“I still have your friend’s phone number, and I’m not afraid to use it.”
I gasped.
Grayson? Threatening me?
What had the world come to when you couldn’t trust your boss to have your back?
“Fine. Fine. I’ll go,” I relented and turned around, pulling away from my boss’s grip and office.
“And I don’t want to see you for another couple of days. Understood?”
“Understood,” I mumbled and made my way to my locker to collect my keys and jacket.
I had to return to reality at some point, I guess. And what a reality. A reality without Samir.
This sucks.
I suck.
I suck so bad.
But even though I wanted to, I didn’t text him. I didn’t call him. Even though I missed him.
Remorse might have slipped back into oblivion, replaced by desire, but what guaranteed I wouldn’t lead him on again only to feel the exact same way after another night together?
I didn’t want to play with Samir’s feelings. And I didn’t want to experiment with mine when I was so clearly broken. Broken beyond repair.
It was funny actually. How I always thought Sandra’s death would haunt me forever and would cast a shadow over the rest of my life. How I thought I could never move on from her, and now that I wanted to, now that I felt ready to do so, it was my own fucked-up head that stood in the way. Not Sandra, not grief, but my stupid broken self.
“Oh my God, will you stop moping already?” Carson said, and I barely registered him.
I barely registered anything these days. Every day and every moment passed me by in a blur. Just like the whole week had, and somehow I’d gone eight days without talking to him, without seeing him, without kissing him, and yet he lived rent-free in my head.
At least in there I hadn’t fucked up. At least in there I hadn’t been an ass. At least in there I wasn’t broken.
“Yeah, it’s Christmas for fudge’s sake. Pull your ship together,” Enzo added, making Ella giggle.
Was it really?
I looked around me. At my brother and my friend. They were now engaged, but of course even the memory of their proposal was hazy at best. I looked at Lilian. My daughter.
Ella was opening Christmas presents. Lilian was cooking something up in the kitchen and Carson and Enzo were picking up the mess Ella left behind in her gift-opening frenzy.
That wasn’t how I pictured Christmas this year. I didn’t even realize I’d pictured it differently until it was too late, but… I’d wanted more this year.
I wanted Samir to be here, by my side. I wanted him to be the one helping Ella open presents. I wanted us cozying up on the couch, watching Christmas movies while Ella slept in our arms. I wanted us to enjoy a meal together with my family; to be dreaming of a future together and making wishes to that effect for the new year.
“I can’t,” I said. “I fucked up.”
Lilian shushed me from the kitchen, but it was already too late. Ella started saying “fucked up” over and over again like it was a Christmas beat.
I sighed.
“What the hell happened in Boston?” Enzo asked.
I shook my head, refusing to recount how embarrassing I’d been.
Carson stood up, grabbed me by the shoulders and gave me a good shake.
