Page 24 of In Love and War
I remembered the many years while growing up when my father’s long work hours consumed the majority of his energy and time. It lasted from as far back as I could remember to around my first year of high school.
During that time, I would be lucky if I caught him in the few minutes between when he got home from the office to when he retired to his study.
My mother passed when I was five, and it only got worse after that, as though he were drowning himself in work to distract from the pain and grief.
I was glad he found a way to cope, except it left me all alone.
I rarely had the opportunity to have a meal with him. Even special occasions were sometimes delayed or fully canceled last minute, either due to meetings that went over their allotted time, longer-than-planned business trips, or some other work emergency.
As a result, I had spent a good chunk of my birthdays growing up celebrating with Kai and his parents at their house instead.
Young Milly had excused his absence in her life growing up and would comfort herself with the idea that one day, when she was all grown up, they would go to worktogether, just as he’d always promised. That way, she would get to see himevery day. She’d think about how they could eat lunch together and attend meetings together. She just had to be a little patient.
And so maybe it wasn’t me that felt angry last night over the fact that Zac had enjoyed tacos with my father on many occasions. Maybe it was young Milly, wanting to know why she was never invited to eat with them.
10
Iwas in a mood following my visit to my father’s office that I couldn’t fully explain, almost regretting having gone up there and hearing the story in the first place.
I just kept imagining a young Zac, up at night, worrying about finding a job so he could help out his mom. It didn’t help that I was also exhausted from the long hours we’d had to put in recently. The fatigue was starting to mess with my emotions.
My stomach tightened and my heart sank every time I thought about it, which was once every few minutes by that afternoon. Having finished everything that needed to be done before New York, I wanted so badly to wrap up, go home, and get a head start on my weekend. Except tonight was the night the two marketing groups were going for drinks to celebrate the end of the quarter, and I couldn’t skip the first work outing I’d been invited to.
Of course, Zac’s team had won this time around with the Emerson deal, so drinks were all on Margaret and her team’s budget. I just needed to get through tonight, and then I would have two Zac-free days to refresh, recharge, and clear my head.
When we got to the bar, I opted to sit with a couple of other junior associates whose table was safely tucked away at the far corner of the room.
“… And they just shouldn’t have even let it get that far in the first place. Am I right, Milly?” Darrell’s large brown eyes turned to me as he waited for me to validate his point on… I wasn’t even sure what at this point. Something about late-night television, I think.
“Yes, absolutely.” I hadn’t been paying attention to a single thing that had been said since I’d sat down. Darrell and Tim were like white-noise machines, which was exactly what I needed at the moment. They were happy to sit there and talk amongst themselves, turning to me for a generic response only every once in a while.
We’d been here for two hours, and I was almost four whiskeys in. My muscles were starting to relax, and my skin was tingling with warmth as the alcohol hit my bloodstream. I could barely remember what I had been so wound up about all day. It all just seemed so trivial now.
“You want to join us for a round of pool?” Tim’s voice cut through the blissful lull my mind had created with the assistance of its new favorite beverage as I tuned everything else out.
“Oh no, thank you. I’m not very good.” The words dripped out of my mouth like honey. Or at least, that’s what it felt like.
“Cool, we’ll be back.”
Take your time.
My index finger was back on my tumbler, lazily tracing the rim as I sunk back into beautiful nothingness. My social battery was completely drained. I’d give anything to be in my pajamas, under the warm cove—
“Enjoying yourself, Amelia?”
I looked up to the chair right next to mine and into a pair of dark sapphire-blue eyes. They were surrounded by thick, black eyelashes and made my heart do a backflip. I hated them for it.
Go away.
“Absolutely. The drinks were needed. You?” I looked away and took another sip.
His presence brought back the story of a young boy I was trying to suppress. It rushed back and had me by the throat.
He nodded in agreement. “Definitely needed.”
I didn’t say anything else and kept my eyes down on my glass.
“So, you want to talk about why you’ve been avoiding me all day?” he asked, leaning forward on the table.
