The truth was I was ashamed by our breakup.
Those old insecurities and fears about people’s perception of me felt like bedbugs crawling all over my skin.
Being rejected by a fiancé who paid out thousands of dollars for an engagement ring surely revealed the truth about my worthiness. Years I’d fought to shed the shame I’d felt because of my mother. The shame piled on me by schoolmates who didn’t care I was already living in hell and decided to make every day worse by reminding me who my mum was and who I was by association. Then there was the shame I felt about leaving her behind after years of parentingher. Layers and layers of shame.
I wished I could wrap myself in my dad and Grace’s love and pride and let everything else be washed away. Yet I couldn’t. When Becky was the first person at work to notice I wasn’t wearing my engagement ring, I lied and said it wasbeing cleaned. Then Beth noticed, and I fobbed her off with the same lie.
For a month.
The only people who knew the truth were Grace and Dad, and I’d sworn them to secrecy until I was ready to explain the situation. Because I didn’t fully understand. I felt at once heartbroken and relieved, and I didn’t know how to make sense of the relief just yet. But there was this feeling of one weight being lifted from my shoulders, only to be replaced by the evasion of truth.
I was now single.
Will and I had broken up.
The future loomed uncertain and not very safe at all.
I was so unbalanced and lost in the chaotic dichotomy of my emotions.
Perhaps that’s why I lost my shit at Baird this morning. After our swim, I’d hurried back to my flat to change into my work clothes. I was shaken by my anger at Baird’s behavior. I hadn’t realized until that moment how attached I’d gotten to him. For weeks I’d been plagued by guilt for not telling him about my breakup because he was one of the few people in my life who seemed to notice the change in my demeanor. It had been on the tip of my tongue to tell him when he’d revealed the whole tabloid fiasco.
Baird McMillan was one of the most frustrating men I’d ever met.
He presented this carefree, jack-the-lad persona to the world, and hewasendearing, funny, and charismatic. I loved that about him. He’d kind of pushed his way into my life with his gregarious affection. I couldn’t deny him. It was like telling a golden retriever you didn’t want to be friends. Will hadn’t been all that excited about myburgeoning friendship with Scotland’s hottest Professional League goalkeeper.
Yet Baird had hidden depths that only those close to him ever got to see. He was deeply loyal and would do anything for his friends. He was protective of women, probably because he was raised by a single mum and his big sister. And he was currently spiraling after his head injury. I could see it happening and I didn’t know how to stop it, and he didn’t want to talk about it.
Experimenting with hard drugs was crossing the line, though, and I’d taken it personally when I shouldn’t have. But I also … as much as it would hurt to walk away from a friendship that had quickly become important to me … I couldn’t have that specific kind of chaos in my life.
I couldn’t go back there.
Ever.
Not even for Baird.
With that in mind, my melancholy was multiplied by a hundred that morning as I walked into Pennington’s. I took the lift to the top of the Edwardian building, my heels clacking on the marble-tiled flooring. Smiling at colleagues and murmuring good mornings, I was hoping to get to my office and bury my head in our winter budget. We were always two seasons ahead, so our summer and autumn products were already well underway in terms of ordering, shipping, and merchandising.
“Maia.” Christina Gault, head buyer and my boss, stuck her head out of her office door. “A word.”
Her tone was clipped, but Christina always spoke that way, so I didn’t think much of it as I followed her into her office. She leaned her pencil-skirt-clad bottom against the edge of her desk and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d agreed to put your name forward for Pennington’s social media campaign?”
I furrowed my brow in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
My boss gave me an impatient look. “The social media campaign to follow an engaged couple through their journey to marriage.”
My stomach dropped as the conversation I’d had with Becky the night I’d broken up with Will came back to me. I’d forgotten all about it. “What are … what? I didn’t agree to anything. I said no.”
Christina dropped her arms from her chest. “Becky insists you agreed.”
That little … “I didn’t. I promise I didn’t.”
My boss muttered a curse under her breath. “Well, this is a pickle, isn’t it.”
Oh no … no, no, no. “Please tell me she didn’t put me forward and Pennington’s selected me and Will.”
“They selected you and Will.”
