Adumbrate (Book One of the Lane Series)

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By the time we make our way outside to the street and call a taxi, the time is 10:54 am. Now sitting in the back of the taxi, I type feverishly on my Blackberry.

To: Chaz Henderson

From: Marie Lane

Subject: Sorry We're Running Late

Be there as soon as we can. We got caught up, I'll be sure to clue you in later.

Chaz is going to have my head for this, not to mention he is going to kill Jess, escpecially after he hears about the incindent in Milan. I look up from the Blackberry's screen to see her nervously biting her nails and staring out the window. Well, it looks like I don't even have to warn her of what is coming her way.

Her voice startles me out my thoughts, "He's mad isn't he?" Her question is more of a statement considering we both know the answer to it. However, I wasn't entirely sure how Chaz would react. If the rumors were true, Chaz and Jess apparantly had an affair together. As the story goes, Chaz's wife at the time caught the two in the act and demanded that Chaz fire her, no reccomendations included. Chaz had refused and Jess showed up to work the next day seemingly carefree and clueless. In fact she always looked clueless with her shoulder length blonde hair and starch pressed pencil skirts that are two sizes too small.

Looking at her now, I can't imagine her having the gusto to sleep with a married man, let alone buy the right size skirt. Then again, Chaz has always seemed like a fair boss to me. If he knows what's good for him and his agency he will fire her. I can't help but feel guilty when her gaze meets mine and I realize how absolutely terrified she is. If I was a normal nineteen year old, I would take this moment to comfort my fellow employee, but I am not normal and the thought of hugging her sends unhappy shivers down my spine.

Instead I opt out for a more comfortable solution and stare out the taxi window. I watch as the city scape outside rushes past. Stop signs, street lights, hot dog stands and pedestrians all blur together. It isn't long before my thoughts have drifted off into an unknown place and my eyelids begin to be weighed down by the ever nagging lack of sleep.

It's been a full week since I have gone without sleep. A full week since Zane left me. Well, more like tossed me out of my own hotel room. It's because of his absence that I can't seem to tolerate any physical contact. Everytime someone gets close I can't help but flinch away, afraid of what they'll do. But more so what I will do. I afraid that by the even the slightest touch I will shatter into the millions of pieces that I am trying so hard to hold together.

To say that I loved him would be ridiculous. In a nutshell, I don't believe in love, but I cared about him a lot. I still do. Three years ago, I met him through my boss, Chaz, at a convention. I had been standing alone, waiting for Chaz to finish his heated dicussion with a local banker when he approached me. He had asked me if I wanted a drink. When I declined on an account of my age, he laughed and bought me one anyway. Zane was an escape, he made me feel like I wasn't so out of place which was a feeling I had been conflicted with my whole life. When I was with him it didn't seem so weird that I was only sixteen and I was already a freshman in college. He made me feel normal, which is weird, I guess, but at the time it was just what I needed.

I missed him. I missed him in the quite moments when we would lay in bed together, my head on his chest listening to his heart beat. I missed him in the passionate moments when we were both blinded by lust, clutching bed sheets and panting out uncomprehensible versions of each others names. I missed how we could block out the world and become completely and utterly lost in each other.

It wasn't until he blatantly chose someone else over me that I realized how detached our relationship really was. To say I saw it coming would be an understatement. I was on a business trip in Milan. I had just gotten back from a late dinner with a client of the agency. He was there waiting for me in my hotel room, pacing back and forth, drunk. I wasn't upset, not even alarmed, just tired. It wasn't until the bathroom door opened and Katy Moore, an accountant from Henderson Inc., stumbled out topless, that I lost my cool. In my blind and pain-driven rage I demanded that he either choose me and stay or choose her sleezy ass and leave, for good. When he told me he was ending it, my jaw hit the floor. However when Katy started to sob it was me that he turned to and said nonchalantly that he thought it best that I leave. That was it, I lost every bit control that I had. I ended up grabbing a handful of Katy's red mane and preceded to drag her right out of the room and into the hallway where I left her in hysterics, clutching at her sore scalp. I swear I almost threw up when he pushed past me to comfort her. You can bet your ass, I slammed that door so hard it almost fell off its hinges. He picked her, some piece of ass that he picked up, some girl he would never see again, let alone remember her name. Three years, three long years wasted on his cheating ass. I locked the door that night and didn't open it for five days straight, except for the occassional room service.