Page 22 of Mr. Hotshot CEO
Nope, not happening. My sister will just put everything on her credit card, and credit card debt is the worst.
“It’s no problem,” I say. “I like Julian. This will be fine. And any money you don’t use for the trip...you can keep it. A rainy-day fund in case you have to fix your car again.”
Sometimes my relationship with my sister feels a little one-sided. Like, she’s always the one helping me, not the other way around.
I really want to go to New York, but I also really want to do this for her.
“I promise,” I say. “It’s not a hardship.”
“If you’re sure... But don’t stay if you ever feel unsafe, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And if you’re not enjoying yourself at all, you should leave, too.” She chuckles. “I just Googled him, and I’ve decided you should definitely be sleeping with him. In fact, I’m looking at a picture of him shirtless—”
“Where is this picture?”
“It’s in a charity calendar of half-dressed businessmen from a few years ago.”
My excitement deflates. “Julian would never do something like that. I know him well enough to say that much.” I pause. “You understand why I can’t sleep with him, don’t you?”
That road leads to inevitable heartbreak, and as I’ve proven in the past, I don’t deal well with heartbreak.
When I was twenty-one, I had a boyfriend. Dane and I had been together for a year and a half, and I thought we’d get married one day. I was in what should have been my final year of undergrad, and I was excited about applying to grad school and figuring out what I wanted to do with my life.
Everything was going great.
Then I got depressed. I slid into this awful world where...I don’t quite know how to describe it. You know frosted glass windows, like you might have in a washroom? It’s like experiencing the entire world through one of those. You can’t see it properly, can’t experience it. My brain felt like it was full of straw, and my body felt like it was being weighed down by a ton of bricks. I could barely function—even getting out of bed and brushing my teeth was a ridiculous amount of effort—and the fact that I could barely function made me feel worse about myself, creating an awful loop of negative self-talk.
It wasn’t my first episode of severe depression. However, it was the first time it had happened when I was legally an adult and not living with my parents, and it was easier to get help. I went to the health services center at the university, where I saw doctors, counselors, and psychologists. I did therapy, I tried a bunch of anti-depressants.
Nothing worked.
Dane was initially supportive, but he couldn’t deal with me when I was depressed, not for long, and so he broke up with me.
Not surprisingly, this didn’t improve my mental health. It got worse. I had to go on leave from university, and I spent a week in the hospital under suicide watch.
In other words, it nearly killed me.
I can’t really blame Dane. If he didn’t want to be with me, he shouldn’t have had to wait until I was healthy to tell me that. But it taught me an important lesson.
In the end, I only have myself, and I can’t count on a man to be there when I need him. I can’t count on a man to put up with me when I’m in that state. Nobody, with the exception of my sister, can cope with me when I’m sick. So I haven’t had a boyfriend since Dane, and that’s not going to change.
“Sure, Julian and I are attracted to each other,” I say, “but I can’t afford to get attached to him, and if we sleep together...”
I’ve tried having sex just for fun. It’s not like I’ve been completely celibate for the past ten years. However, I can’t escape the fact that for me, sexmeanssomething. I wish I were different, but I’m not.
“You could end up dating,” Naomi says.
“No. The risks involved in a romantic relationship are too great.” Even if, by some miracle, there’s a man out there who would stay with me when I’m at my lowest, it’s not worth trying, not when failure means a risk of death. Plus, this is the worst possible time, since I know I’m going to slide into depression again soon.
So, I’m just going to spend time with Julian, nothing more. Make five thousand dollars for my sister and enjoy his lavish lifestyle for two weeks.
Naomi sighs. “You’re too pessimistic.”
“I only met the guy a few hours ago,” I say. “It’s too early for you to be matchmaking. Now, about that charity calendar. You were joking, weren’t you?”
“Yeah. Julian isn’t in the calendar, but his brother Vince is.”
