My Life as Duke Starr's Assistant

My Life as Duke Starr's Assistant...[Part 23]

I frantically searched my apartment for the binder.

"It has to be here. It has to be," I whispered to myself.

I looked in my bedroom. I looked through all my drawers, I took everything out of my closet, I crawled onto my knees and checked under my bed. It wasn't in there.

Then I went and checked Denise's room, which looked as if no one lived in it. I figured it wouldn't be in there after I checked her drawers and desk; her closet was virtually empty.

After Denise's room, I looked for it in the living room, the last place it could possibly be unless Brandon really did take it. I guess I was searching so ferociously because I knew I would feel a million times more guilty for the inconvenience that Duke was experiencing because it would really be all my fault.

I shouted in anger when I couldn't find it, flinging a pillow across the room, which hit the vase that the flowers Brandon had gotten me, now dry and wrinkled, were in. The vase shot off the table and smashed onto the ground into a thousand fragments of crystal glass. For some reason, this upset me greatly and I felt tears come to my eyes. Before I knew it, I was sobbing heavily.

I had no idea why I was crying. I just completely lost it. I cried and I cried and I cried. I cried until my head started pounding. I kept crying even after that. I cried as I cleaned up the broken glass from the carpet. I cried when I cut my finger on a shard of glass and started bleeding. I poured all the emotion in my soul out into the tears that wouldn't stop flowing from my eyes.

It wasn't after a few hours of crying that I realized why I was so upset. I was finally releasing all the pent up emotion that I held inside of me for so long. I was crying because I knew I had hurt Duke and I felt extremely guilty about it. What was more, was that I knew I felt strongly about him, but I was too stupid and scared to follow those emotions.

I cried because seeing that vase break--that vase with the flowers Brandon had given me--reminded me that that was what was inevitably going to happen to me and him and that that was already what happened with me and Duke. As I cleaned up the shards of glass, I wondered if I could possibly put the pieces back together. But I knew this was impossible. Some of the pieces were too small to put back in place. The vase was gone. And so was my relationship with Duke and Brandon.

I felt so incredibly stupid. How could I have let this happen? I had destroyed Duke's career by not doing anything. And if I had done something, if I had realized that Brandon wasn't the right guy for me, maybe all of this wouldn't have happened. Maybe I'd be sitting comfortably at Duke's apartment right now, making fun of him for trying to grow his hair out a little.

I sighed and went to wash my face. I changed out of my work clothes and into a pair of ripped jeans and a plain long-sleeved black shirt. I threw my hair up in a pony-tail, took my contacts out and put my glasses on. Then I walked out the door.

I had to talk to Brandon.

                                                             ~~~~~~~~~

"Hi, I'm here to see Brandon," I said, walking up to the front desk lady at Johnson & Sons. I noted that the same beach blonde babe was sitting at the desk as the previous time I had stepped foot inside the building so many months ago.

She frowned at my too-casual attire. I looked at her expensive suit-dress. I bet no one would ever dare step into this building in jeans and a pair of TOMS.

"Brandon who?" she asked, clicking her Bluetooth off.

"Brandon Dougherty," I replied.

"He's in a meeting right now," she said, typing at the Mac in front of her. I glared at her. Forget this bitch.