Stop pushing, this is heavy,” a cranky voice said just outside.
I stepped over to the door to hold it out of the way. Walking backward, in stepped a tall lanky redhead, Hunter, Charline’s brother.
“Well move faster,” Charline demanded as she followed him in. Shorter by several inches, and all-around smaller, she didn’t complain about the couch being heavy.
“I can’t believe you made me pick this up off the side of the road,” Hunter continued to complain.
“You’re the one with a truck,” she sniped back.
“I can’t thank you enough,” I gushed. I was still full of all kinds of over-the-top emotions. The doctor said it was leftover baby making hormones that would work their way out of my system, eventually. I only needed to be worried if the depression became all-encompassing. Crying at TV commercials and crying from being so very happy were all within the realm of ‘perfectly normal.’
They placed the couch in the empty space along the wall.
Charline put her hands on her hips. “See, I knew it would be perfect. And it’s in good shape.”
“It’s ugly,” Hunter mumbled.
“It really is. But it is in good shape. I’ve got some fabric cleaner, and I’ll give it a good scrub this evening.” I reached my arms out to hug Charline. “I can’t thank you enough.”
The tears started again, this time they were the good kind. I had cried more than my share of the bad kind over the past year. I was done with those.
“Are you sure you want to move out now? You could have stayed,” Charline said.
“I know. I had meant to only stay a few months. You let me live in your mom’s bonus room far too long.”
“Hardly,” Charline said.
Hunter shuffled and grunted. He stared down at Adam, but he acted like the baby was a scary monster. “I’ll be glad to finally be able to play video games on the big TV again.”
Charline swatted him on his upper arm. She would have hit him on the back of the head, but he was so much taller than her and leaning away from her reach.
“It’s okay, I know what he means,” I said. “It’s not like you’re getting rid of me, I’ll still see you at work. And your mom said I’d have a babysitter any time I needed one.”
“Of course, like I’d say no to quality time with my boyfriend.” She clapped her hands together. “We still have to go pick up your mattresses. Come on Hunter.”
He grumbled.
“Shut up boy, you are being paid for this. Crystal, do not raise Adam to be an ingrate like this thing.”
“I’m not a thing,” Hunter protested.
“Are you sure? Have you smelled yourself?” Charline razzed her brother as they left.
Another well of tears blurred my vision. Would my Adam ever have a sibling to love and annoy the way their family did? Charline had one older sister and two younger brothers. Hunter was the baby of the bunch and the only other redhead. They had a special bond.
I closed the door behind my friends and sat with a heavy sigh on one of my chairs to look at the new-to-me couch. The arms were a little worn, and the front corners had been scratched by a cat or two, but the rest of it was perfectly fine. Maybe not my preferred color choice, in a muddy brown color, but all the superficial things wrong with it could be hidden with a slipcover.
Adam smacked his perfect littl
e mouth in his sleep. He would wake up hungry in a minute. Getting up, I unbuckled and lifted him from the car seat infant carrier.
My instinct was to snuggle into the corner of the couch, but as comfortable as it looked, I didn’t want my baby near it until I could get it properly cleaned. I returned to the wooden chair, another side-of-the-road find. I adjusted my clothing and placed him to my breast. With an excited squirm, he latched on and began nursing.
My perfect baby boy. He had so much of his father in his face. The feathery wisps of hair indicated he would have his father’s dark hair. Adam’s eyes already settled into the same sky blue that Zack Noble had. Adam would grow up to be a handsome man. I was going to do my best to make sure that he was beautiful on the inside, unlike his father.
Maybe starting completely over again had been a mistake. But I couldn’t have stayed. I had to leave that job. I was being forced out of the apartment. I blinked away those tears, those were the not-so-good kind. Thoughts of Zack always did that to me. He thought I was fat and stupid. I was an easy fuck, and I had let him use me. That was my fault. He may have been a predator, but I walked straight into his snare and dared him to catch me.
Maybe he was right, I had been so stupid. Zack should never have been more than a quick rebound fling after Chase. He wasn’t supposed to be anything permanent.
A wave of love washed over me as I gazed at Adam. So much for not being permanent. This little man certainly was lifelong commitment material.
Adam detached on his own, and fell right back to sleep. He was going to have one hell of a wet diaper when he woke up.
I had him back in his infant carrier, it was the easiest way to manage him while I unpacked and cleaned. Yellow plastic cleaning gloves covered me from fingertip to elbow. I cleaned out the crevasse behind the cushions after I put the gloves on. I wasn’t sticking an unprotected hand down in there. I found a pencil that looked chewed on, a few pennies, and lots of dust and cat hair. I scrubbed fabric cleaner into the sides and back of the couch when I heard Hunter’s unmistakable grumbles of complaint. I hurried to move my cleaning supplies out of the way, open the door wider, and made sure Adam was safely tucked off to the side where I could see him.