Never Letting You Go

I curled up on the leather sofa as she placed two glasses of wine on the table in front of us, taking a seat and pulling her knees into her chest. She was dressed in sweatpants and a white slouch shirt that hung loosely down one arm, her small glasses perched loosely on her nose and her blonde wavy hair pulled back into a scrunchie. Slowly sipping the red wine from her glass, she stared at the wall, seeming to focus on the blank white space as if it would somehow save her.

Lightly, I placed my hand on her arm and she turned to me, sinking back into the cushions. I don't know how long we sat there before one of us said something.

"Ari," I began, unsure how to continue. I was a guy after all; I wasn't prepared for what you should do when someone else was going through a break up. Yeah, I'd seen it on movies, the whole ice cream, popcorn, romcoms, chocolate, stuffed cuddly toys routine, but that always seemed so fake, so impersonal, I didn't know how that would ever actually help someone. Right now though, I was cursing myself that I hadn't stopped off on the way to rent a DVD or buy her a big bar of dairy milk. Anything would've been better than the awkward silence that was enveloping everything at that moment. So I said the one thing that people always said. The one thing that was supposed to make things better. I didn't know how though. "It's going to be okay."

She scoffed, and I could see in her eyes that I'd made a mistake. That she'd probably heard this too much already, that it was insignificant now. But instead of walking away, she placed the glass back onto the table and sank into me, her head resting on my chest, not saying a word. I took a sip from the wine, trying to savour the taste, but it wasn't like that was very likely. Just from one sip, I could tell it was so like Ari, she'd go out buy the cheapest thing she could buy. She was saving for a trip around the world, so every penny counted for her, although, as she told me every single time that I came over for a catch up, which was pretty much once a week, or if not, once every two, she was certain that she'd never raise enough because there was no way she would ever find a job, and it wasn't like the government would stump up for it. It was even worse now that Si had left. They were planning on doing the trip together, and so sharing the cost, but that whole idea was scrapped now, like their relationship of a year and half.

"Josh," she whispered, "Thank you."

I ran my fingers through her hair, smoothing it down.

"So, what's going on with you? How's work."

As my phone started vibrating beside me, I knew that this would be the perfect time to come clean. To tell her about the shake up, the antagonism, the slow but sure feeling of being pushed out. They were uniting, I knew, and they were a force to be reckoned with, like a tank, something that I could not stand up to, so I would just stand there and get crushed in the wake. But instead of saying all this, I switched off my phone, and told the first lie of many. "It's fine."

*-*-*-*-*-*-*

"Jacobs, in my office now," my boss ordered, walking quickly through the rows of desks, coffee in hand, towards his office. I slowly got up, pushing the chair in, and heard the snickers as I passed. This was exactly what they wanted.

"Hello sir," I greeted him pleasantly, but the look on his face told me that whatever I did then wouldn't make one bit of difference.

"Jacobs. We need to re-assess your position in the company. I've been hearing some things..." he began, rifling through papers on his desk, not even bothering to look at me. That was how important I was.

An hour later I walked out into the street, trying to pull myself together. It sounded stupid, but all I could think about right then was Arianne. It had been two weeks since the break up, and she was doing a little better now, but things still weren't completely right. I called her every night. My phone bill must've been mounting up. Walking away from the hell that used to be my job, my first thought was to head to hers. But she'd ask why I wasn't at work, and I couldn't face explaining it to her. I didn't want her to be disappointed in me, as well as everyone else. She didn't have a job, and I was the steady one who did, that was just us. I couldn't change that. I couldn't disappoint her.