Page 31 of I Need You to Read This
The idea of Howard getting away with something like that infuriates her. “I’m sure they wouldn’t fire you if you went to HR and explained to them—”
“No!” Lucy draws back and looks at Alex, panicked. “No. I cannot go to HR. And you can’t either. You have to promise me. Oh my God.”Her chest rises and falls so rapidly that Alex worries she might start to hyperventilate.
“Okay, no, I won’t, Lucy. I promise. Here.” She reaches for a water bottle she’d taken from the break room earlier. Lucy takes it from her and drinks noisily. “I’ll make sure to warn you if I see him,” Alex says, feeling helpless. It isn’t enough, not nearly. But Lucy nods gratefully.
“Thanks, Alex. I’m so glad you’re here. It’s been such a hard time at the office since Francis.” She drinks several more gulps of water and coughs. The girl is obviously traumatized by her boss dying, and now this. It is too much for someone so young to deal with. Lucy pulls away, giving a loud sniffle and dabbing at her eyes.
“But can you be sure to tell me if anything else happens that I should know about? And will you promise to go to HR if he does anything else to you?”
Lucy glances once more toward the door. “Of course,” she says, not very convincingly. “I should get going.”
“Of course.” Alex watches Lucy’s back as she disappears into the hallway. She seems so young, so vulnerable, that Alex finds a lump forming in her own throat. She can relate to Lucy. There is a kind of bravery that you must possess to come to this city with nothing and no one, a certain amount of having nothing to lose.
Dear Constance,
Brian and I went to a movie last night. It started off good. I wore a dress he bought me. It’s red and short and I knew it would make me cold in the theater, but it was worth it, I thought, for those few minutes while we were getting ready in front of the mirror together. I put on my full makeup. Then I stood there and watched him shave, using some sort of good-smelling shaving cream out of a fancy bottle. When he was done, he stopped and admired us. “People will think that’s an attractive couple,” he murmured, pulling me tight to him. “They’ll be so jealous.”
He’d told me to buy the movie tickets. I was trying to impress him so I picked the one that just came out by some edgy director I thought he’d like, even though theSense and Sensibilityremake would have been my actual choice. I didn’t realize until it had started that the movie was about a woman who cheats on her husband.
“Why did you want to see that?” he asked me right afterward, not trying to hide his disgust.
“I’m sorry, I thought you’d like it,” I insisted. All I’d known before was that it was some sort of thriller, and I know Brian likes them. But on our way out of the theater he was quiet like he was annoyed with me. We walked toward the parking lot in the dark and he wasn’t talking, and he’d put his hands into his pockets instead of holding mine. He asked me again why I would want to go see a movie like that.
“Do you want to cheat on me?” he asked, his eyes on the street in front of him.
“No, Brian. God, no. I didn’t even know what the movie was about,” I said, pulling on his arm, like I could make him snap out of it and bring him back to the person I know. But he just stared straight ahead like he didn’t believe me. He shook me off and started walking so fast that I had to run to keep up with him. He ducked around the corner. It was dark on the street, and I wasafraid if he went too far ahead, I’d lose him. Or that he’d get to the car and drive off without me, leaving me downtown with no way to get home.
“Brian,” I yelled out, begging him to stop and talk to me. I was panicking, thinking that I made a mistake, that I’d hurt his feelings or unknowingly told him something I didn’t mean to. He was being a giant baby, I thought, but I didn’t say anything. How could I when he was so hurt? Finally, he stopped dead in his tracks and turned back to me.
“What?” He said it like he hated me. I didn’t say anything after that. I just followed him to the car. He was mad at me all night. We picked up takeout on the way home and he would barely look at me. “I just don’t get it,” he said once, slamming his hands on the steering wheel. I watched the headlights hit his face and wondered what had happened.
I just let my head rest on the seat belt and watched the town that I grew up in flash past the window. I tried to make myself small until it passed.
Did I do something wrong? Was I really not being sensitive to his needs? Selfish? It was just a movie, but now I am questioning everything. If I knew things were okay, I could rest. But I can’t. It chews on my insides and makes it so I can’t sleep.
I waited awake in bed until morning. But this time, instead of making breakfast and putting on the radio like he normally does, he drove off in his truck, leaving me here for I don’t know how long.
I feel so alone. I need him to tell me it’s going to be okay, but he won’t. He won’t even look at me. And now that we live together, I feel like things are miserable and somehow they are all my fault. If you are reading this at all, please send me some sort of sign. I have no one to talk to. Constance, I’m begging you.
Please read this,
Lost Girl
TWENTY-EIGHT
The text from Tom comes in the afternoon.
Shakespeare in the Park? They’re doing Macbeth.
Alex has been distracted all day, replaying the situation with Lucy. She has avoided the newsroom today, not wanting to see Howard at his desk pretending to be some upstanding moral leader.
But she’s been wondering when Tom would text her again. A part of her has been hoping he wouldn’t, that their date was a one-off and her life will remain simple, uncluttered by the complications of a relationship. But the nonlogical, less-thinking force in her brain has been waiting for his message, has craved nothing more since their very first meeting than to just be near him again.
She hesitates. A second date with Tom means moving toward something else, something she can’t come back from, something she worries she won’t want to.
When?she replies, her heart beating faster as the bubble appears on her screen, starting and stopping several times.
Tonight?
