Copyright © 2014 by M. E. Mathis
All rights reserved.
1. So Good To Be Home
Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean
8:15 am
I shift uncomfortably in my seat, Jess snores softly with her head resting on my shoulder. Never being one for physical contact, I am desperately trying to dislodge her sleeping head from my shoulder. I can feel my neck starting to stiffen up because of my awkward position. It's enough that I am on an airplane, in coach; I am honestly uncomfortable as it is. I try once more to shift my position, but eventually give up.
Sighing I rest my head against the cold port window, letting the coldness of the glass press against my hot skin. Unfortunately, Jess's proximity is causing me to overheat. Closing my eyes I lean my head back on the headrest awkwardly. Maybe I can get some sleep and it won't be as dreadful. However I ended up sighing unhappily when a large snore reaches my ears from the man across the aisle. I make a mental note to myself to never ride coach again, that is if I go on an airplane ever again.
Trying to distract myself from my ever pending discomfort, I turn my attention begrudgly to the small port window. Outside the window, the veiw is not only breathtaking, but slightly nausating. I watch in both horror and awe as the landscape below evovles into various earth tone hues, eventually just becoming a colorful blur. Beside me, Jess stirs suddenly, stretching as best as she can in the tight space we have been crammed into, which means completely invading my space. Finally feeling satstified with her stretch, she turns towards me and opens her eyes, yawns a little too loudly for my taste and mumbles sleepily, "We there yet?" Scowling inwardly I respond with my face turned towards the window, "Two more hours." Despite herself she smiles and leans her head back on the head rest. Relieved by the absence of her sleeping body I roll out my shoulder trying to loosen up my stiff neck. Two more hours of this, only two more.
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10:15 am
New York, USA
I am jolted awake by the sound of the captain announcing our arrival. Turning towards the window, I am no longer met with the bird's eye view of the land but with miles and miles of concrete and steel structures. The city. Sighing happily to myself, visibly relieved that I am not only no longer in the air but home. However my relief and joy is short lived as my attention turns to Jess. I watch as she scrambles to right herself and prepare for departure of the plane, knocking over a uncapped water bottle in the process. We both watch as the water splashes across the floor and all over a woman's feet.
This causes the woman to jump up, angrily ranting about three hundred dollar suade shoes and Jess hurriedly apologizes and tries to mop up the mess with a wad of paper towel that a nearby flight attendent hands to her admist her rounds. Despite Jess's efforts, the woman continues to scold her prefusely. Nearby a young mother tries to calm down her wailing child while a peppy voice on the intercome calmly states that all passengers should gather their belongings and prepare to disembark. I watch all this chaos from afar, inwardly roll my eyes at Jess's clumsy display. Pushing her aside, I mop up the rest of the water and stuff the crumpled up papertowel into an empty compartment of my bag, deciding to throw it out later. Turning back to Jess I give her questioning look and say, "We are going to be late."
These words seem to trigger her brain into action as she quickly grabs her carry-on bag and shoots the woman with the ruined shoes an apologetic look and scrambles after me as we follow the rest of the passengers out of the plane.
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.
For the first two days I cried uncontrollably, out of anger or jealousy, I don't know. Despite everything I couldn't stop the flow of tears. It was like highschool drama queen on crack. On the third day I was reduced to sniffling and blowing my nose. By the fifth day, I had had enough of my reclouse behavoir and had ventured out of my dark hotel room to discover that in my absence, my coworker Jess had happily dug my grave; destroyed and completely buried my career. The sixth was clean up day.
Now today, the seventh day, I find myself stuck in a taxi with my gravedigger, in the middle of New York City. The very city where I met the man who had the nerve to sleep with other women and then the audacity to choose them over me. God made the world in seven days, in seven days my while life went to hell.
Home. It's so good to be home. My relief from before on the plane long forgotten. My mood only worsens when the taxi finally comes to a halt outside a tall brick building with the words Henderson Inc. in large bold letters printed above the double glass doors. From the outside the building looks simple enough, however it isn't until you hit the foyer that you can really appreciate the architectural beauty of the "historical masterpiece", as Chaz likes to call it. It really is remarkable; complete with marble floors, greek columns and cathedral arches.
Begrudgedly, I leave the almost comforting confinements of the taxi making sure to pay the driver his fare and step out onto the awaiting sidewalk. Behind me, once again Jess struggles with her bags. I sigh unhappily as I wait for her to make her way around the car to join me on the sidewalk. Once she's reached me and righted herself, self-consciouly smoothing out her tight skirt, we simotaneously square our shoulders. Time to bring the lamb to the slaughter.
I almost chuckle at my use of words, but then somber up quickly when Jess's terrified look throws me for another guilty loop. We walk side by side, our Jimmy Choo pumps clicking in sync on the marble floor. Passing the main desk I receive a sympathetic look from the day secretary, Ashley. Feeling slightly uncomfortable by the unwanted sympathy and unsure whether it was intended for Jess instead, I continue to walk to the silver elevator doors in the corner of the large "greeting room". I absolutely hate how quickly news circulates, I almost feel like I am enternally stuck in highschool, drama and gossip included times ten.
Impatiently I press the up key more than neccassary and when that doesn't speed anything up, I hit it again for good measure. This earns me a deep scowl from Jess. I can understand wanting to delay this for as long as possible, but personally I would rather get it done and over with so I can have more time to lick my wounds and heal. Jess's scowl only deepens when the elevator arrives with a ding and the doors slide open.
I am the first to enter the elevator car, Jess hangs back, reluctance written clearly all over her face. I stare her in the eyes and do my best impression of my mother when she's trying to motivate me to do something, "Jess, the longer you prolong this--"
She cuts me off half way with a roll of her eyes, "I know, it will only make it worse. My mother use to say that all the damn time. Infuriating woman." She storms into the car and I unconcsiously press myself against the opposite wall while she hits the button for the fifthteenth floor, Chaz's office.
We stand there in silence, the close quarters causing my palms to sweat and my stomach to churn. I've never liked elevators, always preferred stairs. Hoping to break the uncomfortable silence I add, "It's something my mother use to say all the time, too." Never in a million years would I expect to find something in common with Jess, but then again all mothers are very similar.
"What?" She asks distractedly.
"What I said earlier, it was something my mother use to say as well."
"Your mother?" Her tone is incredulous.
"You ask that as if it shocks you that I have a mother," I say with a clipped tone. This elevator better speed the hell up. I check the flashing buttons again, tenth floor, five more to go.
Jess is quick to defend herself, her tone humorous, "No, no it's not like that. It's just that you're, you know, you. It's just easy to assume that you've always been this way, you know," What the hell does that even mean? I've always been me? Um, duh. Who esle was I suppose to be? The elevator dings and I almost drop to my knees in relief. I don't even bother to try to cover up my eagerness to get away as I rush out of the car and begin making my way down the narrow hall that leads to Chaz's office. Behind me, Jess continues to ramble, but for some reason the sound of her voice seems less suffocating now that I am in a bigger space.
I feel almost as if I am in a horror movie and Chaz's office at the end of the hall is my safe haven and the woman behind me the monster trying to eat me alive. I'll have to suggest to Chaz that he add some windows to the hallway to make for a quick and easy escape plan.
There's no way those rumors are true, I can't really see a man like Chaz lasting a minute in a room alone with Jess, let alone trying to have an affair with her.
I almost pat myself on the back when I finally walk into Chaz's secretary's office without biting Jess's head off. Upon our entrance the brunette looks up from her paperwork and smiles at us, a empty I-hate-my-job smile. Her face changes quickly when she realizes who we are; she's new and yet even she knows about Milan. It's written all over her face. Once again I am grasped by the ever-pending annoyance that everyone seems to know my business. Grabbing the phone next to her she presses it to one ear while dialing with one hand, presumably Chaz's extension. As if neccassary she holds up one finger, signaling for us to wait. Rookies.
I can hear the phone ringing from the other line and before I know it Chaz's door opens, out walks a man in his late twenties, his back to me. He is dressed in a crisp business suit, Euorpean cut, and his long black hair is pushed back from his face, most likely by a hand running through it multiple times. I don't even have to wait for him to turn around to know who it is, but it isn't until he does and his vibrant sapphire gaze locks on to me that I feel the pieces of my heart and soul, that were so crudely thrown together, fall to the floor in a heap.