Ihad just finished my lunch and sat at my desk when Stefanie walked up with her usual, solemn Avery fucked up look. I swiveled in my chair to face her, just about to hit send on a text to Jim, saying that I’d missed him at lunch today. I’d actually thought for a second that he was going to show up since this was the first time he hadn’t sent out a buffet of food for me to enjoy in his absence. The poor man was probably hung up with something, and I couldn’t blame him at all for getting distracted.
“Mr. Mitchell has requested that you meet with him in his office,” she said. “I believe you know your way to the executive elevators.”
I eyed Alyssa’s smile and refrained from the one I was about to display. “Yes,” I answered. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Get it, girl,” Amir whispered, Jim being the constant topic of conversation between all three of us at lunch. I never blamed them for their curiosity. I’d want to know more about the elusive man who ran the company if I were lunch pals with his girlfriend too.
I rode the elevator up to the top floors, the elevator that reminded me of Jim and me nearly going for it, and I got an exciting swirl in my stomach, knowing I was going to see him. Who the hell knew what he was up to, but I wasn’t going to complain. Maybe this was a new effort to see each other during the workweek? Perhaps he was going to make good on his funny little promises of wanting to fuck me in his office after he uninstalled the cameras in them?
“I’m here for Mr. Mitchell,” I said to Summer, Jim’s secretary and Alex’s girl. She was intently typing before she looked up at me and then stood.
“Follow me,” she said.
I trailed her into Jim’s office as she announced me, and then she quickly rushed past me again, closing the door behind her.
I almost said a joke about her leaving like something was on fire, but as soon as I locked eyes with Jim, sitting behind his imposing desk, his icy glare sent a shiver of fear down my spine.
“Jim?” I questioned.
“Avery,” he answered, his voice low and emotionless.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Since the debacle of the preschool situation, I had the company perform background investigations on all departments,” he started.
Oh, no. Not this. Oh, my God. My heart was pounding so hard that I was surprised I could still hear him speaking.
“The reports of those employees who did not pass the background checks made it to my desk today,” he finished.
I felt my stomach drop. I’d never thought that I had anything to hide from this man—and never did so intentionally, per se—but the shame that flooded through me at what I knew he’d seen was paralyzing me.
“I suppose I’m here because of that.”
“Yes,” Jim said, coldly. “Among learning why you’re not eligible to work at this company,” he sat back in his chair, “I’ve also discovered why I’ve looked like the asshole in our relationship for this entire last month.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I snapped back.
“It means that after discovering the reasons you failed background, I also found out that you’ve withheld pretty serious information from me. Information that leads me to believe these are the reasons you are so defensive of your ex and completely argumentative when I’ve asked you on numerous occasions to open up and explain why you feared taking him to court.” He cocked his head to the side, “I guess I was the fool in this relationship this whole time.”
“You…” I paused, my defenses shooting up around me, and my heart pounding with rage at his accusatory demeanor. “Jim, you were never the fool,” I tried not to shout. “That shit is in my past. I should have—”
“Past or not, Avery, you brought it to the present, and you keep it with you. You won’t fight for your daughter because of this?” He glanced down at the paper that I knew revealed my messed up past to him: the felony DUIs, possession of controlled substances, and God knew what else between all of the charges that had actually stuck and the ones that’d been thrown out or expunged over the years. It was all the horrible shit that’d stained my life, and that I had moved on from years ago, and it was sitting on his desk. “You made me out to be the sucker in all of this, knowing these were the reasons you won’t protect your daughter from that man. You listened to me go on and on about my mother for months, and you never said a word.”
“I have my own reasons for that. It was never your place to tell me how to take care of my daughter in the first place.”
“I won’t listen to you, standing there and trying to spin this into being my fault. You have proven that you have no respect for me whatsoever, despite everything I’ve done to be there for you. I don’t know how many times I asked you why you cower to that son of a bitch, and you never trusted me enough to tell me the whole truth about your past. Complete, fucking addict behavior, hiding everything from people who care about you.”
“Fuck you! Don’t you dare try to use the mistakes I’ve made against me,” I barked, his dark expressions not shaking me. “And you demand my respect? You’re not my fucking husband. You were my boyfriend.”
“It doesn’t matter, does it? Not anymore, anyway. I can’t trust someone who is willing to lie by omission straight to my face multiple times. Even when I opened up to you, stating I would never lose you and would fight for you, you knew—the entire time—that you had no intention of ever doing anything, and you didn’t say a word. I’ve been driving myself crazy for over a fucking month, walking on eggshells around you, holding back everything I had to say so as not to upset you or interfere with your parenting decisions. Little did I know why you were making such horrible, co-dependent, and enabling ones. You’re so fucking willing to hide in your secrets that you put your daughter through this? It’s fucking sick, Avery.”
“Walking on eggshells? Fucking please. I won’t listen to this shit from you. You were born with a silver fucking spoon in your mouth. You don’t understand what it’s like to have nothing and no one and still somehow manage to straighten yourself out, pick up the pieces, and keep going.”
“I understand enough to know you’ll never do the right thing for your daughter,” he said in a voice so lethal that if I were standing next to him, I would’ve slapped him across his face.
“I’m going to pack up my shit and be out of your company and out of your life. I’ll leave the keys to your goddamn charity car at my desk.”
“The car is yours,” he said. “I don’t want the thing.”
“I’m sorry you feel this way about everything, but I couldn’t tell you. I wasn’t ready,” I managed. As much as the defensive part of me felt that I didn’t owe him any explanations, something inside me knew this was all wrong.
“You would never be ready. If you couldn’t be ready for your daughter, what makes me think there would have ever come a day that you trusted me enough to tell me the truth? To tell me everything. Instead, you allowed me to beg and argue with you about it constantly. It’s not in my character to take a step back, but I did so because I loved you, and look at how that gets reciprocated. It’s been a lie since the beginning, in my opinion. I will not be with someone who hides things from me, especially when they should’ve known I was there to help.”
His words were searing through me, and I was so fucking angry I could’ve thrown the chair across the room as he spoke. Inside, I felt like there was a demon, hearing a priest speaking Latin in an exorcism. Jim was right to be so angry with me, but my fucking defense mechanisms wouldn’t allow me to back down.
I should’ve spoken up and told him that things weren’t as they seemed, and I didn’t consciously do anything deceptive, or that I loved him more than I’d ever loved anyone, and I would do whatever it took to earn his trust back. But I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t say anything that would’ve been redemptive. The demon inside me didn’t want to, and the part of me that loved him didn’t feel like I deserved it. What did I care, anyway? This wouldn’t be the first time someone abandoned me when shit got hard. Stand in line with your disappointment, Mr. Fucking Mitchell.
“Well, I didn’t need your help,” I said. “I don’t need anyone’s fucking help to raise my daughter. I’ve done it this long without you.”
“Do what you need to do,” he said. His tone was dismissive, his posture stiff, and it was evident that I was his worst enemy—that was written all over his face.
“Is that your paper or mine?” I asked, ready to walk out of this place and Jim’s life without batting an eye.
“The copy is yours if you want it. I don’t care to ever look at it again. Do what you will with your life; you have it all figured out, right?”
“Goodbye,” I said, spinning around and walking out the door, feeling absolutely nothing—total numbness.
There was nothing left to say. This ended the way everything else in my life did—horribly. The real fool in this situation was me because, for a while now, I’d believed this life was something real. What an idiot I’d been to think anyone on the outside could understand my life.
