More Than Life

Chapter 14

A/N: You all rock.   Thanks so much for reading and reviewing, and I hope you all have a safe and happy New Year!

....

When Edward had broken up with me, I'd been stunned and furious. I figured it was just the shock of everything talking. I was wrong. I waited for days for him to call me and tell me he hadn't meant what he'd said, but he never did.

Time dragged by, and I found that I couldn't concentrate on work. I couldn't sleep or eat. I essentially became a zombie. I functioned at the most basic of levels, but that was it. My co-workers and friends knew something was off, but they assumed it had to do with being kidnapped. It didn't.

As if him breaking up with me wasn't bad enough, work had become a nightmare as well. Bree had taken over and made our working lives hell. Rules upon rules had been implemented, but it was when she let Angela and Ben both go that I'd snapped. It didn't matter to Bree that they worked in different departments. All that mattered to her was that they were engaged and worked in the same place. Angela had told me that Bree had informed her that one of them had to leave or they had to break up. Neither of them wanted to do either, so Bree got rid of both of them. I wasn't convinced it was legal for her to do so.

Day after day, people who had been with the company for years were fired and sent packing. It seemed as if Bree wanted to get rid of the old and bring in the new. Every person that she hired to replace someone seemed to be a friend of hers or a friend of a friend. She was ruining the company and couldn't care less.

I was barely hanging in there, and with Angela gone, I dreaded going into work. I was now surrounded by stuck-up jerks who didn't have a clue as to what they were doing. I wasn't the only one upset with the changes. Our clients were furious and more than a few authors were leaving the company.

So that fateful day, I walked into the office, looked around my cubicle and at the strangers surrounding me and realized I didn't want to be there. Grabbing my empty trash can, I started shoving stuff from my desk into it.

Once my desk was clear, I headed to Bree's office. Her secretary told me she was in a meeting, so I headed back down to my desk and typed up a resignation letter and emailed it to Bree. Then, I grabbed the garbage can and walked out of the building.

By the time I got home, I was a bit shocked by my own actions. I couldn't believe what I'd just done. I'd quit my job. I wasn't going to be able to afford my rent or groceries. Not that I'd been eating much lately.

Without thinking about it, I pulled out my phone and called Charlie.

"Bells! How are you holding up?" he asked.

All it took was hearing his voice for the tears to start. How in the world he understood me through my sobs was beyond me, but he did. He listened as I told him about quitting my job, about missing Edward, about barely surviving.

"Now don't take this the wrong way, but have you thought about talking to a therapist?" he asked.

I nodded even though he couldn't see me.

"My friend, Angela, suggested that I do that. I just haven't gotten around to it," I told him.

We talked for an hour, and before he hung up, he told me that he'd run into Esme, and she'd mentioned that Edward looked horrible and was miserable.

"Good. It serves him right," I said.

"Now, Bells, I'm sure he's hurting as much as you are. I know what he did hurt you horribly, but he thought he was doing what was right. And before you get upset with me, I'm not defending him. Just explaining where he's coming from. We're male, Bells. We tend to think we know what's best for the women in our lives."