I know I’ll be lucky to get five.
DC was a shit show. London was no better. And when I came back to California, I got to face off with several unhappy board members.
The share price.
It’s always the fucking share price.
Which means that my pet project, one of the few things I’ve been clinging to as my business grew and the small details slipped further and further out of my day-to-day control, is on the chopping block.
When profits decline, projects that don’t make a lot of money—that will likelynevermake a lot of money but are something I’m passionate about for the greater good—get cut.
That’s the reality.
Before Genen-core was publicly traded, it wasn’t.
I could put resources and funding toward things that were important to me.
That could be life-changing to others.
Not that our products aren’t helpful.
It’s just…I have a dream to do serious work on diseases that are overlooked, like endometriosis and POTS and MS.
Diseases that my mom had.
Who would have reacted exactly the same way at the order I just issued to Marie.
Which is why I’m not impatient—though I am tired and wet and ready to pass out—when I say, “Cookie, your condo is under several inches of water right now. It’s late and the restoration guys are going to be working”—right on cue, an industrial vacuum turns on, echoing through the walls—“all night. Just sleep in my guest room, and we’ll deal with whatever we have to deal with in the morning.”
She opens her mouth, and I feel it, the sliver of impatience, of resentment at having to have this battle now, when my life is complicated and messy and I’m fucking tired.
I hate it.
Hate the feelings it invokes.
Theguilt.
“Up to you,” I say carefully, catching the strands of that frustration and setting the bag we’d packed with some of her dry clothes on the floor by my front door. “The guest room is the first door on the left. There’s a shower in there with towels, if you want to use it. Feel free to help yourself to anything in the kitchen.”
I turn for the hall, and wet socks leaving footprints on the hardwood, walk to my bedroom.
Once inside the closed door, I lean back against the wood and sigh. Then I strip down, shoving my wet clothes in the hamper before I jump into the shower.
Even as I’m shampooing my hair, I hear my phone buzzing.
And it continues to go off as I rinse it out, as I soap up, as I crank off the water and dry my body.
Christ.
I wrap my towel around my waist, pick my phone up from the counter and scroll through the messages, hoping that they’ll be nothing important, even as I know they are.
Dumb hope.
It’s why I’m pulling on a pair of sweats and a tee, padding out on bare feet to the kitchen.
Food first.
I need sustenance to make it through what will, no doubt, be several more trying hours.
