Office Affair

Meet the monster. We're related.

Alice had a habit of ignoring unknown missed calls on her phone, but she tried to change it just in case Anya ended up in a hospital again. She was about to sit down to have a late breakfast, when an unknown number started persistently beeping. Despite feeling fear, she answered it. 

"Yes?" 

"It's Dominic Oldfield, I'm..." 

"Anya's boss! Oh my God, what happened? Is she all right?" 

"Calm down, Alice. She's fine. She's back at home." 

"Why didn't she tell me anything? I wanted to visit her today." 

"She's taking a shower, and she didn't want to bother you. I need to talk to you." 

"Me? Are you sure?" 

"Are you Anya's sister?" 

"I am." 

"Then yes, I need to talk to you. It's about her." 

"Is she in trouble?" 

"No, no. It's just that she's built such a thick wall around herself that I can't reach her. I want to know what's happening. There are things that she isn't telling me. Things that could make me understand who she is." 

Alice put the cup on the table and relaxed on the couch. She felt it too, but Anya kept her in the dark. Instead, she pretended that her life was perfect, despite her face showing the obvious. Alice had long stopped trying to offer her help.

"I don't know, to tell you the truth. But there's something going on, especially for the past couple of years. What do you specifically like to know about her?" 

"Her past. She won't tell me, and I need to know." 

"Why?" 

"Why do I need to know?" 

"Yes." 

"Because I care about her. She still thinks of me more in the terms of being her boss, and I want her to trust me as a friend. I think that's part of the reason why she won't open up to me." 

"Ok, so...the past takes some explaining to do. We should meet." 

"When and where?" 

"There's a canteen at my college campus at the ground floor, and my lectures end at 3 pm. Let's meet there. I'll probably be inside already so just come in and if you don't see me, ask the bartender." 

"That's great. Thank you." 

"Sure." 

What an odd thing that Dominic took it upon himself to make Anya happy, she thought. Would she do the same if a man she liked was acting that way, so closed up? She wasn't too sure about that.  

She wanted the best for Anya and she was ready to give her life for her, but she couldn't help the nagging voice in her mind, saying that Anya was just exaggerating. Things couldn't have been that bad, surely. As she got dressed and picked up her bag to go to the lectures, she was almost too excited to meet Dominic and hear what was going on. Perhaps they could both shed some light on Anya's behavior. 

The lectures couldn't end soon enough. The teachers were too dull today, and even the subject that she adored, such as languages and psychology, seemed too much to handle. She was tempted to skip the classes altogether.

Deciding to occupy her mind with more studying, she went to the library and dug into the first 528 pages long book on family psychology. It fascinated her that learning and understanding a whole book on family matters could not help her with the real situation; the one that she was facing right now. The book was supposed to give information on how to tackle the problems that were more complex than teaching a child how to clean up the table after lunch and how to punish him after receiving a lousy grade at school.