The metal plate adorning the door's surface - freshly polished and newly engraved - now showcased a different name, followed by an antique title that pertained only to this particular office.
'Lisa Manoban, CEO'.
Jackson stood before it with an unimaginable grin, overflowing with continued pride and happiness for the woman that stood somewhere beyond the door. He took another silent moment to admire the sign before ensuing with a gentle knock.
Lisa pulled the door open half a second later, grinning wickedly and gasping for air. "Finally! What took you so long?" she asked, not waiting for a response and tugging him into her office by the sleeve of his suit. "What do you think? And be honest... I'm gonna be entertaining clients here."
Jackson looked around the office, unable to keep his jaw from disconnecting from the upper half of his head. "I see you've been decorating..." he said bemused, a somewhat massive understatement. "Exactly how many of Jennie's paintings have you purchased under that fake pseudonym, Lisa?"
He felt Lisa cringe mildly beside him, confirming that the answer would be nothing short of appalling. "Er- well, you know... nothing too crazy. I mean, she is my girlfriend, Jackson! I gotta support her! A-and it's not like I'm buying them just for the hell of it, I legit love them all! I don't want anyone else having them. Here, I will show them each love, and appreciation, and care, an-"
"How. Many." He pressed.
"Eleven," she responded, eyes averting his gaze in shame.
He paused, counting how many were currently up on the walls of her office. "Wow. Well, as long as you realize that Jennie will eventually find out who Limario really is, I'm all for it. They're all absolutely stunning."
A light-bulb seemed to go off in Lisa's brain. Jackson deduced she was calculating possibilities by the frightened look that she suddenly sported.
"Shit."
"Didn't think about that, did ya?" he asked, only too aware.
She shook her head. "And I just ordered five more," Lisa whispered out, in astonishment and disbelief. "Well, Limario did. Oops."
"Just, you know, tell her that her paintings bring you energy and peace, which is why you felt the need to have as many of them around you while you work. And also because it's as if a piece of her is here with you. Tell her that and you won't be sleeping on the couch for the next few weeks, I guarantee it."
Lisa smacked him excitedly on his shoulder, "and that right there," she gestured to his brain, "is why you're my right-hand man, Jackson." Lisa moved around her desk, so colossal it extended the entire width of the room. "And it's also partly the reason why I called you here today."
She opened a drawer and pulled out a folder, which she proceeded to open and layout against the desk for him to view. He approached her in his usual serene manner. "Ah! And here I thought you had called me in for styling advice."
Lisa chuckled, "well, any advice from you is always useful and highly appreciated, but no," she flipped the neatly stacked pages for him to see what she was trying to communicate. "I called you in, because I need you to sign this." Lisa dragged her index finger to the bottom of a page, where an oversized 'X' stood to the left of a blank line. "It's all that stands between you and this..."
She held up a door sign that was identical to the one Jackson had been analyzing a few minutes earlier, only it was his name carved eloquently into the polished metal this time. The letters 'CSO' stood proudly next to the 'Jackson Wang', and before he could process his thoughts, Lisa interrupted.
"CSO is for Chief Strategy Officer," Lisa explained. "The stack of papers is your Welcome Packet. You will receive a full benefits package, complemented with monthly and yearly bonuses that are split amongst shareholders and top executives. There are perks to being an executive officer might I add, the main one being a vehicle of your choice, which the company pays for. Oh, and don't worry, you can still keep the Tesla." Lisa winked at him, before diving back into her rant. "Also, I'm starting you off with a six-figure salary with a three percent annual raise. It may not sound like a lot but trust me, those bonuses and dividends add up! Plus," she continued, handing him the silver sign with his name on it, "you get to pick out your office. Any floor you want. You'll get whatever equipment you need as well. Yeri is aware of all of this and she's planning on meeting with you tomorrow morning to help you get settled."
Jackson stood, much like he had throughout her one-sided conversation, motionless and pensive. He accepted the plaque in an obligatory fashion; reaching for it to show courtesy and gratefulness. Yet the second his fingers enveloped around its cold, slim frame, there was such finalization to it, that the weightless object might as well have weighed tons.
With a crumbling smile, he gently placed it back on the table.
"Jackson... it's yours. It is done. All you have to do is sign." Lisa, not understanding his reaction, continued. "You've earned it, Jackson. You deserve it!"
"No." The word was more breath than tangible sound, and he knew Lisa was struggling to pick up on it by the tilt of her head and the squint of her eyes. He cleared his throat and this time, made sure to speak more firmly. "No, I don't deserve it, Lisa."
"Jackson, that's not tru—"
"I have a story to tell you," he interrupted. His gaze drifted elsewhere; everywhere. It was the first time, Lisa noted, that she saw the calm, cool façade Jackson sported falter and crumble. "Once I do, we will return to this topic of 'my deservingness and worthiness'. Something tells me that by the end of it, you will think dramatically differently of me."
He saw her open her mouth to object, but the protest immediately dissolved when he politely lifted a hand in request of silence. The journey he was about to hurtle himself into demanded everyone's undivided attention.
"The fondest memory I have is nearly fifteen years old, and it is still as fresh on my mind as it was all those years ago. I can still, to this very day, recall every minute of that day. It was a day like all others. A trip like all others. Yet I should have known, from the moment my father handed me that radio that it wasn't. I, being a kid eager to help and assist, ignored all such signs," he said, in a dream-like tone. "See, my father was a truck driver. He was constantly on the run, driving from one end of the country to the other for a job, only to repeat it again the second it was completed. My mother wasn't around much. A drug addict I hear, before, during, and I suppose, after I was born."
"My dad wasn't too keen on being a father when he first heard the news. He told me my mother was set on having an abortion. But for reasons he himself could not understand, he urged her to keep me, promising her that he'd take full custody if she were to go through with the birth. It took some convincing but she eventually agreed. So, little Jackson was born!" His tone became lighter as he spoke, the same could not be said for the dark expression masked over his face. "From pretty much birth to the age of eight, I was my dad's right-hand man, accompanying him on every journey. We didn't have a home. When he traveled that much, a house wasn't a necessity. The truck was our home really. I was small enough to fit up on the bed with him, squeezed between his beer belly and the back of the passenger seat." Lisa noted the smile that cracked his pale face in two at the uncomfortable, but doting memory. Jackson, however, seemed oblivious to it. "It was nice. It was simple and humble, our little lifestyle. Complemented with greasy dinners off the side of a highway diner, and flat tires after a particularly rough road, and lots and lots of radio chatter and reading maps. I was fluent in truck driver lingo by the age of five, my dad told me. After that, every trip became an adventure."
He began walking toward a painting at the farthest corner of the room, proceeding to analyze it. It was a distraction, obviously. He needed a moment to gather the courage for this next part.
"That day that seemed much like all others, I was given a walkie-talkie. My dad had never once given me a present. Money was always scarce, and any little amount he was able to collect would go directly to food and other needs. I never complained. I was living a lawless life, free of the normal societal restrictions and duties like school. Best yet, I was living wild with my pops, and to an eight-year-old kid, that's absolutely everything. And so was that gift. It was everything. And it wasn't even new!"
He laughed now, moving down the wall to the next painting, his back still to Lisa who studied him curiously from her desk. "He had gotten it from a thrift store. Paid two bucks for it. The cheap-ass. Still... it might as well have been dipped in gold to me. I spent all day and part of the evening playing with it. I have always had an obsession with Extraterrestrial life and I was trying to tap into their secret line and make contact. My pops laughed and cursed at me, but he didn't mind it. Looking back, he seemed as happy as I was that day. As the dusk weaned into deep night, we were hunting down a safe place to stop for some shut-eye. We were rounding a particularly curvy, narrow road when my walkie slipped from my hand and under the seat," he now moved to the next painting over.
"I remember struggling to reach it. I was very small, and the seatbelt made it impossible for me to grab it. So, I guess mostly from frustration at watching me flail around, my dad decided to just go ahead and dive for it."
Lisa leaned back against the edge of her desk, her eyes fixated on Jackson's back, following him with her gaze as though her very being depended on it. For some reason, the story captivated her. Something about it called to her.
"That's when our normal day transformed into the most tragic day of my life." Jackson turned, his gaze squaring up with Lisa's, and there was a message in them that was still far too early to interpret. "In the two god-forsaken seconds that it took my dad to undo his seatbelt and dive under my seat for the walkie, a car appeared. A small car. A car that I immediately saw but my dad didn't. A car that seconds later collided against my father's truck."
Lisa's eyes widened. Her jaw slackened.
No...
"A car... that carried a family of three. A mom, a dad, and in the backseat, their eight-year-old daughter."
Lisa's breathing quickened. Her heart slammed against her ribs.
I-it can't be...
"The impact caused my dad's untethered body to fling forward, slamming into the emergency breaks which brought the truck to a sudden stop, but not before it also flung his body out through the windshield and some twenty feet out onto the road, claiming his life, along with the three souls in the other vehicle."
Jackson paused, scanning the pale face before him. "Or so I thought."
"I was told no one survived the accident. I was told, even hours later when two police officers found me wandering down that same road in the opposite direction, barefooted and shivering, that I was lucky. That I was fortunate to be alive. Because the same could not be said for the other family. The Manoban family, I later discovered. The family that I had a personal hand in annihilating due to a careless mistake." He couldn't cry, as much as he wished he could in that instance. "And I went on believing that for a very long time. Nearly fifteen years. That day... was the happiest, and the worst, birthday of my life."
He became aware of Lisa's stiff posture and colorless lips, and the way her eyes searched his in a hopeful expectation that everything he had just confessed to be nothing more than a cruel, humorless jest. If only, he thought.
"How long?" Lisa asked, in a small, uncertain, raspy voice that barely managed its way to his ears. "How long have you known, Jackson?"
Now, this question made him draw a breath. The context was a little vague, yet somehow he knew exactly what the question was aiming for.
"Since that day on the bench. The night we met," he answered. "You told me your name, and it's as if everything clicked. I didn't-- I wasn't sure how to tell you. How... do you explain to someone that you are the reason they're slumping down on a deserted bench, drunk and hopeless? How do you tell a stranger, who just happened to wander into your life without any warning, that the two of you are connected by a devastating event that happened years ago? I couldn't, Lisa... and I'm deeply sorry. For everything."
Lisa remained still. Watching. Listening. Forcing herself to breathe even though every gasp of air caused her insides to sizzle. Her hands conformed into grips that shook violently by her sides, itched for action.
For vengeance.
If not for him, she would still have parents. If not for him, she wouldn't have suffered the way she did. If not for him... if not for... him.
Bitter Mini-Me: What are you waiting for! Make him hurt like he hurt you! He's the cause of everything!
She brought her unsteady hands to her face, pushing the palms into her eyes. It was suddenly unbearable to breathe.
Bitter Mini-Me: HIT HIM! KICK HIM! KILL HIM! HE DESERVES IT!
Where the hell is good mini-me when I need her? She thought.
She was tempted. She felt her pulse quicken and her teeth grit in preparation.
"I... understand your grief. I have carried it with me ever since. Not a day goes by that I don't think back to that day, to that moment. And what I could have done differently to change it." Jackson felt the need to speak; to further explain.
Bitter Mini-Me: He could have died... his mother should have aborted him! He has no right to life when your parents lie in a cold grave because of him!
She gulped. Forcing her palms deeper into her eye sockets. Desperately begging the good and kind inner versions of herself to make an appearance.
They never did.
"I don't expect you to forgive me. That's not why I stuck around. I honestly wanted to help, in any way I could, because it was the least I could do. It was the only thing I could do. I wanted nothing more than to see you successful and happy. To give back a little of what I took."
Bitter Mini-Me: Just kick him out. You don't need him. He's a nobody! He's useless!
She lowered her hands and lifted her gaze to meet Jackson's. What she saw in them, was all the answer she needed. She squared her shoulders and watched as he slumped his.
"You're not deserving of forgiveness," she spoke, leveling her tone to match her stoic expression, "because you have nothing to be forgiven for."
The protests that erupted from her mini-me spread through her like wildfire, but she didn't submit to it. She pushed through her own barriers; jumped through her inner hurdles, and quelled her own inner doubts. The enemy, she realized, had never been an external entity.
"I used to harbor a lot of hate and anger toward the man that killed my parents. The only thing that would make the situation better was knowing that he too died for his carelessness," she said. "Never did I acknowledge that said man also had a family of his own. A child of his own. If I could only have seen that earlier, maybe my life could have gone differently."
"I don't blame you, Jackson. My life turned out the way it did because of my choices, and my choices alone. Not you. You... are as much a victim to all this as I am. What happened... was an accident. A horrible, unfortunate accident that yes, I wish could have been avoided. We both lost. We both lived. Our lives have been intertwined since we were both children, whether by fate or misfortune, we will never know. But if there's one thing I am absolutely certain of, is that you are to remain in my life as I am to remain in yours. We need one another, Jackson. We can accomplish so much more together. I think... in some bizarre way, this was always meant to be. We were meant to find one another."
Lisa lowered her gaze the second she saw a tear course down his face. She figured it was the guilt departing his soul, or the burden of a fifteen-year-old curse finally lifting. She understood that sensation well. The feeling of being accepted and loved by someone when you deemed yourself unworthy. Jennie had shown her that. Jennie had given her that. And in some strange way, if not for Jackson, Jennie might never have existed to her.
The silver lining, she thought. She had finally found it.
She used the moment to pull a pen out of her pocket. "So, do us both a favor, and come sign your offer," she smiled, and it was as liberating as it was authentic, "I can't do this alone, Jackson."