“You’re panting like a lion that ran after an antelope. Focus. Become quiet. Structured steps. Flow. Knees soft.”
I do as he says because his voice and instructions somehow keep Ella from popping into my thoughts.
“Yes,” he says when I strike again. “Exactly like that. Again. One, two, three, break. And again. One, two, three, break.”
I have no clue how much time passed, but my mind is silent and back to focus when we finally stop.
Sweat runs over my skin as exhaustion comes, but I feel like myself again.
“Get some sleep,” I tell Doug when we get back to the room. It’s four in the morning.
“Two hours don’t do well with my schedule,” he says.
“I’ll set my alarm to 9,” I say. Somehow, I’ve already broken my routine, and I feel like getting a few hours of sleep, too. He nods. I fall into bed sweaty, and in the clothes I am in. I don’t care.
When I wake up, it's past noon.
I groan as I stare at the number on my phone.
Never have I slept in before. Never. Not even as a teenager and after a night of overindulgence.
It’sher fault.
Ella.
Nothing of it would’ve happened without her.
That’s what a woman like her does. Mess with me and my schedule.
I close my eyes and breathe in and out once before I get out of bed.
When I return from the bathroom, breakfast is set for me, and Doug stands by the door in his typical manner.
“You should’ve woken me up,” I hiss at him.
“You are allowed to rest,” he says.
“I pay you to protect and organize, not for having opinions,” I snap back at him as I put milk in my coffee.
“Reminding you to rest falls under protection,” he says, and I am close to throwing an apple from the fruit bowl on the table at him.
I suppress the impulse, of course, because my father would murder me if he ever found out I lost myself and threw something at the staff.
We’re in the office an hour later. Lingering eyes of surprised employees follow me, because everyone here knows I am never late or miss a meeting, and today I have missed two.
I can already hear the gossip coming.
I need to get Ella out of my head. This can’t happen ever again.
The day passes by, and it is late afternoon, when Doug walks up to me in the middle of a meeting. I know something is wrong the moment I see him, because interrupting a meeting is only for emergencies. He leans in and whispers in my ear while he’s showing me a picture on his phone. My heart plummets.
“I just got word that the apartment burnt down last night while you two were in the hotel. Fire investigator has been called; they believe arson.”
I stare at the image of Ella’s apartment, completely destroyed. Nothing is intact anymore.
My mind races immediately.
Her apartment was burnt down.
