Page 126 of Fun Together
“Let’s not jump to quitting just yet. What about some additional training? Or a mentorship?”
“I’m sorry, I just don’t think I can make it work here.”
She heaves a sigh. “That’s unfortunate, Eli. I was really looking forward to seeing how you’d grow in the company.”
The corporate bullshit never ends. They don’t care at all. She didn’t once ask what’s made me so eager to quit, she’s so focused on how this affects her. I don’t fully put the blame on her. She’s another cog in the wheel, too. But I’m tired of feeling like I’m struggling up a never-ending hill.
Also, pretty sure my job is going to be taken over by some AI bot named Janet soon enough, anyway.
I nod. “Thank you, but I think I’d like to find another path.”
After droppingmy work badge off with Tom, I drive around aimlessly until I find myself parked in front of the very old house Emmett just bought.
I think it’s Victorian—white, with frilly trim around the porch. It looks a little haunted, honestly.
His truck is in the driveway, so I know he’s inside. When I get out of my truck, I hear a saw running. I open the front door with an ominous creak and step inside. This is the first time I’ve seen the house, and I thought everyone was joking when they said he’d purchased what amounted to a pile of moldy planks.
But I know Emmett, and he can see the potential in it. That’s all that matters.
I move toward the sound of the table saw and find him in the kitchen. Or, what I think used to be a kitchen. I don’t want to startle him while he’s using dangerous equipment, so I wait until he stops to yell his name.
He jerks up. “Christ, Eli. What the fuck?”
“Sorry,” I grimace.
He looks confused to see me. “What are you doing here?”
I sigh. “I don’t know.”
“Bad day?”
I nod. “Bad day.”
He walks over to the side of the room and reaches down for a sledgehammer. He passes it, along with a pair of safety goggles, to me and nods at the kitchen cabinets. “Have at it.”
I love my big brother. No questions asked, he just hands me this giant tool, basically saying,Try working out your feelings on some old cabinets.I spend about thirty blissful minutes destroying things before I tire out.
I grab a bottle of water from his cooler and sit down on top of it.
He picks up the sledgehammer and knocks a shelf down. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.
“For once in my life, I don’t know what to say. Other than I’m officially a fuck up.”
He chuckles and gestures around him. “Look who you’re talking to. I bought this trash heap to try to prove something.”
“To prove what?”
“We all make mistakes.” He breaks down the last piece of wood that seemed to be hanging on for dear life. “Doesn’t mean you are one.”
“Fuck, man. Areyouokay?”
“I will be. And you will be, too.” He places a two-by-four onto the table saw. He hasn’t stopped working once since I got here. “Everything can be fixed.”
Is he telling himself that, or me? “It just feels impossible. Like, every time I try to do something right, it doesn’t go the way it should. I try to be good at my job. I try to be a good friend. A good son. A good brother. A good person.”
“What makes you think you aren’t those things? You help all of us out so much. Especially with all the shit going on with me right now, and you stepping in to help watch Flo sometimes. She adores you.”
I shrug. I’ve never thought about any of those things as having any meaning, other than I love my family and friends, and would do anything for them.
