by E. L. Todd
“It will be ready,” I forced myself to say pleasantly.
His eyebrows furrowed at my words and I saw the anger in his eyes. Carl walked away and returned to his office. I let my head fall onto the manuscript, and I was overcome with the feeling of utter despair. I wanted to just quit. Carl was never going to stop until I was canned. It was better to quit than be fired anyway.
I looked over at Janice as she looked at me with a sympathetic look. “I’ll help you,” she said. “I have a few favors to call in anyway. I can get other editors to help as well.”
“Thank you so much.”
“I got you.”
6
As soon as we walked out of the R and R building, I started to vent. “I can’t believe this! This is complete bullshit!”
“I can’t believe it either,” Janice said. “Maybe you should just give him head and make all of this go away.”
“Hell no,” I snapped. Just the idea of shoving his dick in my mouth made me nauseous.
“Maybe you should quit then,” she said sadly. “I mean, he is just going to keep doing this to you.” She looked at the manuscript in her hand and sighed. “We could fight it. Go to human resources and show them this receipt, which states we just received it, and point out that Candice is the historical fiction editor, not you.”
“No.”
“Why?” she asked. “It’s our only option.”
“They just told me if I cause any more problems, they have the right to terminate me. They said it is legal if I cause a hostile environment or something.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“I know it is.”
“So, what are we going to do? Keep jumping through hoops until we either win or lose to exhaustion?”
“I have to pay rent,” I said. “I have to keep this up until I find another job. And I obviously can’t start on that tonight.”
“You can’t just borrow some money for a month or two?”
“No,” I said. “I already have a fortune in student loans to pay off.”
“Well,” Janice said, “let’s get started then. My place or yours?”
“We can go to mine. I just went grocery shopping.”
“Okay.”
We were about to grab a cab when I saw Sean walk toward me on the street. He was wearing one of his expensive suits with a light blue tie, and he had his bag over his shoulder. He’d obviously just gotten off work. Sean still looked forlorn, depressed, and hungry for affection, but he appeared a little better. A night’s rest had done him wonders.
“Hey,” he said. “I came by to see if you wanted to grab dinner.”
He stopped when he reached us and stared at Janice for a moment. Sean reached out his hand and grabbed hers, shaking it with a firm grip. “Hello, I’m Sean. It’s nice to meet you.”
“The pleasure is all mine.” She smiled.
I rolled my eyes at her words.
“I would love to take both of you out,” he said politely.
“I’m sorry, Sean, but Janice and I have a lot of work to do tonight.”
Janice cleared her throat. “You won’t believe—”
I elbowed her in the gut and she stopped talking immediately. “You’re welcome to come over, but we have to finish this project by tomorrow morning.”
“That’s an early deadline,” he said.
“Yes, Janice and I are procrastinators.”
Sean stared at me suspiciously. I had never been a procrastinator in my life. In fact, I was the opposite to the point of being annoying. I just didn’t want to burden Sean with my problems because I knew how much pain he was in. Plus, I knew he would be furious at my boss and whip up a lawsuit or beat him up in a dark alley.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked.
“No, don’t worry about it,” I said.
“Please help us,” Janice said. “We need all the help we can get.”
I glared at Janice.
Sean walked away and waved down a cab. I took the moment to snap at her. “Leave him out of this! He is morbidly depressed—he needs space.”
“Have you never been depressed in your life?” she asked. “He needs a distraction. And you know we are desperate. He obviously knows grammar and sentence structure, wearing a suit like that, so he can help out with that. Or he can even look up historical information if we ask him to. Why don’t you tell him what’s going on? Does he know anything?”
“No,” I said as I shook my head. “I don’t want to burden him with my problems.”
“And you swear you don’t have feelings for him?”
I rolled my eyes at her. “Obviously, I love Sean. He’s my best friend, but that’s it, nothing more.”
“Okay.” She sighed. She walked away and climbed into the backseat of the car. Sean held the door open as we took our seats.
After the cab took off down the road, Sean turned to me. “What’s going on, Scar?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “We just have a big deadline to make.”
I could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t believe me, but he dropped the argument, much to my relief, and looked out the window as we drove to my apartment. The cab came to a stop and Sean held the door open again for us as we got out then he trailed behind us until we got into my apartment.
We took our seats at the kitchen table. I gave Janice an extra laptop, Sean pulled out his own computer from his bag, and we began to work frantically on the manuscript.
Janice began to read the digital copy on her screen and she squinted at the text. “This is going to be a long night,” she said.
I skimmed through the pages and realized it detailed the cold war in Russia, something I had no knowledge or grasp of whatsoever. Yes, I took a few history courses in college, but it didn’t detail the specific wars of Russia. The only ones I knew well were the two World Wars, which I still couldn’t tell you the specifics about.
Sean looked at the hardcopy on the desk and noticed the receipt on the front page. “You just received this manuscript today,” he said. “What’s the rush? I don’t even recognize the author’s name.”
“It’s a long story.”
“Well, apparently we have all night,” he said.
I looked away from my screen and met his gaze. “You don’t have to help, Sean. But you can sleep on my bed if you want to crash here.” I saw Janice look up from her screen and smile at me. I knew what the look meant. She still didn’t believe my relationship with Sean was platonic.
“And you aren’t even a historical fiction editor, Scar. This doesn’t make any sense.” He continued to look at me while I concentrated on the screen. I could feel his blue eyes penetrate through my skin and see the aura of falsehood float around me like a cloud, condemning me for lying to him.
“Janice is a historical fiction editor. I am just trying to help her.”
He reached out and grabbed my wrist. I didn’t flinch at his touch. He hardly ever touched me, but it didn’t bother me when he did. “You aren’t telling me something.”
“Seriously, don’t worry about it, Sean. I just have deadlines and schedules like any other job. It doesn’t always stay the same,” I said.
“Okay,” he said as he leaned back and pulled the manuscript before him. “How can I help you?”
“Proofread it.”
He looked down at the manuscript then looked back at me. “All of it?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“It’s five hundred pages.”
“I’m aware of that.”
Sean sighed as he turned the first page. “You are lucky to have me as your friend.”
“That’s debatable,” I said with a smile. I tossed my long, brown hair behind my shoulder then kicked off the stilettos I was wearing. They were killing my feet. My dress was starting to rise up, but I didn’t care. It was only Sean and Janice.
We worked through the night, not saying much for most of the time. We ordered a pizza around midnight and scarfed that do
wn like famished wolves. Sean brewed coffee and poured us a few glasses. Around five in the morning, Sean closed the manuscript and pushed it away.
“I’m done,” he said.
“Thank you,” I said sincerely. “I’m just adding a few comments to the content and changing some dates. The historical events don’t line up correctly.”
“I found some, too,” Janice added.
Sean ran his fingers through his brown hair then massaged his neck. “I’m exhausted,” he said.
“You can go home and sleep before work.”
“Do you mind if I just sleep here?” he asked.
“No, of course not,” I said. “You know you are always welcome here. It’s not like you don’t have a key to my apartment.”
Janice shook her head and I caught the look.
“I think I’ll do that,” he said as he got up from the table. He turned to Janice. “It was nice meeting you.” Janice smiled at him and nodded. “And thank you for letting me join you, Scarlet.”
I smiled at him. Sean seemed to keep his emotions so calm, but I knew how depressed he was. The emotional battle behind his eyes was falling deeper into the abyss of his soul, making him sink lower, but I knew I couldn’t help him. Time would have to heal the pain of the breakup. Sean walked into my bedroom and closed the door.
Janice looked up from her screen and I spoke before she could, anticipating one of her remarks. “I get it,” was all I said.
“You two are weird.”
“We are friends—what’s weird about that? Have you never had a guy friend?”
“No, I have,” she said. “But we always screwed at some point. We may never have been in a relationship, but we crossed some lines. You’ve never thought about testing the waters?”
“No.”
“Sean is fine—I mean gorgeous. You seriously don’t find him attractive? I’m starting to think you are les.”
“I think he is a very handsome man, and perfect in every way, but no, I don’t see him like that, Janice.”
“How long have you known him?”
“Since undergrad,” I said.
“At Harvard?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I studied writing. Sean got his bachelor’s in business and eventually got his MBA.”
“And you’ve been friends ever since?”
“That’s the story—all in its entirety.”
Janice nodded. She said nothing more about Sean. I finally felt the finality of the discussion come to an end—I was tired of defending our relationship. I suspected this would be the end of the interrogations and that she really accepted my story. Sean was my friend, nothing more.
“Well, I’m done,” she said. “Are you?”
“Yes,” I said.
“You know that if there’s a single mistake, he’ll fire you, right?”
“Yes. But I don’t think he’ll find any.”
“What if he hands you another manuscript?”
I shook my head, not letting myself even think of the possibility. “I’ll stab him with a pen.”
“I’ll help,” she said as she audibly clicked her pen. Even though I was drained of energy and felt my eyes obscure in confusion, I laughed. Sometimes events were funnier when you were exhausted—just like being drunk or high.
“Well, we could sleep for a few hours,” I said.
Janice shook her head. “I need to shower and change my clothes.”
“I have something you could wear. We’re the same size,” I said. “You are going to waste a lot of time going to your apartment and back to work. The choice is yours.”
She thought for a moment. “I think I will take you up on that.”
“Good,” I said as I rose from my chair. I grabbed a tight pencil skirt and pink blouse and then gave her a fresh towel for the shower. “The couch is yours,” I said. “Enjoy.”
She walked into the bathroom and shut the door. I went into my bedroom and saw Sean sleeping under the sheets in just his boxer shorts, trying not to wrinkle his clothes even more than they already were by keeping them folded on the chair. Before I went to bed, I took out my ironing board and ironed his clothes, steaming the wrinkles from the fabric. His suit looked as good as new when I was done with it. I hung it up on a frame and collapsed onto the bed, letting myself fall into unconsciousness immediately.
My alarm went off a moment later, or so it seemed. I rolled out of bed like a zombie, searching for my shoes and purse. My stomach hurt like it had a buildup of acid, and it made my body ache. Sean sat up and rubbed his eyes, obviously trying to fight the blinding pain behind his eyelids. He slid from the bed and reached for his clothes. I watched him stand in his shorts in my room and I admired the build of his physique, which was strong and toned. He grabbed the clothes and noticed the lack of wrinkles, along with the perfect fold of the pants. Sean dressed himself then tied his tie. “Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” I said. “It was the least I could do. You helped me so much, Sean.”
“Well, you are always helping me.”
I grabbed my stuff and we all headed out the door. Sean waved goodbye as he walked the opposite way down the street, heading to his firm on the east side. Janice and I said nothing on our way back to the office while I held the completed manuscript in my hands like it was a precious jewel.
We walked into the office early, and I placed the completed draft inside Carl’s box, wanting it to be ready for him before he even got there. I sat at my desk and checked my email. There was a quick message from Sean that was sent from his phone. “Thanks for everything, Scar,” was all it said. I wondered why he hadn’t texted me directly, but then I didn’t dwell on it for too long. Maybe he knew I checked my email right when I got to work? Who knows?
Carl walked into the office and glared at me as he moved down the center of the walkway and into his office. He probably assumed that I hadn’t completed the task. I secretly hoped he thought I didn’t, and would be too careless to look in his box before he harassed me. I knew my greatest dreams were coming true when I saw him march down to my cubicle with everyone in the office watching and waiting for the storm about to ensue.
“Where is it? If you can’t do your job, then I’ll find someone who can.”
“Mr. Rogers—”
“No excuses, Scarlet,” he yelled. “You didn’t do your job, so I am dismissing you from your post.”
“Mr. Rogers—”
“I said you are dismissed. Don’t argue with me.”
Charlie, his assistant, approached Roger with the manuscript in his hand. I couldn’t help but smile. “Here it is, sir. It was in your box. I just found it.”
Carl looked from his young assistant then back at me. “It better be flawless, Scarlet.”
“I never disappoint.” I smiled.
Carl turned around and walked away. Janice looked at me and gave me a high five.
“We showed that cunt,” she said.
7
Sean
My eyes kept closing by their own will, but I forced them to reopen and concentrate on the computer screen in my office. I only slept for an hour or two, and I was feeling the effects to an intense degree. I opened my bag and looked at the medication I had left over from a previous surgery, wondering if I should take one. The pain from Penelope’s abandonment was still sharp and strong, and I needed an escape. I knew Scarlet would be furious if I turned to such a low tactic, so I returned the bottle to the bag and closed it.
I looked back at the computer screen, but my mind continued to drift away from the content I was analyzing. Penelope kept popping into my mind. She hadn’t called or reached out to me in any way. My phone never rang and I never received a text message from her, even though I prayed it was her every time my phone made a sound. Since I reread the same paragraph three times, I grabbed my phone from my pocket and stared at the screen. I still had our text conversations saved in my phone because I was unable to delete them yet. They were all I had left of her.
>
Her name was on my phone and I wanted to press the call button and talk to her. I wanted to ask her if we could try again, to give me another chance. I would do whatever she asked to make this work, anything at all. But after I took a deep breath, I locked the phone and returned it to my pocket, knowing she would never want me to call her. My bag was leaning against my leg under the desk and I opened it, searching for the box I kept inside. I pulled out the engagement ring I had bought for Penelope and stared at it for a moment. I daydreamed about her wearing it everywhere. When guys would hit on her, she would say, with a smile on her face, “I’m taken.” My ultimate fantasy was to claim her as my own and that men would look at me in envy because she was the woman on my arm. I wanted her to be the mother of my children and the woman I grew old with. I still couldn’t believe that she wasn’t. She and I were supposed to be together. Why didn’t she see that?
I shoved the box back into the pocket of the bag, hiding it from view. The ring had cost me a fortune but it was something that Penelope deserved. I hadn’t returned it to the jewelry store yet because a part of me hoped—prayed—that she would return to me, that she would realize she had made a mistake. Besides, it was custom made with her name engraved on it. I would only get a fraction of what I paid for it. They would harvest the diamonds that I hand-picked for her, the highest quality gems I could find, and they would recycle the white gold and make another ring out of it for another bride. I just wasn’t ready to accept that yet.
Scarlet hadn’t mentioned Penelope at all, which I was grateful for, except when she informed me that Penelope had approached her before she dumped me. I didn’t understand why Penelope had told Scarlet first since it wasn’t Scarlet’s business. I assumed that my girlfriend would break up with me first before she told someone else. It made me feel even less valued.
The computer screen had dimmed because I wasn’t using it, and it reminded me of the work I was neglecting. I returned to my reading for the next hour, and when the work day was finally over, I went to Scarlet’s apartment and went inside with my key. I didn’t want to be alone and I was willing to admit that.