Page 19 of The Last Dance

6

Office Call

Henry

‘Hey, Mr Decker.’ Mel, my new receptionist, greets me when I walk in. ‘I tried to call you.’ She walks around her desk, approaching me, nervously fidgeting with her necklace. ‘You have a visitor. I tried to make her wait for you but she kind of just let herself in. She said she was an old friend and that you had unfinished business. I couldn’t keep her out. She’s in your office. I’m so sorry.’ She shrugs, nervously glancing down the hall towards my office with an obviously uncomfortable smile on her face.

Shit. I stand at Mel’s desk, growing more nervous by the second. This is exactly what I didn’t expect. For Ambri to hunt me down and murder me in my office only a week after I come back. I knew she’d be mad, I don’t blame her at all for that, but I didn’t think she’d still beforce her way into my officemad. I was kind of depending on her still beingnever wants to see my face againmad until I had figured out exactly how to approach her.

‘OK, not a problem,’ I lie, playing it cooler on the outside than I’m feeling on the inside. I glance down the hall; it’s definitely a problem. A giant problem that has me more nervous than I’ve ever been. This could be like walking into a room filled with dynamite. Dynamite that I lit the fuse on two years ago.

I take a deep breath, blowing it out slowly as I stare down the hall towards my office. I can do this. It’s Ambri. I know her better than anyone. I know she’s mad, but she’d never actually kill me. I don’t think. I hesitantly walk down the hall. The door of my office is partially open but I can’t make out if it’s her through the window looking into the hallway.

Relax, Henry. You can do this. She deserves an explanation.

‘Ambri…’ I finally work up the nerve to walk in, afraid to look at her.

‘Pffft, yeah, right.’ She laughs. ‘’Cause Ambri’s gonna come here and throw herself at you after what you did.’

Claire. This is the first opportunity she’s had to tell me off to my face. I’ve heard it many times over the phone, but this time will be different. She’s Ambri’s best friend and I’m now just the guy who hurt her.

I let out a huge sigh of relief as I set my bag on my desk before turning to face her. ‘I gotta say, I know you’re mad but I’m a little relieved it’s you.’

She glares.

‘OK, you’renotmad, you’repissed.I get it. Let me have it.’ I lean against the front of my desk, waiting for her to speak.

She starts pacing the room. Back and forth in front of my desk as the clock ticks by. Finally she stops right in front of me, jabbing her finger into my chest.

‘You. Fucking. Asshole.’She says it with a fire I’ve never heard from Claire.

I nod, my face scrunched into an awkward frown. I can’t deny that.

‘Everything OK?’ Mel peeks in, her eyes wide.

‘Everything is good. Sorry for the interruption. She’s just letting some steam off. I’ll close the door…’ I walk over, closing the door as Mel backs away.

I turn back to Claire. ‘I agree.’

‘Whatare you agreeing to?’

‘That I am indeed exactly what you just said, a fucking asshole. I don’t disagree even a little bit. I fucked up. I pay for it every single day.’

She rolls her eyes and starts pacing again.

‘You haven’t paid for anything.’ She lets out an irritated groan. ‘Do you have any idea what you did to her?’ she asks, finally sitting in one of the two chairs facing my desk.

I drop my head, my heart sinking through my chest. ‘No. She never wanted to talk to me again.’ I walk over, sitting in the chair next to her. ‘But if it’s anything like what I did to myself—’

‘It’s not atalllike that.’ She interrupts me. ‘You know, she had finally let herself fall for you that night after years of convincing herself that you could never look at her that way. She was having feelings for you before that night, you know? She would have never told you if she knew you didn’t feel the same way.’ She shakes her head again. ‘And when she did you went and destroyed her, Henry! She lost you, her best friend, in a single night that she thought you both wanted.’

‘Ididfeel the same way. She wasallI wanted.’ I lean forward in my chair, fidgeting with my own hands. ‘God, Claire, there isn’t anything I wanted more than Ambri. She was all I thought about those last few weeks I was here. I was so in love with her.’

‘Then what happened?’ She finally softens a bit.

‘Depression is a hard thing to explain. I’d just lost Rory hardly even a year prior and I had feelings for her sister. I was in love with Rory’s sister!’ It comes out as painful as it still feels. ‘Do you know what that does to a guy? I felt like I’d crossed a line and I couldn’t see past the guilt of what I’d done. It’s why I never told her, and why I couldn’t stay. Everywhere I looked was a memory that I couldn’t get rid of. If I’d stayed we’d still be going through the same shit right now because ofme. It was never Ambri I was running from. I was running from myself.’

‘She says she hates you.’

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