Lie To Yourself

36

Getting home that night, I realised how quiet my flat was, it was a thought in the 3 years I'd lived here that I had never noticed. Moving out of my mums when I was 20 was a welcome break from the chaos but now, all I felt was quiet, an uncomfortable silence.

It was now 9pm so I had decided to try and settle down for the night, making myself a hot chocolate and getting into bed, continuing my ritualistic scrolling of social media.

*Ding

Mum:
Thank you for coming for dinner. Brooke is lovely. If you're happy we're happy.

As much as they annoyed me sometimes, I must admit In that 3 sentence text my mum had washed away worried I didn't know I had.

Me:
Thank you, it was lovely. I love you, good night.
Oh and she is isn't she :) x

I had managed to settle better than I had expected that night, whether it be because a part of me, that doesn't want to admit but was scared of my mums reaction or whether it be because as much as I love having Brooke stay over, I do LOVE sleeping on my own.

I felt a sense of calm when I went to work the next week, I'd spent the majority of last week dreading having to talk to Brooke or Luke (whom I still haven't spoken to, but as I have forgiven Brooke I probably do need to at least hear him out). I decided at lunch time that I would message Luke back to see if he wanted to meet for lunch one day this week.

Kate:
Hi, I don't know if I am ready to forgive you yet, but I do need to hear you out, fancy going to Nandos on Wednesday lunch time?

Luke worked in marketing and was always on his phone, so I absolutely did not surprise me that he replied straight away.

Luke:
OMG! YES! I would love that! I'm paying as well.

Katie:
Oh, I fully expected you to.

After at least swallowing my pride slightly and arranging a lunch with Luke I had managed to crack on with a pile of paperwork that had been trailing on since last week when I had done the minimal to get by in my sulking state.

"KATIE! GET IN HERE" Tim very rarely shouted at me, in fact the only times he has, either I have fucked up or there has been a real problem.

I practically sprinted over to Tim's office and he looked fuming, he indicated for me to shut the door behind me which I did immediately.

"What did I do?" I guessed I had probably messed up, I had done that more often recently.

"oh sorry, you didn't really do anything. That absolute dick, Tony Logan has sued us for loss of earnings. I have just received an email from their lawyers." He explained in his angry tone.

"Woah, shit how on earth has he been able to try and do that?" I don't understand what on earth Tony is trying to do or how he is able to do it.

"I don't know, the email is very vague but it does mention us taking Brooke for training, so I guess he is going down that route." Tim had his head in his hands and then grabbed his iPhone from his desk, dialing a number into the keypad. "Hi Linda, we have a problem, can we meet? Yep, today at lunch time please. I'll have Katie Bolotvic with me. Yep, no, worse than that. I know. Ok, talk soon." Tim put his phone down and took a deep breath. "So, our Lawyer is coming at 12pm, can you order us some lunch to the board room and then we can go over this please." Without saying another word I stood up and began walking out of the office. "oh and Katie...not a word of this to anyone" Tim really made the word 'anyone' sound serious.

I nodded and headed back to my office. I wasn't going to promise Tim that I wouldn't talk to anyone because I needed to know what was going on. But I would wait until after we had spoken to Linda.