Felicity took the news of her firing quite rough.
Though she knew she needed to find a new job as soon as possible, she couldn't gather up any motivation to. She was too depressed.
As shocking as it was for her to come to realize after losing her job, Felicity had grown to enjoy working at Belmonte Publishings very much as time progressed. It filled a void in her empty days.
Yes, Mr. Belmonte could be the biggest pain in the ass to work for, but she was good at the job. And for the first time in her whole life, she felt like she was doing something right.
Felicity was sitting on the couch in her apartment, staring down at the stains and holes that covered it. The condition of her couch was not so different from the condition of her apartment, and not so different from the condition of her life. She was a complete and utter mess—a total crap-show.
Felicity hadn't come straight home after school since she first started working at Belmonte Publishings, and being home made her feel weird. She felt like she needed to do something to pass the time, but there was nothing for her to do. She had already finished her homework for the evening, and she obviously didn't have any assignments from Mr. Belmonte to complete.
She was bored.
So she continued to stare off blankly into space until she heard the landline in her kitchen ring. Felicity remained where she was for another few seconds before her mother angrily yelled at her from the bedroom, shouting at her to answer it.
She finally stood up with a sigh, then carried herself over to the phone. She dragged her feet slowly and lethargically, nearly missing the call. When she picked up, the voice that spoke on the other end of the line made her heart race.
"Where are you?" he asked, "You have 20 minutes to get here."
"Um...Mr. Belmonte, you fired me. Several days ago. Don't you remember?" Felicity asked in confusion.
After a moment of silence, he spoke again with irritation evident in his tone, "Do you want your job back or not?"
Felicity felt herself starting to grin, "I'll be there in 19!"
As soon as she said that, she hung up the phone and sprinted out the door. Her car was completely done for, so she bolted as fast as she could to the nearest bus stop. A bus started pulling away as she arrived, but she chased after it on the sidewalk until it stopped to let her on. To her luck, there were only a few other people on the bus, and no one was waiting at any stop that the bus passed on the way over. So she made it to Belmonte Publishings just in time.
Nearly going over her ETA of 19 minutes, Felicity found herself banging on Mr. Belmonte's office door not a second too soon. Almost immediately, the door swung open, and the tall man appeared in the doorway.
Felicity's heart started to race as she panted, "Hi."
Mr. Belmonte peered down at Felicity, who was much shorter in height than he was, then walked back into his office. Felicity entered the dark colored room and quietly closed the door behind her.
"Did I tell you to close that?"
Felicity glanced behind her at the door, then back at her reinstated boss, "Oh...no, I just assumed because you alw—"
"Look, Felicity, my point is that you're on thin ice right now. You cannot afford any more screw ups. Never assume anything while you're here, or it could cost you your job. Again," Mr. Belmonte said calmly.
Felicity closed her mouth, realizing that he was absolutely right. He was giving her a second chance. She had to do everything perfectly this time, "Yes, you're right. I apologize. Thank you for giving me a second chance."
"Take this one very seriously. There won't be a third," he said strictly.
Felicity nodded her head up and down, and Mr. Belmonte finally took the chance to study the young girl. His mind had been so preoccupied that he hadn't even noticed her multiple injuries.
"What happened to your face?" he asked with both concern and anger.
"Oh, um..." Felicity started. She began to tense up, and she self-consciously placed a hand over the big gash above her eyebrow.
"And what happened to your arm?" he snapped.
Felicity looked down at the makeshift sling her left arm was in, and she could feel her entire face starting to heat up. She knew it looked bad. Her face was cut, her arm was sprained, and her legs were covered in bruises.
Mr. Belmonte had just seen Felicity a couple days prior, and in that short span of time, she had returned completely bashed up. And although Felicity figured her boss was mainly just concerned that she wouldn't be able to work as efficiently, Mr. Belmonte was extremely worried about her safety.
Felicity remained quiet, so Mr. Belmonte asked again, "Felicity, what happened? Did somebody do this to you?"
Felicity stared at him, unsure of what to tell him, before shaking her head no, "I'm fine. I just fell down chasing after a bus last night."
Mr. Belmonte eyed her intensely before telling her that she could get started on her work. He wanted to tell her that she could come to him if something was wrong or if she was in danger, but he couldn't bring himself to speak up. He had no right to impede on her life in that way.
Besides, he doubted she'd even want his help nonetheless. Not after the way he had treated her.
For the rest of the day, it frustrated Mr. Belmonte how much Felicity's injuries bothered him. He didn't believe for one second that her falling was the reason behind any of her injuries, and it scared him how angry he found himself getting towards whoever may have caused this.
There was almost no one whom Mateo Belmonte put before himself. He was selfish. He rarely found himself concerned with anyone else's problems, and he rarely sympathized with them. He simply didn't care.
He, himself, was a very private person. He minded his own business and expected everyone else to mind theirs. He kept all of his problems to himself, and he refused to share any details of what went on in his life with others. He was a closed book.
Mateo Belmonte was also a man who feared nothing.
But Felicity was testing him on all of this, and he began to think that had finally met his match in the body of an 18 year-old woman.
And that scared him.
▣ ▣ ▣
The rest of the day carried on like normal, but Felicity had actually gotten more work done than usual. She felt even more determined now to impress her boss than she had before. She didn't even know that was possible.
The rest of the week went by like that, and the following week started off the same way too. Nothing had really changed besides the fact that Mr. Belmonte was slightly more distant towards Felicity. He had always given her plenty of space while she was working, but even more so now. It felt like he had been avoiding her.
The truth was that Mr. Belmonte had no idea how to act around Felicity after finding out as much as he had about her. He didn't know whether he was supposed to ignore it since it wasn't his business, or worse, try to talk to her about it.
Part of him felt guilty and really sad for her, but the other part of him still felt very unsure about the situation entirely. He was a little bit in denial about everything and didn't want to believe that this was the reality she was living.
Because if it was, then he'd be forced to live with the ways in which he had treated her all this time.
But more importantly, he didn't want to believe that a young woman as bright, hardworking, and determined as Felicity had to live a life filled with so much struggle and adversity. It wasn't fair. She was so brilliant, but her life was not.
To Felicity, Mr. Belmonte's distance may have come across like he hated interacting with her or that he was intentionally acting colder towards her because she had messed up. But it was really just him trying to figure out how to handle the situation best.
If what he was thinking about Felicity's home life was really true, then he certainly couldn't just ignore it. He saw way too much potential in Felicity to allow her personal disadvantages to hold her back from achieving great things. That was something not even he could bear to let happen.
And he especially couldn't let go of Felicity's injuries. He was determined to get to the bottom of them.
So when Mr. Belmonte found his assistant sitting outside of Belmonte Publishings, waiting for the bus yet again, he walked right over to her.
Felicity was sitting on the most shaded spot of the bench, but the sunlight still hit her directly in the face. Mr. Belmonte could see that her bruises were beginning to fade away, and the cut above her eyebrow had formed into a scab.
She was beat up, but still beautiful.
Something about this girl felt like healing.
Felicity had her eyes shut to prevent herself from being blinded, but she immediately noticed when the light was suddenly blocked out by something in front of her. Her eyes fluttered open, and she was careful to block the sun out with her hand before looking up. She scanned her boss' tall figure from the ground up as he towered over her.
"Come on, I'll give you a ride."
Felicity stared at him with confusion for a moment before standing up and following him to his car. Though she felt like she should question him, or at least thank him, the two walked the whole way in silence.
She didn't understand what caused his sudden shift in attitude towards her. She didn't have the slightest clue as to what would've triggered such a dramatic change. As far as she knew, Mr. Belmonte hated her guts.
So why was he helping her out now?
When the two arrived at his car, he unlocked the doors and they both climbed in. But unlike their first car ride together, this one included talking.
"Thank you for offering to drive me home," Felicity finally said softly, "And...for doing it."
"Mhm," he hummed.
After a while, she turned to look at him, "Can I ask you something?"
"I'm fairly certain I could guess what you're about to ask, but go ahead."
"Why are you being so nice to me? And helping me out so much all of a sudden?" Mr. Belmonte remained silent, so Felicity spoke up again, "I mean, I appreciate it immensely. I'm just...confused, I guess."
Mr. Belmonte shrugged, "I'm turning over a new leaf."
Felicity couldn't help but giggle to herself, though she immediately regretted it when Mr. Belmonte snapped his head to the side to look at her.
"What's so funny?" he asked with a straight face, "You don't think that's possible for me?"
"No! I just...I—" Felicity stuttered.
But then, she heard an unfamiliar sound.
Felicity watched in pure disbelief as Mr. Belmonte laughed in the seat next to her, "It's okay, I'm only messing with you."
Felicity swore her soul had just left her body for a moment there, but she eventually started to laugh along with her boss. Pretty soon, the car was filled with boisterous laughter as they both sat there, hunching their bodies over in hysterics. By that point, neither of them were even laughing at anything specific. The situation they had found themselves in was just funny, and laughing it off felt like the right thing to do for both of them.
After a couple minutes, the laughing faded out as Mr. Belmonte drove past the rich neighborhood that Felicity had guided him to a week earlier.
"Wait, you just passed my neighborhood. Where are you taking me?" Felicity questioned anxiously.
Mr. Belmonte kept his eyes on the rode, and gripped tightly onto the steering wheel.
"Home."