If You So Desire (sequel to Turn... and Walk Away)

Chapter 28

A/N: The image above does not belong to me. It belongs to the person who uploaded it on the internet.

Max's POV

"What happened to you???" Debbie asked me as soon as I entered the apartment. 

"You look terrible!" she added, noting my red puffy eyes and just my bedraggled appearance in general.

"I don't wanna talk about it," I muttered as I skulked into my room.

"Suit yourself," she muttered back to me, probably feeling disappointed at not being given an update about my personal affairs.

Suddenly she remembered something.

"Wait, where's the bottle of antacid that I asked you to buy?" she asked.

Oh shit I left it in my car.

I handed her my car key.

"Do me a favor, Debs, and fetch it from my car for me," I pleaded. "I am an emotional mess right now. I just wanna go straight to bed and sleep and never wake up."

"Don't say that," she scolded me, accepting the car key from me. "Things will get better, I can promise you that."

"I would like to believe you," I said. "But I don't have a very optimistic feeling right now."

Debbie sighed before heading out the door to fetch the bottle of antacid from my car.

Contrary to my expectation that I would spend a sleepless night, I fell almost immediately to sleep as soon as I hit my bed. Probably due to mental exhaustion.

I woke up the following morning feeling refreshed and more inclined to face the day with a little more optimism. Maybe the reason that Tul had not yet tried to contact me was because he was busy.

When I stepped out of the bathroom after I showered, Debbie was already heading out the door to go to work.

"Don't be late for work!" she called out to me. "But don't get yourself a speeding ticket. See you at the office!"

"Drive safely!" I shot back at her.

She made a face at me. She was someone who prided herself in never receiving a speeding ticket all her driving life.

After I put on my business clothes and made sure that my hair was in place I grabbed my car key and bolted out the door. If I drove just a little bit over the speed limit I would make it on time to work.

I was parking my car in the company parking lot when my phone sounded a text notification.

I was about to fish my phone out of my pocket when I saw Siriporn our manager walking past my car. I quickly got out of my car to let her see that I was not late for work, just ALMOST late, haha.

"Good morning, Siriporn," I greeted her.

"Morning, Max," she replied. "How's it going?"

I wanted to ask, "My work life or my love life?" Instead I said, "Fine. Absolutely fine."

"Good," she remarked. "Be prepared for a very busy day."

"I'm ready for whatever life throws at me today," I said, smiling with false bravado.

The work day turned out to be real busy just as Siriporn had predicted. I had no time to dwell on my messy love life. It had to take a backseat for today. I had to focus on turning out a good advertising material for Siriporn.

"This is not exactly what I had in mind, but it's close," Siriporn remarked after she studied the material that I handed to her.

I suppressed a sigh and braced myself for overtime work. She told me in which places I needed to do some revision and some tweaking. Fortunately, it took me only a half hour of overtime work before I handed the material back to Siriporn.

"Good job, Max, good job," she said with a satisfied smile after restudying my finished work.

"That will cost you overtime," I said cheekily to her.

"You'll get it," she shot back. "Your annual evaluation might get a few points taken down though for having to make retouches to your less than satisfactory material."

Shit, she just was never totally pleased with anything. 

I felt all my energy drained off me when I walked out the building of our company. Debbie was no longer at her desk when I walked past the lobby. She was someone who never needed to do overtime work.

I climbed into my car with a heavy heart, bracing myself for another lonely night.

I eased my car out of the parking lot.

I stepped hard on my brakes when my phone rang with the ringtone I had assigned to the love of my life.