Telling her immediate supervisor, who in turn had told everyone else, that one of the partner’s wives was stealing from the company had been a dumb move. She should have stuck with her original plan and anonymously sent the file, but Zoe thought the information would have been taken more seriously if there was a name behind the complaint. She should have known that Mr. Sands would take it out on her.
Now, she was facing a future of living in her car again. Granted, her car at this very moment was rapidly filling up with water or being vandalized and might not be livable come morning, but it was all she had.
“Zoe,” she heard Trevor say through the wall.
“Go. Away,” she said against the pillow, unsure if he could hear her and not really caring. She had enough problems to deal with at the moment.
“I’m sorry, Zoe,” he said louder.
She didn’t bother answering him as she lay there, hoping that he would just give up and leave. Of course, he didn’t.
“I’m sorry, Zoe,” he said again.
Frustrated that he wasn’t going away and angry at herself for crying, Zoe rolled over onto her side and demanded, “For what? For being a jerk or for calling me fat?”
“I didn’t call you fat!”
“What the hell would you call it?” Zoe snapped back.
After a short pause, he muttered something before saying, “You’re right. I’m an asshole.”
“At least we’re in agreement about something,” Zoe mumbled sadly into her pillow.
“Look, I’m trying to apologize here. Could you cut me some slack?”
She thought that over for a minute. “Are you going to give me back my pizza?”
His answer was a snort.
“Fine. Whatever. Keep the pizza,” Zoe said, half-expecting him to offer to share it.
“Thanks!” Trevor said brightly, and she could have sworn that he followed that up with what sounded like a heartfelt sigh, but she really couldn’t tell through the wall.
She grabbed Mr. Cuddles, the teddy bear she’d had since she was two, and absently ran her fingers over his worn little ears and button nose.
“So?”
“So, what?” Zoe called back with a frown, glancing back at her bare lavender wall.
“What the hell happened to you today to set off that little breakdown?” Trevor asked as she heard a familiar hissing sound. Yup, he was eating her food and drinking her Coke, she realized with a resigned sigh.
“You don’t think the shit you pulled was enough to set me off?” Zoe asked as she rolled over onto her back and placed Mr. Cuddles on her stomach.
“No. Not really.”
“I just had a bad day at work,” Zoe said, wondering why she was talking to him.
“Is that why you said that you had to move out?” Trevor asked around what sounded like a mouthful of food.
She snorted. “You don’t think the crap you pulled is reason enough?”
“Nope,” he said with absolutely no hesitation.
Zoe rolled over onto her side, hugging Mr. Cuddles tightly in her arms the way she used to when she was a little girl, spending her first night in a new foster home. Even after all these years, he still made her feel safe.
“So?” Trevor asked, still eating her damn pizza. It should piss her off, but after everything she’d gone through today, she realized that she didn’t care. Besides, she didn’t have much of an appetite anymore anyway.
“I was fired, if you must know. So, I won’t be able to pay rent past next month,” Zoe said, sighing heavily as she thought about everything that she was going to have to do. She really wasn’t looking forward to looking for a new job.
