Page 6 of Severed Rivalry
Oh, and no one here can drive, but they all think they can and should advise everyone else on how to do it.
So after waking up late, fighting the school zones, and arriving to work well after starting time, I figure my Friday is going to add up to a craptacular day. That’s not the word I’d use to describe it, though. Surprising or astonishing are both more apt.
The CEO and the COO are riding the high of the venture capital coming through and are ramping up for launch. We’re still three or four months out, I assume. Depending on how fast people are willing to work.
The money doesn’t sound like it’ll trickle down to more in our pockets or to fulfill additional staffing needs, though. It’s what I’m thinking about when I find myself in the office kitchen grabbing a snack until my mind drifts back to last night.
And Cian.
When I met him years ago, we were both young and naïve.He was more naïve than I was. That’s not a knock. It says more about me than it does about him.
He was handsome, wistful, and wanted to make a difference. But what I remember most about him was his moral compass. It always faced true north. He would do the right thing, at all times, regardless of the cost.
It was refreshing… and it scared me. I wanted someone whose skin I could climb into and hide from the world. He wanted a world I didn’t have to hide from. Gallant of him for sure, but not reality.
Reality is?—
“Sariah?” I’m shaken from my stroll down memory lane by one of the product managers. “There’s someone here for you.”
There’s no way I’m walking out there blindly.
“Who is it?”
“You’ll see.”
My face goes hard. I hate this game. I don’t play it well. No, I play and I lose. I do not pass go. I do not collect two hundred dollars. I go directly to jail. And start back at square one.
“Who is it?” My voice matches the eerie cold slime moving through my veins.
“It’s a delivery man.” She cringes like I’m nuts.
We don’t use the wordcrazyin the mental health space. But, if we did, that’s what her face says I am.
“Will you sign for whatever it is please and leave it on my desk?”
She nods and backs out of the room like I’m a rabid dog foaming at the mouth.
A few deep breaths later and my nerves settle. I’m safe. I’d know if we weren’t. That niggling suspicion isn’t there. I’m okay.
Returning to my desk, I have to make a colossal effort to not look surprised. The vase of flowers is a calling card of the man who sent them. Peonies are my favorites, especially pink ones. I told him once, and once was all it took. And to this day, he apparently remembers.
I slip the card off the clear pitchfork and pocket it, before tossing the plastic piece in the trash.
Cotton candy petals stare at me all day. All the while, the card from the man who stole my heart ages ago burns in my pocket just begging me to open it.
I pretend this is business as usual, that it’s no big deal to get my favorite flowers in an extraordinary arrangement at my place of employment, but nothing about this is normal.
I drive home, balancing the vase in one hand, driving with the other while wondering how this is my life—the torment, the joy, the sheer madness of running into Cian Murphy of all people in a metro area of two million people.
I arrive at home to find chaos. To be honest, it always feels chaotic. And since I was raised so strictly, I’ve never once thought of making it any different.
We do messy. We do shoes where they land. We dance in the living room when we’re stressed and sing when we’re happy.
We work through problems with logic and optimism and extend grace at all times. Because like hell am I doing things how I was raised.
Hell is accurate.
No. Hell is an understatement.
