Page 2 of Release Me

Those words aren’t mine. They didn’t originate in my mind, and they’ve never crossed my lips, but they belong to me in a way that nothing else has since my parents died. More than the clothes on my back or the soaked and slippery patent leather pumps on my feet that make my entrance into the nicest building I’ve walked into since I made New Haven my home more of a sliding stumble than the graceful, confident stride I’d pictured in my head.

I’m all flailing arms and quiet curses as I gain my footing under the watchful and curious gazes of the crowd of hotel guests and the staff members gathered in the lobby. By default, a wobbly smile curves my lips as I straighten my blouse and pull my rapidly disintegrating resume to my chest. The ink is starting to run, and I hold it gingerly as I make my way up to the concierge’s desk where the woman behind it looks like she’s already done with the conversation we have yet to have.

“Interviews for the Cerros rooftop are happening in the conference room down the hall to your left,” she says, tilting her head to the right to indicate the hallway just over her shoulder. Her eyes never leave her computer screen.

I wish it stung that she is being so dismissive, but I prefer it this way. When people look through you, they don’t take the time to look at you, to mistreat you, to abuse you. I’ve spent more of my life than I care to admit on the other end of callous glares and angry hands. So long that parts of my body still grind and creak to tell the tales.

Invisible wounds.

Hidden bruises.

Fractured bones that never healed correctly and ache whenever it’s going to rain.

“Thank you.” She’s still not looking at me, so I don’t bother smiling before turning away from the desk. I do wince though when I realize I have to turn back around to ask for information she didn’t give me. “Can you point me to the nearest bathroom?”

Now she is looking at me, and although her facial expression remains neutral, I can tell by the way her eyes trail up and down my body, she doesn’t approve of my being here in this immaculate building where the floors are gold veined marble and the fragrance being pumped through the vents is one of a kind, custom tailored to this space and the luxurious aesthetic my appearance is a direct affront to. After what feels like a long silence, but is really only a few seconds, she responds.

“There’s a restroom back near the entrance, Miss…” she trails off, brows lifting in a silent order for me to fill in the gap she’s left.

“Hendrix,” I provide, rolling my shoulders back and tipping my chin up so the name doesn’t sound as weird as it feels on my tongue.

“Right, well, good luck, Miss Hendrix.”

“Uh, thanks.”

It doesn’t take me long to find the bathroom, which is overflowing with women who are here for the same reason I am. They stand in clusters of expensive clothing and cloying scents, crowding each other out, competing for space in front of the mirror to fix their makeup and hair. I don’t bother looking at my reflection because I know that whatever I see there is a problem I don’t have the tools or patience to fix.

Instead, I head over to the furthest wall where there’s an unoccupied hand dryer and start it up, holding my resume underneath the rush of hot air and trying not to think about how my mother spent my entire childhood forbidding me from using one because of how unsanitary they are.

Once certain the paper won’t disintegrate the moment it leaves my hands, I leave the bathroom on the hunt for the conference room. I’m in the middle of the lobby when I see the rip. Staring at me. Mocking me. Laughing at me for thinking the sparse lines on the crumbling page would be enough to make me belong in a place like this. Tears born of doubt blur my vision, but for some reason my feet start to move again. A wisp of determination my father used to say I got from my mother carrying me forward without my permission, with no thought or care for the people moving through the lobby around me, only stopping when they have no choice but to because my body has collided with an unmovable force.

“Shit.” I stumble back. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, be attentive.”

The voice—dark, sensual with a hint of reproach weaved between the threads of a gravelly timbre—cut through the trance of self-doubt pooling in my gut and demand I turn my attention to the large man looming over me. Somewhere in the depths of my mind I find myself appreciating the subtle notes of what I’m sure is an expensive cologne. Only men with more money than morals spend thousands of dollars on scents you can barely smell.

The notes I do pick up are like his voice. Dark and elegant, spiced with hints of rum and coffee. Burnt barrels of cedar wood steeped in sugar cane and decadence. And now that I’m looking at his face—the two thick slashes of dark brows over turbulent champagne pools, a broad nose leading to full lips turned down in an angry, bewildered line that require retribution for my lack of attention—I’ve decided the scent fits him.

My head snaps back as if I’ve been struck, and my hands turn into fists. “Excuse me?”

“Alert. Awake. Watchful. Observant. Perceptive. Vigilant. Focused.” He crosses long, muscled arms across his broad chest, and I watch the seams holding the expensive graphite gray fabric of his suit together stretch. They’re stressed like I am, bewildered by the audacity of the man demanding more from us when we’ve already given all we can. “Be any of those things, but don’t be sorry. I have no use for apologies.”

“You have no—” I can’t even bring myself to repeat his obnoxious words, and his lips quirk at my hesitance. “Who talks like that? Never mind, I have to go. Once again, sorry for bumping into you.”

I step around the imposing lines of his frame, moving carefully to avoid bumping into anyone else. The swarm of women who were occupying the bathroom earlier have emerged looking, I’m sure, the same as they did when they entered it, so the lobby has gotten busier and louder.

So loud I don’t hear him call out to me the first time, or the second. It’s his hand wrapping around my arm that forces my gaze from the hall leading to the conference room and back to his face. He rounds me, releasing my arm when my features telegraph my desire to not be manhandled on my way to a job interview.

“You dropped this.”

He extends his hand, and in it is the piece of paper I’m hinging my whole future on. The piece of paper I didn’t even realize I’d dropped. There are shoe prints on it, and the small rip I convinced myself no one would notice is a full blown tear now. Horror splashes across my features in that way it tends to do when you refuse to truly accept its presence. In repeated splatters, in rude and intrusive increments you tell yourself mean nothing until the splatters turn into torrents and you have no choice but to accept that you’re no longer looking at the rain because you’re in the middle of the storm.

I attempt to take it from him, but my fingers stall mid-air, unable to fully commit to holding destruction in my hand. He reaches for me again, wrapping thick fingers around my wrist and forcing the tattered page into my palm.

Our eyes meet, and his gaze rests somewhere between impatience and pity.

“It’s probably for the best.”

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