CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
NASH
NASH
“Oh my God, are you fucking serious?Getup.”
Archer’s annoyed voice startled me out of my sleep.I jerked to sitting, looking around my office with bleary eyes.Archer stomped along the far wall, opening the blinds.
“You slept here,again.”He stated it like a fact, because it was one.
“You have eyes.Congratulations.”My voice came out raspy and deep.I rubbed my face, all the aches and pains from sleeping on the couch making themselves known.I bought high quality couches, but apparently not high quality enough for a thirty-something spine.
“And you have apenthouse, last time I checked.”He walked over to me, watching me with a cocktail of expressions: frustration, annoyance, maybe some pity.Whatever it was, I didn’t want to see it.I cleared my throat, pushing to standing.
“I don’t want to be there,” I said simply, staggering past him.“Why do you care where I sleep?”
“Because you’re clearly spiraling and acting fucking weird.”He said it like it was so obvious.But I knew he was wrong.
“I don’t need your shit right now,” I said with a sigh, pinching one eye shut against the bright light streaming through the blinds he’d opened.“I have work to do.”
He laughed hollowly.“Okay, Nash.Why don’t you go brush your teeth in the employee lounge?Because that’s what healthy, stable, adult humans do, right?”
“Fuck off,” I muttered.“You think you’re so healthy and stable?”
“I’m at least an adult human,” he shot back, following me into the hallway, “which is more than you can say.”
I stopped, looking at him through my slitted eyes.“I’m an adult human.What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You’re acting like a child,” he hissed.
“But we can agree I’m human,” I said, pressing onward.
“I don’t agree to that,” he said, veering into his own office.I flipped him off as I walked away, but didn’t turn around to see if he’d noticed.It didn’t matter.
Not much mattered anymore.
Why would it?The light had gone out of my life.The ground had been stripped from beneath me.I’d pushed Clara away, and worse yet, she hadn’t fought for me.For us.Even though I’d told her there was nous.I ruminated on this as I brushed my teeth in the employee lounge.It was the only thing I thought about anymore, the loss of her.
But life had to go on, didn’t it?When I returned to my office, I tried to focus on work.But the spreadsheets blurred together.The emails might as well have been written in another language.
All I could think about was Clara.
It had been three weeks since I'd walked out.Three weeks of uninspiring mornings, bland days, a complete lack of warmth and family and simple pleasures.I slept on the couch in my office on the nights my thoughts were the loudest, when I couldn’t bear to return to the penthouse and face the empty spaces where her plants used to be or Mia's drawings still on the fridge or the bed we'd shared.
And after so long without a call or text from her, I had to assume she'd moved on.Just like I'd told her to.
I got what I’d wanted.So why did it feel like I was dying?
"You look like shit."
I looked up to find Archer in my doorway again, arms crossed.
"Thanks for the update."
"When's the last time you ate?"
I couldn't remember."Yesterday.Sometime."
