I gritted my teeth, swallowing the argument I felt rising up, and said, "I think you should leave."
Mr. Bradley stood there for a moment glowering at me before he turned and left, closing the door quietly behind him.
I sat frozen in my chair, trembling until I felt the tears beginning to well up.
I hadn't deserved any of that, and I just wanted to go home and hide.
The clock showed three forty-five—close enough to the end of the day that leaving early wouldn't raise questions, so I shutdown my computer, grabbed my coat and bag, and fled before anyone could stop me.
Instead of taking an Uber, I walked home.
It was cold and getting dark so early now, but the fresh air helped push away most of the torrent of heavy emotion.
Until I turned the corner onto my street and stopped short.
Three reporters stood on the front lawn of my building with cameramen and notebooks in hand.
Two of my neighbors were pushing past them to reach the entrance, looking annoyed and embarrassed, and I knew I had to run the gauntlet before I could find the safety of my apartment and let the emotion out.
I recognized one of the reporters from previous encounters.
He spotted me immediately and called out, "Ms. Harrison! Can we get a statement about your relationship with Dr. Bradley?"
I ducked my head and hurried toward the entrance, but they followed with overlapping shouts and flashes of their cameras.
My jacket wasn’t big enough to pull up over my head, and my body was shivering from the mixture of emotion and anxiety.
All I could do was shout, "No comment!" to their questions.
"Is it true you're sleeping together?"
"What does the hospital administration think about the relationship?"
"Are you planning to continue as Hearthkeeper?"
I pushed through the door and into the building, my hands shaking as I stabbed the elevator call button.
I could still see the reporters through the windows, still standing on the lawn and watching the entrance, but at least inside, I wasn't being hounded by them.
What a horrible thing to come home to.
"Ember," I heard, and I turned to find my landlord approaching from the hallway that led to his ground-floor unit.
He was in his sixties, balding and perpetually rumpled, usually friendly but now wearing an expression of clear frustration.
He rubbed a hand over his sweaty, glare-prone head. "We need to talk about this press situation," he said in a very grumpy tone.
I saw the frustration in his eyes and felt like a child being scolded.
"I'm sorry. I didn't ask them to come here."
"I understand that, but I've had multiple complaints from other tenants. People can't come and go without being harassed. It's disrupting the building."
He ran a hand over his face, probably a nervous habit. "You need to make this problem go away."
"I don't know how to do that." My voice cracked as I swallowed the lump in my throat. If I knew how to do that, I'd have done it months ago.
"Figure it out. Talk to a lawyer, issue a statement, do whatever it takes. But I can't have reporters camping on my property indefinitely." He softened slightly at whatever he saw in myexpression. "I'm not trying to be harsh. But this is affecting other residents, and I have a responsibility to them too."
