Chapter 4: Corrine
My brain is fog. The cursor on my screen blinks and blinks but somewhere between my head and my fingers, the message I’m trying to relay gets lost.
Work. Come home. Run. Shower. Dinner. Work some more. My routine is like my security blanket, a seat belt. But nothing about it feels safe today.
It’s ruined by the prickle down my spine, the itch I haven’t been able to scratch all day. Even a lung-burning run through the Common couldn’t fix it.
My neck and back pop as I stand and roll my shoulders. I walk to my kitchen, the white crystallized countertops gleaming in the light from the setting sun, and fill the kettle with water. I could go for another run but the ache in my legs from the five miles I did earlier tells me to rest. I could go to Macy’s and browse bridal shower gifts. But I know in my gut that I don’t actually plan to attend that bridal shower. The bride is marrying my ex-boyfriend, James. It’s not jealousy keeping me away. It’s awkwardness. James wanted more than I could give and when we both realized that, the relationship came to its logical and amicable conclusion. Besides, weekends are some of the best days to get work done. I’m not going to waste one eating finger sandwiches and making small talk.
My warped reflection stares back at me from the silver kettle. In it I’m impossibly tall, like the thing that has wrought havoc on my routine. Or rather, the person.
Wesley.Mr. Chambers. My chest constricts at just the thought of him. I don’t think I realized how much I needed my anger as a shield until I couldn’t muster it anymore. My ego is a bruise in an exposed place. Always bumped and never fully healing.
His preference is based on something I have no control over—my gender—and that’s what really makes my chest burn. That I thought he might be different. The bruise blooms bigger every time I hear his stupid little laugh.
I’ve been the butt of many jokes at Hill City. Folks around the office have called me plenty of names behind my back and under their breath. But after Richard told me about Mr. Chambers’s choice to stay home to care for his mother, I’d assumed he’d be different. That he was kind and thoughtful and maybe even empathetic. Maybe he is all of those things. Just not toward me.
My heart cracks in two. But I can only be disappointed in myself. Other than Emily, the only person I can trust at Hill City is me.
I pull a mug from the cupboard and fill a sachet with loose-leaf tea. Emily would want me to fire him. Since he’s my intern I don’t need to run it past Richard first. But because Richard recommended him to me personally, I couldn’t do it without Richard asking questions. And that’s not a conversation I want to have. I don’t know what Richard has heard at the office or what he believes but I’d rather not draw attention to what people say about his only female executive.
Even my mother, who counsels leniency and second chances in almost every situation, would tell me to get rid of him.
She really doesn’t like curse words.
My chest aches with the desire to talk to her, but she’s got enough on her plate without my office melodrama.
I jump as the kettle whistles.
I pour my tea and walk to the small balcony off my living room. Opening the sliding glass door, I walk out onto the windy terrace as the wind whips my loose hair. The sounds of the street are far away and the late summer sun is still low in the sky. I take a deep breath. If I close my eyes and try really hard, I can smell the sea. Even after living here for most of my adult life, this Midwestern girl still can’t believe her luck that she gets to be so close to the ocean.
The wind and the sound of the city below calm me. The anger and the hurt don’t burn so hot up here. Instead of a white-hot rage, it’s more a glowing orange that allows me to think a little clearer.
Tomorrow is a new day and a new opportunity to show Mr. Chambersexactlywho he is dealing with. If he likes laughing so much, I’ll give him something to laugh about. I’m going to make him rue the day he ever decided to be an asshole. Or be so fucking tall.
Chapter 5: Wesley
My sister’s red coupe sits at the curb but as I let myself inside, the house is dark and still. My bag lands with athunkat the door and something rolls out onto the floor but I’m already on my way to the kitchen, pulling the first bottle of beer I can find out of the fridge.
I’ll clean up the mess of this day later.
The cap pops as I twist it off, lean against the counter in the dark room, and tip the bottle back. It’s not so much the alcohol that calms me but the taste, the fizziness on my tongue, that takes me back to summer days, literal years ago, drinking a beer with my sister and Jeremy.
I set the bottle on the counter and let my head fall back. The house is quiet and still. I try to mimic that stillness. I crave it. But my skin crawls with the need to move. I could call Jer right now and ask him to get a beer. We haven’t spoken since Mom’s funeral—and then it wasn’t about much more than condolences—but best friends should be able to pick up right where they left off.
Every excuse I can think of rolls through my head: he’s busy; I should make dinner for Amy instead; the toilets need cleaning. My phone is a lead weight in my pocket that I don’t reach for.
The last time Jeremy and I really talked he was applying to law school. He was thinking about proposing to Angie. He was even MVP of his rec baseball team, for god’s sake. I can’t call him up and tell him about my crappy day, my crappy boss, my crappy demotion.
Athumpcomes from overhead, pulling my eyes up. Thethumpcomes again. “Amy?” I call.
Something hits the floor above my head, rattling around on the hardwood. It sounds like a cell phone set to vibrate.
“Amy?” I bark. Still no answer. “Fuck.” I sigh, setting my bottle down. This isn’t the first time Amy has forgotten her phone at home.
I climb the stairs slowly, checking my room at the top, then the bathroom just in case. But the rattling that was definitely coming from Amy’s room has stopped and now there are no sounds from behind her door. I pause. My gaze falls on the room at the end of the hall.
The door is closed but I don’t need to open it to see clearly the hospital bed in the center of the room and the support rails on the bathroom walls. Her closet, with her out-of-fashion work clothes pushed to the back, her drawers stacked with pajamas. She’s been gone three months but it feels like she’s been gone forever and like she just left us, all at once. We haven’t done anything with her room yet but the idea of it, empty and lifeless—like her—pulls a rope tight around my lungs.
