Page 24 of All the Beautiful Things
Turning the corner that would take me back to my desk where I sat right outside Brandon’s office, my feet pulled to a frozen stop.
I blinked. Blinked again.
Sandra lifted her head and noticed me gaping at the darkened corner office.
“Brandon called me Monday morning and said you wouldn’t be in. He’s working from home until his wedding. How are you feeling?”
“His wedding?”Blink, blink. Blink.
“Are you alright? Still ill? He said you came down with a bug over the weekend.”
Brandon’s wedding was next week. Then a ten-day honeymoon to Fiji Jenna seemed almost more excited about packing for than planning the last wedding details. That meant he wouldn’t be back for almost a month.
Three weeks of not having to see him, or him see me. Had he done this for me?
Anxiety I carried with me all morning softened in my chest until I felt like I could breathe. Damn them. For being so twisted and wrong and so damn good as well.
“Yes. Yes, just tired. Thank you.” I tried on a smile and found it wobbly, so I stopped and looked at my desk.
“Don’t thank me yet, you haven’t seen the pile of work you have to do.”
Staying busy and focused would be the best medicine.
“Thanks, Sandra. What do I need to do first?”
“He has maybe a hundred voicemails since yesterday. Most are about the river project on the south side they’re trying to get a proposal completed for. I scanned them earlier in case there was an emergency. Can you get the rest typed up and emailed to him, in order of priority like usual? Then I’ll have you help me with some budgets he needs to get ready to present.”
A day of messages, scheduling, and PowerPoint presentations.
Mundane.
Menial.
Mind-numbing. Exactly what I needed.
“Sounds perfect.”
8
Hudson
Isaw her leave the condo building yesterday when I returned to my home, done hiding out at my father’s house like a coward. She practically skipped into a beat-up Corolla with rust on the edges of the doors and wheel wells. It hadn’t mattered to Lilly for one single second that the girl who had once had everything climbed into a bucket of scrap metal. Not if her smile was anything to go by.
Two small children in car seats had been strapped in the back, I caught a glimpse of them as the car turned the corner, away from me, while Angie, her school friend driving prattled on without a seeming care in the world.
I wanted to give Lilly that, that easy life with easy friendships not strained with lies or secrets. Yet she sought it elsewhere, and I should have been happy she was finding it on her own. Making her own life and her own friends, a life wholly unconnected to me in any way.
It kept me up at night, that smile she’d given, seeming so carefree.
Such drastic contrast to the way I’d last seen her, shattered and broken and probably picking up pieces of her broken heart and trust while trying to find anything salvageable.
It’d been a week since Thanksgiving. I’d given her enough time. I hadn’t stayed away because I wanted to, I stayed away because I knew she needed that. She needed the time and space to figure out what she wanted on her own but now that was ending.
Which was why I was once again, pacing the lobby of Valor, back by the elevators like a fool, unable to go to her directly and force the conversation we needed to have.
If only she knew. Understood why it was so important to me to keep that secret of my father he clung to with white knuckles.
Turning, I paced back toward the elevator bank, eyes on my watch and scanning the lobby when I could for a glimpse of her. I just wanted to see her, and then I’d go about my day. But then she appeared.
