“You know, you may be my boss, but that doesn’t mean you’re the boss of me in all things.”
“You are correct,” he said, dismissing me, and turning his attention to his double monitors. “But in this…I am. Three o’clock. We’ll need to leave here by two-thirty.”
“Fine.”
“Good.”
I had this ridiculous urge to stick my tongue out at him, but I refrained.
After all, I was an adult.
Grant
I pretendedto track the S&P500 figures, which I already knew, but I wasn’t seeing anything on the screen.
That had gone surprisingly well. Much easier than I’d anticipated. My family flew back to Florida yesterday with the final demand that Ido right by Anna.
I’d taken their words to heart. If my behavior on Thursday was any indication of the kind of person I could be to her, then it had to end now. I’d reached that conclusion before, only to back away from the decision.
Now, there was no hope of holding on to anything rational with Anna.
With her, I was nothing but irrational. My ability to cause her pain was…unimaginable.
I needed to obey my family and do right by her.
Step one. Teach her how to drive. It would only further her independence.
Step two. Improve her professional and financial circumstances to the point where she would never worry about food and shelter again.
Step three. Cut her loose.
TWENTY-SIX
GRANT
He needed to build up her resume. So he could fire her.
I stareddown at the brochures in my hand. I’d had some time to think about what came next for me. For Flowers. I’d formulated what I anticipated was a reasonable plan moving forward.
I wanted her out of my life.
However, I sure as hell wasn’t sending her back to an uncertain situation. Which meant there were steps she needed to take.
There was no way to just hand her the money. I’d gone so far as considering rigging a lottery ticket, but she was too clever for all that shit. This needed to be done the right way. The systematic way. So she would think it was on her terms. So it would be on her terms.
I needed to do this without letting her know what I was up to, and before…
Before I crossed a line. Or she did.
I wasn’t so oblivious I couldn’t see what was happening from her side. That I was able to inflict emotional pain at all meant I was becoming too intrinsic in her life. She was a person who’d had to navigate her life singularly since she was a child, and now she was working for a person who took up all of her space.
Who showed up drunk at her door on the anniversary of his wife’s death.
Who raced to her rescue when she asked for help.
We’d both walked up to the line, looked down at it, and then backed away.
And we’d gotten particularly good at pretending we hadn’t both seen the line.
