"Yeah! Total prank!" Chad grinned, confidence returning now that she wasn't yelling. "Man, you should've seen your face. You were so shocked, babe. You almost believed it. Happy anniversary! Gotcha!"
April looked at Brenda, who was adjusting her skirt with a smug little smirk. "Honestly, April, I was just helping Chad with his desk ergonomics. We were calibrating the lumbar support and checking the sightlines for optimal workflow. It's a professional courtesy."
April had heard enough. She turned and walked out, closing the door with a gentle click, nearly breaking into a run before remembering the bathrooms at Blackwood & Co. were the epicenter of the corporate grapevine. If she went there, her heartbreak would be a Slack notification before she'd finished wiping her eyes. So she kept walking past the interns' curious glances and the mahogany walls that suddenly felt like a cage until she found the first door available—a small, dark supply closet near the service elevator—and slipped inside.
Twelve dollars for a hand-piped heart and #1 BF in looping script. She'd believed—actually believed—he was building toward a proposal.
The cupcake sat on the shelf next to industrial-strength floor wax. Perfect. Untouched.Stupid.
She'd thought he was going to propose.
April's breath hitched, her ribs felt too tight.
He was fucking Brenda on his desk and April had walked three blocks in heels with a cupcake that said #1 BF.
The laugh that came out was ugly.
"I am a fool," she whispered into the dark that smelled of lemon bleach and unrequited effort. "April Feuller. Biggest fool of all." She leaned against the metal shelving and let the tears fall.
???
She allowed herself to wallow for exactly five minutes. She checked her watch—a gift from Chad that she was now fairly certain was a knock-off—then wiped her mascara with a paper towel, squared her shoulders, and pulled out her phone.
April:Chad cheated on me
April:With HR
Laura:Are you ok?
Laura:Wait are you with HR or he was with HR?
April:im safe
April:alone
April:HR is... pending
Laura:"Pending" is not an HR status.
Laura:Do you want me to call you or do you want me to simply drive to your office and start making purposeful eye contact with people.
April let out a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob, her thumb hovering over the keyboard, shaking.
April:don’t worry
April:I have a plan
She didn’t. Not yet.
April's brain began churning through the options like a printerwith a jammed queue: cry more, quit, move to Vermont to make artisanal cheese.
Laura:What kind of plan?
Laura:Your "plans" include the time you tried to fix your sink with duct tape and flooded your bathroom.
April:the good kind
Laura:That is the opposite of reassuring.
