Page 17 of Sabrina’s Guide to Searching for Someday

SOME GUY I USED TO FUCK IN COLLEGE

PRESENT

Ilike to think that with episodes of crazy, come moments of complete clarity.

Every time I lost my mind, it was followed by moments of stillness that brought a sense of calm. A sense of self.

I am currently in my calm. My schedule is on track, I’m wearing a bra, dinner is in the slow cooker at home, and it isn’t my day to pick up Penny and Jilly.

So, when my assistant calls me as I’m getting ready to head home for the day, I debate letting it go to voicemail. Not the most responsible thing to do. Not something a boss should do…

Before I can think better of it, I answer his call, standing up to gather my things.

“This better not be bad news, Wilmer,” I start as I tuck my MacBook into my tote.

His stilted chuckle doesn’t soothe me.

“Only if you decide to fire me over a scheduling mishap,” he starts, and I sit back in my chair with a huff.

“Just answer this: am I heading home to dinner with my family right now?” I glance down at my pumps, loving the sleek look of the patent leather, wishing I could kick them off and sink into a bath.

“I’m afraid not. I forgot that I scheduled a meeting for you earlier this morning. It starts in a few minutes,” he tells me and I stare at the ceiling, wishing it would cave in so I could leave.

I never used to be this way. I lived for work, for the sense of enrichment completing a project gave me, for the controlled outcome of my inevitable success.

Until I lost my mind this last time, I guess.

“Mistakes happen,” I tell him before he can say anything else. “Just please refrain from forming the habit.”

It isn’t his fault he hasn’t caught up with this version of you. The old you would’ve loved the idea of bagging another client.

“His name is—”

My office door opens just as Wilmer says the name we do not utter.

Abraham Pugliesi.

Time hasn’t changed him much. The lines around his eyes are deeper, his hair carries more gray strands than it did. But his build is the same, the sparkle in his eyes as he stares at me without flinching…it’s all the same.

He’s afraid of no one and I am terrified of him.

He fills up the frame of the door and I’m transferred back to a time where I was the one at his office door, watching another student make a move on him. A student he’d already fucked. Probably many times.

I shudder at the memories that follow—how insatiable his sexual appetite was, how it felt to be conquered by him…how easy it was to let him be in control.

Until it wasn’t anymore.

I end the call without another word, determined to end this “meeting” just as efficiently.

“Why are you here?” I’m still seated, still watching him as if he could disappear at any given moment. We’re both entirely too good at that.

“I won’t pretend this is a coincidence,” he starts, and I cut him off with a laugh that fills the space with its volume.

“And I’m sure the grocery store and restaurant were.” He shoots me a confused look, but I stand, gathering my things. “You found your way here, now find your way out.”

I walk into the hallway, past Wilmer’s vacant desk. I was the nice boss, the one who let him go home early more often than not. And now I’m stuck dealing with a part of my past that I’d thought was buried and gone.

“Sabrina,” I hear him call out from behind me, but I make it out into the main hallway before he reaches out for me.

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