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He doesn’t understand so I’m going to spell it out for him. “No, you did the same thing they did to me. You gave them an ultimatum.” I put my hands up to my forehead, wishing away the anger, the frustration, the heartache. “Take care of the little woman or I walk with all my money! You knew that he would cave and do whatever you wanted!” I can barely contain the helplessness controlling my emotions.

“I don’t understand the problem. You didn’t want to lose your job. I didn’t want to lose you. Problem solved and you got a promotion.” He brings his hand to my cheek, to swipe his thumb along the skin. He loves touching me, but once he does I’m gone.

I slap his hand away so quickly he steps back as if burned. “I didn’t earn the promotion. Oh wait, but I did…On. My. Fucking. Back!” I roar loud enough for passersby to take a wide circle around our bodies.

He stares at me dumfounded, clearly clueless as to why I’m angry.

“God damn it, Chase! I can’t talk to you right now. I am so disappointed I can hardly breathe.” I hiccup and hold back the sob that wants to tear through me. “Leave me alone.” I turn and start walking again.

I see a cab ten feet away, and I rush to it and jump in. I give the cab driver the address and try Bree’s Yoga method of taking deep calming breaths. In one nostril, out the other then reverse it. It starts to work. Numbness settles over me instead. The cab driver makes it to my destination and I get out and enter the brick building.

Dodging people in varying costumes, I make my way to the back of the theatre. Everyone has seen me before and knows I’m stopping in to see Kat or Maria. I head to the very back where Kat’s design closet is. It’s actually a large room but it’s filled with costume upon costume making you feel like you’re in a big closet.

Apparently the God’s have given me a respite because Kat comes into view. She’s down on her knees tailoring an outfit. Inside the outfit is Maria. I offer thanks to the almighty and enter so I can be seen. They look up and can tell something’s wrong. It’s not their first day being my soul sisters.

Kat looks down at her watch. “Would you look at that? Lunch time. Ria? You hungry?”

Maria stares at my solemn face. “Famished. Gigi?”

“Starving,” I whisper, my voice chock full of unshed tears, a few octaves lower than normal.

Kat messes with her cell phone while Maria removes the shredded outfit. It’s some type of “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” number and Maria is covered in swaths of deep red fabric that look like they’ve been stretched and ripped by a cat’s claws.

“Bree will meet us at our favorite place. She doesn’t have another class until this evening,” Kat informs us.

“I love you guys,” I say so seriously they both look up.

“We know, Gigi.Te amo.Now let’s go and deal with this shit,” Ria’s riled. This is the second time in as many days I’ve been in hysterics and both of them involve Chase. Her useless men theory has some serious merit.

***

We arrive at the little hole in the wall Irish pub. It’s relatively quiet since it’s after the lunch rush. The tables are all made of stones with Celtic symbols prominently encased in the center. The table we always try to sit at has a huge trinity symbol with a circle of protection around it just like our tattoos. Our little group has adopted that single symbol to represent our undying bond and sisterhood. The Celtic Trinity can mean different things. It can represent the body, mind, and soul, but in religious circles it represents the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For us, it represents our past, our present and our future. We will always have a past, our present will consistently be linked to one another and our future is limitless as long as we have each other.

Bree has arrived and ordered four Poorman stouts, a mixture of Guinness and hard raspberry or apple cider. Since our drinks are dark chocolate in color on bottom and bubbly pink on top, I assume it’s the raspberry cider.

I slide in next to her and she grabs my face, searches my eyes and presses her forehead to mine. “Gigi, boys that make girls cry suck!” I nod against her forehead. She kisses my cheeks and wipes my tears. “You’ve been mad at men before, had shitty men hurt you before and you have never cried like this,” she continues.

“You’re in love with him, aren’t you?” Kat asks as if she just asked something as simple as “How was your day?”

I look into each of their eyes. Brown, blue, and grey, the colors that help breathe life into my world. I can lie to myself over and over, saying the feelings aren’t there, that they don’t matter. I am incapable of lying to them.

In a horrible moment of honesty and bubbling anger I answer on a screech, “I do, damn it!” I groan and grip my pint glass so hard I wish it would break. “I don’t want to but I do!” I press two fingers from each hand into my temples but the pain doesn’t go away. It’s still there. He’s still there, his sad face broken and apologetic as I screamed at him on the street…still there taunting me.

“Why don’t you want to, honey?” Bree asks. “You haven’t been in love in a long time. Is it because that big meanie makes you cry? I’ll kick the good looking bastard’s ass from here to next week if you’d like!” she adds with fervor. She’d do it too. She will open up a can of whoop ass on him and he will be powerless to stop the tiny firecracker.

“That’s exactly why she doesn’t want to be inamorwith him, Bree,” Ria responds for me. “The last man she loved hurt her…muy mal, really bad,” Her Spanish accent comes out when she’s emotional. She knows exactly how I feel. I know it’s how she feels with Tom.

“It gets worse guys. He gave the CEO of the Foundation an ultimatum. Fix the situation with me or he walks as Chairman…along with his forty million dollar annual donation. That money pays half of our operating costs.” I take a huge gulp of my Poorman and let the frothy drink soothe frayed nerves.

“Whoa. He did that?” Kat says mouth agape, eyes wide.

“It gets worse. The HR Director was fired, and I was promoted to Associate Director of Contributions.” I sneer and take a slug of my drink.

“Am I missing something, Gigi? That sounds pretty fucking fantastic. Congratulations!” says Bree.

“I didn’t get the promotion because I deserved it; I got it because of Chase’s influence. He even said something to the effect, ‘no woman of mine is going to be given ultimatums and be told to choose between me and her job’, blah, blah, blah,” I say using my best impression of a male voice.

“Wow, he’s in love with you.” I twist my head toward Kat and shake off what she just said.

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