Page 58 of Over My Dead Boss
An hour goes by before I get another reply.
Ryker: Fine. I’m in the city at the moment. I’ll need a day to draw up the paperwork. Can you meet me tomorrow?
Olivia: I have to work during the day, but evening should be fine.
On the subway ride home, I read the last chapter. Then I read it again. When I get home, I read the book in its entirety. Late afternoon, Sienna returns home from work.
“Boy, do I have a gift for you,” I say as she enters, throws her bag in the corner and kicks off her heels.
“I hope it’s a foot massage.” She yawns and discovers the stack of paper in my hand. “Oh my. Is that your book? Is the surprise my Island? Myland, I mean? Did you sell the rights?”
“Better. It’s Phoenix’s book. You wanna find out how everything ends?”
“Please tell me Chris dies. I cannot stand that guy.”
We fling down on our bed and read, foregoing dinner and only interrupting once because we both have to pee. Several hours later, we reach the last chapter and I am just as excited to read it as I was the first three times I read it.
“Ugh,” Sienna grunts. “I don’t want it to be over yet.”
“You can just not read it.”
“No way. I need to know how it ends, but maybe you can hit me over the head afterwards to induce some temporary amnesia, so I can read it all over again. Oh, also, before I forget. There was a letter for you in the mail. It’s in my bag. It looked important, I think.”
I crawl over to her bag and retrieve a letter from the hospital while Sienna continues with the book.
‘Dear Mr. Ray,
We are pleased to inform you that you have paid the balance on the account in full to the listed provider.’
What the…
“Ohhh, listen to this, Ol.” Sienna reads out loud from Phoenix’s Memorandum manuscript. “And so she had finally gotten what she had wanted most, or so she thought. All that was left of him was the letter. Nothing more. She flipped it over, studied it in the pale moonlight. On it just two words: To Roan. She knew she had to get it over with, so without hesitation, she ripped the envelope open and retrieved a single sheet of paper, folded neatly, but unlike a normal letter, this one had diagonal cresses, wrinkles, almost as if it used to be a paper plane in a prior life. Carefully, she unfolded it. The left side of the paper was ripped, obviously torn out of—
A tear ran down Roan’s cheek. Noël had torn this page out of his notebook.
Dear Roan,
My lips haven’t stopped saying your name since you kissed them. My brain thinks they never will. My heart is making sure of that.
Roan, you know how difficult it is for me to find the right words, but not this time. This time I know exactly what I want to tell you, what I need you to know:
You always take care of everyone. You take care of your parents, you take care of your abominable boss, you started taking care of my grandma and you have even been taking care of me the last couple of weeks. And it’s one of your best qualities! You care so much. Almost to a fault. But I never needed you to look after me. I’ve been tricking you to do so because I was selfish. I wanted to keep you around. The thought of not getting to spend this time with you seemed unthinkable, so I lied and made you stay.
Now you are gone, and it is excruciating. I hope you can forgive me. For my lie, for being selfish, for not being a better man, the man you deserve. I promise to work hard on myself and if you’ll let me, I would like to do the same for you, that you did for me. Please, allow me to take care of you. Stop worrying about what others may need and start thinking about what you need for yourself. I’ll do everything in my power to give you just that.
Roan wipes away another tear and discovers the small addendum at the end of the letter.
PS: Unless it’s heroin. You shouldn’t do heroin. That’s very dangerous, I hear.”
A single laugh escapes my throat as my own tears join Roan’s.
Sienna looks up from the page with a frown. “I know. It’s very cute, but you don’t have to cry, Olive. It looks like they’ll have a happy ending.”
I hand her the letter and get some toilet paper to blow my nose.
When I wake up the next morning, I am in the best mood I have been in since my dad woke from his coma. I know exactly what I want to do, what I have to do now. So I get dressed, pack my bag and, instead of going to the office, head to a café nearby. There, I order a coffee and update my CV. When I am done, the clock hits 10 AM and Isabella must already be waiting for me. Hopefully, with fumes coming out of her ears.
The elevator makes a sound when it arrives on the 25th floor. I hand Verna the coffee I brought for her and walk straight to Isabella’s desk, where she is talking on the phone to her husband.
