In, out.
In, out.
I glance at the wall of the parking garage, first seeing the placard assigning my parking spot, and then look at the one next to it. They haven’t changed it yet, surprisingly, and I wonder if this small detail has just fallen through the cracks. Especially given that Theo is always driven to work, never driving himself.
Reserved for:
Vance Peterson
CEO, Nexus Realty Group
Like the straw that broke the camel’s back, this is what finally breaks me. I stare at his name and feel the tears start to roll down my cheeks.
How could he do this?
I want to scream. Theo has to be wrong. He didn’t know Mr. Peterson like I did. If he had, he wouldn’t have been able to accuse him of something of this magnitude.
But I don’t, and somewhere inside, I know Theo would never just tell me this unless he was sure. Unless the evidence was stacked.
But even then, that doesn’t make the hurt any less.
I sit in my car, staring at the sign until I know I have to leave. I want to curl up in my bed and wallow in this news. I think that’s the only way I’ll ever get past it.
My mind is still running through every interaction withMr. Peterson that I can remember, looking for clues, hints—any sign that he might not have been as honest as he came off to be.
Does his wife know? Was she a part of this horrible embezzlement scheme? Or would she be just as shocked as I am to find out?
I can’t imagine she’d have any part in it. I can barely reconcile the idea that Mr. Peterson himself did. It’s like finding out your real knight in shining armor just turned out to be a loser in tinfoil.
Mr. Peterson saved me in more ways than I could have hoped for—taking me in when my mother died, helping me get started in online classes and getting a degree, and giving me a job and a home and a family when I had nothing.
This sense of betrayal hurts more than anything.
I want to melt away into nothingness so I don’t have to feel this pain.
When I miraculously make it home without crashing, I drop all of my things on the kitchen counter and go straight to my bedroom. I take a quick shower and scrub at my crawling skin, not finding any type of relief. Gathering my coziest pajamas, I crawl into bed and bury myself under the covers. My head falls into my pillow, and for a second, I hope I can find some comfort.
But I don’t.
I don’t know if I ever will after this.
Theo
My fist poundsagainst her door.
Again, no answer.
I lean forward, resting my forehead against the cool wood of her apartment door. I’ve been standing out here for the better part of fifteen minutes, knocking, hoping she’ll answer. Thankfully, someone left the entry door to her apartment complex slightly ajar, so I didn’t have to wait for her to buzz me up. I figured I wouldn’t have even made it this far if I had to go through that extra step.
“Whitney, please let me in. Let’s talk about this,” I shout at the door. I’m sure her neighbors are seconds away from calling the police to file a noise complaint, but I don’t give a shit. I’ll stay out here all night if that’s what it takes to get her to talk to me.
I’ll never forget the way she stood straight up when I told her the truth. Nor the way she flew out of the office like a bat out of hell. I barely blinked, and she had thrown my door open and grabbed her stuff. I’m not even sure if she took the elevator, she was gone so fast. Either she chose to run down all elevenflights of stairs, or the elevator happened to be ready on our floor. Whichever it was, she was gone so quickly before I could even react.
She was crazy, but I couldn’t blame her. I had dropped a nuclear bomb on her reality. She was allowed to be a little shaken from that. I gave her space, watching the clock as a few hours ticked by before making my way to where I knew she’d be.
But now? Now, it was time to have the hard conversations and figure out how to move forward. And I wasn’t letting her escape this time.
Finally, after relentlessly knocking and calling out her name, she graces me with her presence. The lock over the door slides, and then she’s cracking it open, peeking her nose through the tiny slit she’s created.
