“Nothing,” she lies, her voice shaky. “Well, nothing important. I’m fine.”
I feel the manic energy buzzing through my veins, bouncing on my toes to expel it.
Do I force my way in and make her tell me what’s going on? Do I relent and give her the space to work through it on her own?
I know she’s safe. There are no threats after her now.
But she’s upset.
And that’s something I have no clue how to work through.
“Do you need anything?” is the follow-up question I settle on. It’s a safe enough one. Not prying. Just offering Brigit whatever it takes to help her get through this, even if she doesn’t want to tell me whatthisis.
A few quiet footsteps, followed by the click of the door unlocking, and there she appears, peeking out from behind a cracked door, eyes red and swollen. This time, without any makeup smudged beneath them, I can see every little freckle she usually hides with a layer of something or other.
“Hi,” I offer in little more than a whisper.
She tries her hardest to smile, but her lips crumble into the saddest frown I’ve ever seen. Not scared, or angry, like I’ve seen her before. Just utterly devastated, bone-deep sorrow.
Before she can say anything else, I pull her into my chest, letting her rest her head on my shoulder as silent sobs shake her body.
Her arms wrap tight around my waist, and I do the only thing I can. I fucking freeze. With one hand around her shoulders and the other smoothing her wild waves down her back, I hold this strong, formidable woman who just needs to break down for a little while.
When the sobs stop, and she manages to pull back to look up at me, I swipe away the tears running down her face.
“What happened, Brig?”
She shakes her head, opening the door the rest of the way to let me in.
Draped across the messy bed, her phone and computer lay with aperfect representation of where she would have been settled all afternoon.
“My name and face are scattered all over the fucking internet,” she gestures towards her phone that won’t stop lighting up with notifications. “Someonereallydid their homework. They found out about my internship and subsequent firing. They interviewed previous colleagues about myinappropriate relationship. They even fucking got a statement from Ian.”
“Who’s Ian?”
Her face, flitting between angry and sad, stares back at me, “You really want me to believe you don’t knoweverything? That Skyler didn’t tell you?”
Taking a confused step back, I try to think through what Sky told me about Brigit.
I shake my head, “Skyler didn’t tell me anything about you. Said the skeletons in your closet weren’t anything to worry about.”
Barking out an unimpressed laugh, she throws her hands onto her hips, eyes watering all over again, “They weren’t evenmyfucking skeletons, but he had no problem throwing them in my face.”
Slowly, I walk towards her, sitting on the bed to give her the space she needs to pace while she unloads.
“Babe, can we please start from the beginning?” I beg. “I can’t promise that I didn’t know these things before, but Icanpromise you that I don’t now.”
Walking back and forth across the floor, she throws her hands up in surrender. “Ian was my boss, for lack of a better term, at my internship.”
“Okay.”
“And towards the very end of my term there, we became involved,” she confesses. “It’s very much not allowed, but he assured me it would be fine. I was young and dumb and thought that’s what love and partnership were supposed to feel like. I didn’t mind needing to be good at my job to earn his affection, ya know, it’s nodifferent from the relationship I have with my mom. I always had to be worthy of her love, too.”
My stomach drops when I hear her talk about the people in her life who have made her feel she needs todosomething orbesomeone to be deserving of love.
The only fucking thing she needs to be isher. That alone makes her worthy of every bit of goodness and love this fucking world has to offer.
“And then,” she sniffles, gesturing between us, “the night we met, she continues, “We were supposed to be theretogether.”
