“Not too far off from my job description, just that my pajamas are hi-vis. Not gonna judge you. Have a good night with your, uh, box.”
“Thanks. Will do.”
Took them back, popped one into the wax melter, and I kept it in my bedroom as I went to sleep, surrounded by the smell of Alyssa’s combination of sweet hair products and delicate perfume.
∞∞∞
Work could not go fast enough the next day. Sleep gave me a cool head, but not in the way I’d expected or been counting on—instead, I woke up feeling like everything in me had hardened into iron resolution, and I thought it was just inside me, but judging by how I got to the town services building in the morning and scared the shit out of my boss Linh by, quote,looking like I was ready to stab someone,I guess it showed on the outside, too.
Just as well. I was glad I had tasks instead of a timeframe I was on the clock. Went about it like a woman on a mission and finished everything in half the time, getting home by two and eating lunch in record time before my feet were possessed again and I was back out the door. The community college was a quick drive from my place, and I walked through the halls until I found the nameplate forLinda Hale, Environmental Program Coordinator.I knocked politely on the door, and I heard her voice sounding much more cheerful than it normally was. Customer service voice got you everywhere, apparently.
“Come in.”
I pushed open the door, and Linda, sitting behind a desk stocked with photo frames and succulents, did a double take and scowled at me. “Hey,” I said, and she shut her laptop, turning her chair to glower at me. Well, look at me. A glower was just her default.
“Jade? What in the world are you doing here? Enrolled in classes?”
“Different kind of quarter-life crisis.” I shut the door and dropped unbidden into the chair opposite her, earning a scowl in the process. “I wanted to apologize.”
She stared at me a while longer before she said, “For barging into my office?”
“For a lot of things. That’s on the list too, but it’s at the bottom. We’ll see if we get to it.” I sighed. “Is now a good time to bother you for a few minutes?”
She stared at me, and then up at the clock on the wall, and then she sighed, dropping back in her chair. “What’s going on?”
“Do you know what happened to Alyssa?”
She frowned. “Not really? I had a conversation with her the other day about a potential job opening here, and she’s been AWOL ever since. She seemed a little antsy.”
“She left Vermont.”
“Oh, shit. What?” She sat forward, gaze sharpening.
“Went back to her mom’s. As a last-minute effort to keep herself from going back to her ex.”
She put a hand over her mouth. “She didn’t… say anything.”
“I know. So now I’m saying things for her. She was in a bad place. And I’m worried she still is, but…” I shrugged. “Don’t know. It made me think about things. Truth is, we were… kind of seeing each other. She was nervous what would happen if people found out, so we were being quiet about it, but… people found out. And it got messy.”
She pursed her lips. “So she left because of that?”
“Because of a lot of things. I’ve been planning on leaving, too.”
She stared wide-eyed. I’d apparently gotten her full attention now. How about that?
“She’s a really damn good person,” I said quietly, and that got through to her—her expression crumpled, and she looked down.
“Yeah… no kidding. Did she… say anything…”
“About you, yeah,” I said. “Said how much you love cooking shrimp.”
She scowled again. “I’m going to punch you both.”
I laughed, surprising myself with the sound. “She told me I hurt you with the things I said and how I treated you. And she told me that the reason it was hurtful for you was because you cared enough about me to take stock of my opinion.” I looked down. “I think you know I pulled away from the community because of everything that went down between Cat and Drew. But truth be told, I had one foot out the door a while before that already. I’d talked myself into thinking nobody cared about me, nobody wanted me around, I didn’t have a place in the community. So I latched onto the opportunity to make myself a pariah for some morally just cause. But I’ve been causing my own problems. And they’re going to follow me even if I go to Texas or anywhere else. So I wanted to just… come by and tell you… I’m sorry for how I acted with you and Charlie. And for how I’ve acted in general. I’ve been a bit of a bitch.”
She stared at me a while longer before a smile tugged at one corner of her lips, and she looked away. “Alyssa really did a number on you, huh?”
“Ah, yeah… I can’t deny it. Sat with the worst parts of me and still seemed to want me around. It’s hard to go down that self-sabotaging spiral when you have someone like that.”
