That, along with some shit going on it at work, had snowballed into constant stress. Then the work shit had calmed down, wedding stuff had ramped up, and suddenly… I was here. The wedding date had come and gone. The preparations had gone up in smoke just like my relationship had. All that stress felt like such a waste now—losing sleep over a company that didn’t give a shit about me, tying myself in knots over logistics of a wedding that never happened.
And today… finally… I felt like myself again. Laughing. Joking. No nagging feeling that I needed to be doing something. Nothing lurking in the back of my mind about decisions to be made and actions to be taken.
For the first time in ages… I could breathe.
It wasn’t lost on me that the catalyst for all that was the man sitting right beside me. He’d been the one to break the news that turned my life on its ass. The one to give me a place to stay until the smoke cleared. And now, the one who was making me laugh while we cruised around in Nowhere, Maine.
I hadn’t foreseen any of this even a month ago. Now it was hard to imagine that the wedding had been happening and I’d been happy with Selena and?—
“Okay, in all seriousness,” Jesse said, derailing my train of thought, “what do you really do? I’m just curious.”
Admittedly grateful for the redirect, I said, “Well, when I’m not busy shooting armpit content, I manage supply logistics for one of the big healthcare networks. Basically, I oversee sourcing, purchasing, and distributing supplies to clinics and hospitals.”
Jesse whistled. “Wow. That sounds like a job with a lot of moving parts.”
I chuckled. “You could say that.”
“Does that mean you have to deal with those clowns from the drug companies? The ones who leave their swag and samples everywhere?”
“Fortunately, no. There’s a whole other department that handles pharmaceutical logistics. Mine is mostly for consumables like needles, gloves—shit like that. I used to work on the side that dealt with mechanical equipment like monitors and whatnot, but then I got moved to my current department.”
“Do you like it?”
I shrugged. “It’s a job and a paycheck? Paycheck isn’t huge, but the benefits are decent and I’ve got a good team.” I paused.“I almost quit two years ago because of the VP I reported to, but then she got her ass fired, so…” I half-shrugged. “Problem solved.”
“Ooh, how did she get fired? Seems like it takes a lot to knock someone out of one of those positions.”
“Takes an act of Congress sometimes,” I grumbled. “I couldn’t fucking stand her. She would tell us to do things, then scream at us—and I do meanscreamat us—for doing it exactly the way she said to do it. She’d gaslight the shit out of us and insist she didn’t tell us to—anyway, I’m sure you know the type.”
“Uh-huh,” Jesse said. “Veryfamiliar.”
“Right, so I was on the verge of quitting. Had my resignation typed up and everything. Literally had it in my hand on the way into the office, and someone stops me and says, ‘Yo, they canned Crystal!’” I shook my head. “Ironically, considering what we were talking about a few minutes ago, it turned out she’d gotten drunk at a dinner with one of our major suppliers.”
Jesse coughed a laugh. “Why am I not surprised?”
“I know, right? And apparently she didn’t just make an ass of herself. She got so fucked up, she started talking shit about other vendors, and she let slip someveryconfidential information. Like, I don’t even know what the confidential information was, only that when the supplier spoke to Crystal’s boss, the hammer came downfast.”
“Good. And I take it things got better after she was ousted?”
“Much. Like, so much better. I didn’t even realize how much she’d been stressing me out until she was gone. I slept so hard that night, it was insane.”
Jesse nodded solemnly. “I’ve had bosses like that. The ones who are so toxic and evil, they consume your time and energy even when you’re off the clock.”
“Makes you wonder how they last as long as they do.”
He grunted. “No kidding.”
We drove in silence for a few minutes. It occurred to me that the feeling I’d had since we got to Moosehead Lake—that calm, relaxed feeling I hadn’t had in so damn long—wasn’t unlike the post-Crystal days. It was like a huge source of stress was just… gone. On some level, I was sure I still needed to grieve my relationship with Selena. And I was certainly still not over the fact that she’d cheated on me for so long, or how humiliating it was to cancel our wedding at the last minute.
But right now, I had that familiar sensation of anchor chains being cut away. The wedding stress had ended, even if it hadn’t been the way I’d expected it to. The shock of losing Selena was wearing off. Even with all the emotions I still needed to wade through, I was finding my footing and breathing more easily. At this point, I’d take it.
And being able to enjoy someone else’s company didn’t hurt. Something told me being up here by myself would just be depressing. Being here with Jesse? Not so much.
Up ahead, a yellow caution sign with a moose silhouette came into view.
Jesse pointed at it. “Okay, so there really are moose up here, right? You said this is a good time of year to see them?”
“The best time, if you want to see a bull with its full rack.”
