As soon as I leave Markham, I go directly to Brady’s apartment.
“Brady! Come on.” I bang on the door. “Please, I need to speak to you.”
The door and the apartment remain infuriatingly silent.
“Please,” I say one more time. I don’t know which is worse. Either he’s home and still won’t answer. Or he’s not and he’s getting on with his life without me.
Neither leave me with any moves.
25
Brady
Meanwhile, back on Tuesday...
I’m so mad as I leave the festival office that I’m shaking. Actually physically vibrating as I stumble out into the daylight and humidity.
Fuck Nash. Fuck his prejudices and his “you don’t get to make this decision.” I’ll make my own damn decisions, and right now I’ve decided to walk away from him and the mess of his personal life and his sudden belief that I’m too young to be worth his time.
But goddamn I’m going to miss him.
I don’t have too long to hurt about it, though, because my phone buzzes. It’s Lena.
“Shit.” A problem at the tutoring centre is the last thing I need today.
Except before I can even accept her call, another one comes in too. A client number I sort of recognize but don’t hear from very often.
Turns out, we’re in the midst of a province-wide internet outage. And while I am not an internet service provider, that doesn’t keep fully half my client portfolio from calling to find out what I’m going to do about it.
Sit on hold with the zillion other pissed off customers, listening to the automated message that says they’re aware of the outage and technicians have been dispatched to address the issue, that’s what I’m going to do. If I have any other problems, perhaps I’d care to visit their website, where more information can be found?
I would not, fuck you very much.
At least playing phone relay with clients keeps me occupied so I don’t have to think about that awful scene in Nash’s office. He looked so defeated and distant, like he didn’t even want to fight. Like decisions had been made and no one cared what I had to say.
My fault for getting involved in the first place. For maintaining a professional relationship that bordered on flirting from day one, and for not backing down the first time he’d kissed me. I should have drawn a very clear line that we weren’t going to cross. Instead, I got starry-eyed and started making bad decisions left and right.
Maybe I’m as young and naive as he thinks I am. Clearly his dick hasn’t gotten in the way of his thought process, if he can tell me it’s over with about as little emotion as he’d tell me it’s time to upgrade his phone plan.
But fuck, I’m lonely as I go to bed. We aren’t even in the habit of sleeping over—except for that night after the restaurant—but suddenly my bed feels big and empty.
When my alarm goes off the next morning, I spend a full twenty minutes staring at the ceiling, silently dreading the entire world outside.
At least the internet is back on.
Unfortunately, yesterday’s outage and all the calls to the football phone have caused several clients I haven’t heard from in months to suddenly remember I exist and can do stuff for them. One wants me to help him price and evaluate new billing software, which isn’t even something I do, but he’s adamant he needs my help. Another has an antiquated printer—fucking printers—that won’t reconnect to his system since the outage. And a third is moving their office at the end of the month and surely I can help wire up a new thirty-seat space for them in Etobicoke with almost zero notice, right?
I’m not at all surprised when the panic attacks start midafternoon. I’m in the middle of walking Lena through troubleshooting a few of our less common but more complicated client issues, and when the phone starts to ring again, I have to excuse myself to the bathroom so I can ball my hands into fists and rest my head against the probably-not-at-all-sanitary subway tile on the wall.
My bed is not any more welcoming tonight.
Then Thursday is a shit show of follow-up calls, along with the bank phoning to tell me I’ve reached my credit limit because I maxed it out buying equipment for Bill Immerchuk, while he’s not required to pay me for the install until the end of the month. I suck up my pride and call Bill to beg for money. I tell myself I’m using it as a lesson for Lena on how to deal with cash flow issues.
I nearly break down and call Nash that night. He’s called, but he never leaves a voicemail, and the one time I happened to be at my desk long enough to see his name come up on the screen, I was only seconds off the phone with the bank and waiting for the spiraling drain feeling to stop in my head. Not the ideal time to have a heart-to-heart with the guy doing his best to break yours. So I spend Thursday night staring at the ceiling again.
By Friday morning, I haven’t slept in thirty-six hours, feel like I’m going to throw up, and might be getting a migraine even though I’ve never had one before. And the football phone has rung twice before I even get on the streetcar.
I take my last resort and call the only number I can think of.
